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Reddit takes a new direction

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Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#51

Post by tptacek »

alecco wrote: post #43
kijin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchanging child pornography is illegal in the United States (as well as in many other countries). There's nothing unreasonable about stating in your TOS that you can't have a subreddit the very existence of which breaks the law. Sure, people can try to reopen these subreddits under different names, but once the rule is in the TOS, they can be reported on and shut down as a matter of routine. The same applies to ware…

What are you talking about? Reddit had a very strong stance aginst CP already. And there's a lot of rules broken on /r/trees so it's far from safe. Like meetups to exchange or people giving tips. That's not legal in US and happens quite often there. Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law. (IANAL)

There's no such thing as "hate speech" under US law. You can, for instance, proudly march down the streets of Skokie in Klan regalia bellowing about the need to "exterminate the Jews", safe in the knowledge that the First Amendment implications of doing so have already been litigated.

There are (dubiously) "hate crime" laws, but they pertain to violent crime.

In a similar vein, I'm not so sure about your legal analysis about "arranging meetups" and "providing tips" on marijuana forums. The reason mj forums don't want people arranging meetups probably has more to do with not creating an easy venue for sting operations.

(Disclosure: it's sad it took Reddit this long to apply this rule, and more than a little repulsive to see people up in arms about it.)

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#52

Post by baddox »

kijin wrote: post #28
alecco wrote: post #12

Reddit is changing. It's currently in a renewed and stronger Eternal September. Bastion subreddits like /r/AskScience and /r/Truereddit are reduced to junk and fads. The hope for the group of moderated subreddits (Republic of Reddit) didn't really take off, it's just a handful of submitters. The top voted comments on threads about censorship are mostly 1 to 3 months old users. And now reddit (had to) surrender to a d…

Exchanging child pornography is illegal in the United States (as well as in many other countries). There's nothing unreasonable about stating in your TOS that you can't have a subreddit the very existence of which breaks the law. Sure, people can try to reopen these subreddits under different names, but once the rule is in the TOS, they can be reported on and shut down as a matter of routine. The same applies to ware…

The whole point of this policy shift is that it's no longer about child pornography, just like the jailbait banning wasn't about child porn. The post makes it clear that they've always followed the law regarding child pornography, but that they're now voluntarily banning all suggestive or sexual content involving minors (so, not just child porn). Their main excuse is that they don't have the resources to moderate on a case-by-case basis, and I guess they think a subreddit-by-subreddit basis will require less manpower.

Still, I strongly suspect this isn't purely about legality. Reddit has come under fire (first, in the press regarding jailbait, and more recently by somethingawful users) for having content that's not necessarily illegal, but rather just creepy. Most of the top comments on this post share this interpretation, and most seem to approve of banning creepy content. If other commenters are to be believed, it also appears that many of the banned subreddits contained fairly "standard" pornography and either had strict "no minor" or "no nudity/sex" policies.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#53

Post by alecco »

Fukkireta wrote: post #37
alecco wrote: post #12

Reddit is changing. It's currently in a renewed and stronger Eternal September. Bastion subreddits like /r/AskScience and /r/Truereddit are reduced to junk and fads. The hope for the group of moderated subreddits (Republic of Reddit) didn't really take off, it's just a handful of submitters. The top voted comments on threads about censorship are mostly 1 to 3 months old users. And now reddit (had to) surrender to a d…

You can't use a slippery slope argument that begins with child pornography in this situation without supporting child pornography. I'm not saying this to try and discredit your argument by association, it's simply a consequence of trying to hold freedom of speech so utterly sacrosanct that you can't breach it under any circumstances. Yes, it would be easier to not take a stance on things like this, because then we co…

I'm not saying you hate your mother, but...

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#54

Post by jshen »

pilif wrote: post #25

While I agree that the world is better off without forums where people can post their child porn or similar ilk, this policy change in reddit shows that there's in inherent issue with centralized platforms. Back when there was usenet, everybody could post what ever they wanted (some news servers might not have carried the group, but there was no policing the source). Same with blogs: You wanted to post content the ma…

"now the masses (and/or governments) dictate the content you are allowed to post"

Isn't this an exaggeration? There is a lot of room between "everything goes" and North Korea. Stopping exploitation of kids is one notch up from "everything goes".

