Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 173 posts

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#21

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

gruez wrote: post #8

>The company also says that half (48 percent) of all hateful content on the site was targeting a person’s ethnicity or nationality. That was followed by their class or political affiliation (16 percent), [...] "Hate speech" now includes your political affiliation? That's news to me. I thought it's usually restricted to immutable characteristics about a person (race, religion, gender, etc.).

"Hate speech" is a very specific term, and I'd guess Reddit's deliberately avoiding using it. They're targeting hate in the broad sense, the sense that they want to build communities where people are nice rather than mean.

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#23

Post by rvz »

chrisco255 wrote: post #4

Since there's no objective definition of "hate content", this is akin to them patting themselves on the back for outright censorship based on their own arbitrary definitions.

Well I guess they will find ways of expanding the definition of including turning innocent gestures, images, emojis, etc into 'dog whistling' signals which is only picked up by the hysterical extremes on both sides.

Again, how does one draw the line on 'hate speech' or 'hate content'?

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#24

Post by golf4 »

cma wrote: post #6
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

Since there's no objective definition of "hate content", this is akin to them patting themselves on the back for outright censorship based on their own arbitrary definitions.

The_Donald promoted the Charlottesville hate rally, people with white shirts and torches.

How many buildings did they burn down?

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#25

Post by justchilly »

Said differently: "Reddit banned nearly 7,000 subreddits, but left alone the ones that contribute 82% of hate content."

That seems like a dismal result, practically an admission that many of the bans were unjustified and/or subs that should have been banned were not.

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#27

Post by pkulak »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #20

More accurately would be to say Reddit reports 18% of hate content moved to a different platform. This would be akin to saying "salmon30salmon saw a reduction in hate content when he stopped attending hate group meetings". While I appreciate any attempt to reduce hate, it isn't really something to cheer in this case. The goal is to reduce hate, and pushing people further into the fringes doesn't do that. Now instead…

Everything I've seen suggests that removing platforms actually does reduce this stuff. It's analogous to the argument that there's no point trying to reduce suicides; people are just gong to do it some other way. But no, if you put a barrier on a bridge, suicides really do go down in total. If you make something even just a little bit more difficult, you reduce it.

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#28

Post by gruez »

niyazpk wrote: post #14
gruez wrote: post #8

>The company also says that half (48 percent) of all hateful content on the site was targeting a person’s ethnicity or nationality. That was followed by their class or political affiliation (16 percent), [...] "Hate speech" now includes your political affiliation? That's news to me. I thought it's usually restricted to immutable characteristics about a person (race, religion, gender, etc.).

How is religion immutable when political affiliation is not?

Theoretically both should fall under the same umbrella as "ideology", but in reality religion is given special protections. eg. in US law, religion is a protected class (you discriminate on it), whereas political affiliation isn't.

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#29

Post by ubercow13 »

kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #13
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

Since there's no objective definition of "hate content", this is akin to them patting themselves on the back for outright censorship based on their own arbitrary definitions.

Not censorship. Freedom. Private property includes the freedom to restrict what occurs on that property. Reddit is private property. Same goes for Hacker News. Let freedom ring! edit: guess people don't like freedom :-( Would Hacker News be "censoring" me if they deleted my submission to TIMECUBE? Isn't it "MAH RAIGHT" to proselytize my sincere and deeply-held beliefs about TIMECUBE? Are you CENSORIZING MAH FREEZE PE…

They are free to enact censorship, you could say. And users are free to identify where that censorship has taken place, react to it and let it inform our opinion or use of reddit.

Re: Reddit reports 18% reduction in hate content after banning nearly 7k subreddits

#30

Post by commandlinefan »

kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #13
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

Since there's no objective definition of "hate content", this is akin to them patting themselves on the back for outright censorship based on their own arbitrary definitions.

Not censorship. Freedom. Private property includes the freedom to restrict what occurs on that property. Reddit is private property. Same goes for Hacker News. Let freedom ring! edit: guess people don't like freedom :-( Would Hacker News be "censoring" me if they deleted my submission to TIMECUBE? Isn't it "MAH RAIGHT" to proselytize my sincere and deeply-held beliefs about TIMECUBE? Are you CENSORIZING MAH FREEZE PE…

And we're free to call out their hypocrisy (in selective application of censorship)
Post reply on HN