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Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

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Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#31

Post by [deleted] »

ideonexus wrote: post #24
jjawssd wrote: post #8

If Reddit can not handle free speech, Voat will. Once Voat is overrun by the enemies of free expression, someone else will take the helm and continue. Such is the nature of a free Internet.

Ironic that you've made this comment on HackerNews, a site, it can be argued, whose appeal comes from its pretty substantial moderation. I can't tell you how many links I've seen flagged and banished from HN that I thought were important, but... once I cooled down my outrage, I realized the conversations occurring on them were pretty toxic. I come to HN because of the focus and constructive dialogue. I stay away from…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#32

Post by xnemdncn »

vectorpush wrote: post #29

Who cares? Reddit is a private company, they can set their own standards for moderation. For several years now I've seen this non-stop obsession with lambasting reddit as a shit-hole and a left-wing echo-chamber and a shit company run by amateurs and SJWs. Who cares? The overwhelming majority of redditors subsist on photos of animals and drawings of video game characters. Just leave if reddit isn't friendly to your p…

>Who cares? Reddit is a private company, they can set their own standards for moderation.

Except it's not that simple. There's a substantial amount of judicial precedent that you can't refuse service to customers just because you disagree with their ideology or background, otherwise it would be okay to refuse service to supporters of gay marriage for example.

It's appalling that you would even suggest that.

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#33

Post by basch »

ideonexus wrote: post #24
jjawssd wrote: post #8

If Reddit can not handle free speech, Voat will. Once Voat is overrun by the enemies of free expression, someone else will take the helm and continue. Such is the nature of a free Internet.

Ironic that you've made this comment on HackerNews, a site, it can be argued, whose appeal comes from its pretty substantial moderation. I can't tell you how many links I've seen flagged and banished from HN that I thought were important, but... once I cooled down my outrage, I realized the conversations occurring on them were pretty toxic. I come to HN because of the focus and constructive dialogue. I stay away from…

I frequent hackernews and /r/askhistorians because of strong moderation. I support free speech. Communities being moderated are different than platforms being exclusive to certain communities. (I consider hackernews to be a community not a platform due to its strict focus.)

I can choose which communities to ignore, lurk in and participate with. I dont support extinguishing communities I choose to ignore.

You get what you get when you choose to congregate at the firehose nozzles of twitter and /r/all

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#34

Post by jjawssd »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #16
jjawssd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you disagree with their opinion does not mean you should want to kick them out. They are not acting upon their views in any way that affects you. Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically. I disagree with almost everything they stand for, but their presence is crucial for an open discussion of issues in our global societies.

Reddit is under no obligation to support, nurture, or pay for the resources required to keep this up. They are under no obligation to implicitly condone this content, as they have taken on an editorial role in the past and now anything they don't ban is in contrast to those things they have. As you pointed out, it's the web. There are many web hosts that will refuse you service for hosting pornography. That doesn't p…

Why isn't Spez able to arbitrarily delete subreddits? Why isn't Twitter starting mass deportations? I don't see any reason for them to wait. They can get started right away. It's easy to write a regex that identifies Trump supporters and eliminates their accounts quickly. Why haven't we started yet?

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#35

Post by jjawssd »

mordocai wrote: post #27
chrisrhoden wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is under no obligation to support, nurture, or pay for the resources required to keep this up. They are under no obligation to implicitly condone this content, as they have taken on an editorial role in the past and now anything they don't ban is in contrast to those things they have. As you pointed out, it's the web. There are many web hosts that will refuse you service for hosting pornography. That doesn't p…

Technically you are 100% correct. They are definitely within their rights, as are twitter and facebook. The problem is that we've got a de facto (as opposed to de jure) "censorship" system going on where people with undesired opinions are being forced (whether they wanted it or not) into echo chambers. "Censorship" just forces people underground to talk amongst other people with the same opinions. While it has some k…

> the trump supporters were largely either not speaking up due to social penalties for doing so or only talking on-line in forums where other people agreed with them.

This is the key takeaway IMO

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#36

Post by MK999 »

kiba wrote: post #11
jjawssd wrote: post #8

If Reddit can not handle free speech, Voat will. Once Voat is overrun by the enemies of free expression, someone else will take the helm and continue. Such is the nature of a free Internet.

Hacker News is already overran by "freedom haters". I don't see anyone fleeing for greener pasture.

Just a modern day book burning by the tolerant Left.

Where's all those people around here that quote (the illogical expression) "I don't agree with you but I'll die for your right to say it"

I guess that's just an bad faith argument to be used when convenient.

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#37

Post by laurent123456 »

jjawssd wrote: post #8

If Reddit can not handle free speech, Voat will. Once Voat is overrun by the enemies of free expression, someone else will take the helm and continue. Such is the nature of a free Internet.

It's not really a free speech issue to be honest. As far as I can tell some of these sub-reddits, like the_donald in particular, are well organised and know how to push their posts to the front page (the rare time I open /r/all, their posts are almost always among the top ones, despite being very low quality content).

So it's no about censoring free speech, it's about making the idiot shouting his opinions with a megaphone on the street to do it somewhere else, or at the very least to drop the megaphone.

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#38

Post by trentlord »

jjawssd wrote: post #14
pavel_lishin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be perfectly happy if these "free speech lovers" were to decamp en masse for Voat.

Just because you disagree with their opinion does not mean you should want to kick them out. They are not acting upon their views in any way that affects you. Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically. I disagree with almost everything they stand for, but their presence is crucial for an open discussion of issues in our global societies.

> Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically.

Free expression of the truth is crucial for the government to uphold, but it's also absolutely crucial for private businesses to have a choice on how its members should behave.

Insulting the deceased at a funeral won't physically hurt anyone, but the private organizers have every right to ban those being disrespectful.

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#39

Post by psychometry »

xnemdncn wrote: post #32
vectorpush wrote: post #29

Who cares? Reddit is a private company, they can set their own standards for moderation. For several years now I've seen this non-stop obsession with lambasting reddit as a shit-hole and a left-wing echo-chamber and a shit company run by amateurs and SJWs. Who cares? The overwhelming majority of redditors subsist on photos of animals and drawings of video game characters. Just leave if reddit isn't friendly to your p…

>Who cares? Reddit is a private company, they can set their own standards for moderation. Except it's not that simple. There's a substantial amount of judicial precedent that you can't refuse service to customers just because you disagree with their ideology or background, otherwise it would be okay to refuse service to supporters of gay marriage for example. It's appalling that you would even suggest that.

There is literally no "judicial precedent" for a website owner being disallowed from moderating user-submitted content. What are you talking about?

Re: Reddit Gearing Up to Ban or Quarantine the Alt Right Subreddit

#40

Post by kiba »

mordocai wrote: post #27
chrisrhoden wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is under no obligation to support, nurture, or pay for the resources required to keep this up. They are under no obligation to implicitly condone this content, as they have taken on an editorial role in the past and now anything they don't ban is in contrast to those things they have. As you pointed out, it's the web. There are many web hosts that will refuse you service for hosting pornography. That doesn't p…

Technically you are 100% correct. They are definitely within their rights, as are twitter and facebook. The problem is that we've got a de facto (as opposed to de jure) "censorship" system going on where people with undesired opinions are being forced (whether they wanted it or not) into echo chambers. "Censorship" just forces people underground to talk amongst other people with the same opinions. While it has some k…

If they can't voice their opinion in a respectful manner, I don't see why we have to listen to their garbage.

Every site in the world, if they don't want to be a cesspool full of trolls and baiters, will have to moderate.

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