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#55

Post by alecco »

tptacek wrote: post #51
alecco wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Reddit had a very strong stance aginst CP already. And there's a lot of rules broken on /r/trees so it's far from safe. Like meetups to exchange or people giving tips. That's not legal in US and happens quite often there. Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law. (IANAL)

There's no such thing as "hate speech" under US law. You can, for instance, proudly march down the streets of Skokie in Klan regalia bellowing about the need to "exterminate the Jews", safe in the knowledge that the First Amendment implications of doing so have already been litigated. There are (dubiously) "hate crime" laws, but they pertain to violent crime. In a similar vein, I'm not so sure about your legal analys…

You keep editing your post. My original "I stand corrected" is now out of it's meaning and it makes no sense to keep editing my answer. I expected better of you, tptacek.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#56

Post by kijin »

alecco wrote: post #43
kijin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchanging child pornography is illegal in the United States (as well as in many other countries). There's nothing unreasonable about stating in your TOS that you can't have a subreddit the very existence of which breaks the law. Sure, people can try to reopen these subreddits under different names, but once the rule is in the TOS, they can be reported on and shut down as a matter of routine. The same applies to ware…

What are you talking about? Reddit had a very strong stance aginst CP already. And there's a lot of rules broken on /r/trees so it's far from safe. Like meetups to exchange or people giving tips. That's not legal in US and happens quite often there. Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law. (IANAL)

You're right, "latest change of policy" is not the best way to characterize Reddit's stance on CP.

But breaking rules in a subreddit is different from having a subreddit where the only possible means of participation is to break the law by posting links to CP. If everybody obeyed the rules in /r/trees, that subreddit might still contain interesting content. If everybody obeyed the law in /r/jailbait, that subreddit simply could not exist. It's a fine difference, but it makes all the difference.

Also, FYI, the U.S. Constitution offers very strong protections for hate speech. It's not like some other countries (cough Germany cough Canada cough) where you can get fined for uttering racial slurs.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#57

Post by zotz »

buro9 wrote: post #40
zotz wrote: post #32

I've been banned from posting articles on some larger subreddits some time ago. My political, economic and historical opinions aren't welcome for some reason. My point? Reddit began banning political opinion long before it banned kiddie porn. Reddit's admins don't give a damn about freedom of speech and opinion.

You've touched upon an incredibly grey area. Most forums will ban trolls, but therein lies the problem: define "troll". I don't know what you said, where, and in what context... but I don't give benefit of doubt on this. Nor do I think you're guilty either... all I do know is that running a community is hard, and one of the things that the people of the community look to moderators to do is to keep the peace. A diffe…

> I don't know what you said

The below article was deleted from the queue in r/politics and I've been unable to post articles in politics and a few other subreddits ever since, using a particular handle from a particular IP.

Ron Paul’s Challenge to the Left: http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/07/a-question-of-morality-ron...

My point stands: reddit has been complicit in silencing political opinion long before it began worrying about whether child porn should be allowed or not.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#58

Post by kijin »

showerst wrote: post #47
kijin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a false fallacy The philosophy degree in me screams that there's something wrong with that phrase.

That's what I learned it as years ago, in hindsight it is an odd phrase. Wiki calls them 'Conditional or questionable fallacies', which is a bit less punchy. Do you have a better name?

Just "fallacy".

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#59

Post by Fukkireta »

alecco wrote: post #53
Fukkireta wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use a slippery slope argument that begins with child pornography in this situation without supporting child pornography. I'm not saying this to try and discredit your argument by association, it's simply a consequence of trying to hold freedom of speech so utterly sacrosanct that you can't breach it under any circumstances. Yes, it would be easier to not take a stance on things like this, because then we co…

I'm not saying you hate your mother, but...

I posted my qualifier not because I thought it absolved me of the associations (it doesn't, the first paragraph 'poisoned the well' so to speak, there was little I could do about it without choose not to discuss it); I did it in an attempt to show I was making the argument in good faith. I don't think I was very successful however.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#60

Post by phillco »

pilif wrote: post #25

While I agree that the world is better off without forums where people can post their child porn or similar ilk, this policy change in reddit shows that there's in inherent issue with centralized platforms. Back when there was usenet, everybody could post what ever they wanted (some news servers might not have carried the group, but there was no policing the source). Same with blogs: You wanted to post content the ma…

It's a little sad, because there was definitely a sense, a few years ago, that Reddit was pretty much user-centered and therefore fully unrestricted, content-wise. You can choose what subreddits you belong to, or make new ones for whatever subject you want. The admins simply created the platform and set the defaults. Freedom!

But at the same time, everyone still felt like redditors, even if you were on /r/investing or /r/TwoXChromosomes or /r/trees or /r/nudecycling. In fact, you could unsubscribe from all the default subreddits, and join a bunch of weird unusual ones, and so you'd probably never even see a redditor who belongs to the "mainstream" community, but you'd still call yourself a redditor.

Unfortunately, we now see the downside of that group identity, because it didn't stop the reputation of the "bad" subreddits from bleeding over and tarnishing the group's. The subreddit boundaries failed, in the end.

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