I don't give a damn about the challenges reddit would face in curating content. That sounds like an inherent flaw in the platform, or a flaw in implementation. I'm confident that if the will existed reddit would be plenty capable of creating a level of curation which would ostensibly meet their advertisers stated goals.
If you like reddit there are really only a couple of options here:
Reddit fails to monetize the platform and as such ceases to be.
Reddit successfully monetizes the platform and perhaps stays around.
Which do we think is more likely the way reddit currently stands?
Reddit remains unprofitable but maintains a user base by improving the tools people are asking for and continues on as it has.
Probably even draws in some additional money with the segregation of content, because people in general are pretty easy like that.
That VC is going to dry out eventually bud.
People aren't going to continue pumping $50MM into a place that can't become profitable.
Well, no, it's s bunch of people who don't use something slinging stones using really vague understanding of the target platform.
Which they will never use anyway because they've made up their mind.
Lots of othering, etc.
Oh I'd totally use reddit. I like a lot of things about it. A friend of mine uses it for military stuff and that part sounds great. I just opt not to cause, you know, the awful bits.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
What's wrong with believing racism shouldn't exist?
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I'm not saying that it's good nor am I saying it's bad. I'm saying that people who think it's good should also be demanding that many other companies curate and moderate content similarly, but they don't, as far as I know, and this is a double standard.
From the pages I've read, it looks to me like you disapprove of the idea of removing racist subreddits from reddit, but would rather not tackle that idea head on. Instead of posting "X/Y shouldn't be removed, because []" you'd rather spend page after page going "what about Google?" and "what about Hover?" and "what about Godaddy?"
Personally, I have no stake in the discussion, as I'm not a redditor.
For Reddit the company, I do not know which is the correct decision, and I think it's probably actually of relatively low importance compared to their broader efforts to monetize, other than their obviously terrible PR situation right now.
For Reddit the community, I think the community is so fragmented anyways, it hardly matters.
For society in general, I guess we could send the racists a strongly worded letter that we disapprove of them, but I think it's of barely any utility at all, and people who are serious about fighting racism on the Web should be taking on a broader scope. I think Reddit's an easy target at the moment, but yeah, what about Google? Maybe they should be pressured into including racist websites under something like a SafeSearch option. Or maybe GoDaddy should be pressured to take down racist websites. What's the point of throwing a pebble at an iceberg? If you're going to hit someone, I think you should hit them really really hard.... Reddit banned GamerGate, and it still lives. Are we of the belief that things will be different this time around?
Nothing vile is ever going to be completely eradicated. That's not an argument against minimizing it.
And my response would be that if Reddit wants to claim* that they stand by their principle of non-moderated (or minimally moderated) content, of enabling users to post whatever content they want under the principle of "free speech", then I think that's more than enough justification to override the minimal real impact that would occur if they were to ban all these racist subreddits.
I don't support these racist subreddits, but... sometimes, it's just how things go. I don't have the same confidence that, say, Pony and Death of Rats do in declaring that, in essence, they should be allowed to silence whichever opinions they do not like. If we're going to say things like, it's right for Google to enable access to all content, that ISPs should be mandated to carry all content, etc, then I can buy Reddit's argument. Maybe not in its entirety or as strongly, but enough.
And if that's the argument to be had, weighing the (minimal?) positive impact that banning such subreddits would have versus the costs, both philosophical and practical, then I very much entertain the possibility that I am wrong about the size of the impact or the costs. But the argument that allowing/providing for such speech means supporting such speech, and that supporting such speech is wrong, so allowing/providing for such speech is wrong, and so Reddit should stop is not one I buy. (One may, of course, choose not to associate with Reddit if they do not ban such subreddits. I don't associate with them either.)
I also don't buy the one that says everybody should block such speech, but laws say Reddit can whereas ISPs can't (or whatever reasons Google can't), so Reddit should and others don't have to (for whatever reason). At least not prima facie. If there's a societal... vision there that someone can articulate to me that squares some of the contentious circles there, okay, but for me, again, it's all people all making our own rules governing ourselves.
* Whether they have a legitimate claim to this may be up for debate.
Because if racism becomes a minority viewpoint then all the sudden you're targeting a minority and therefor you're the true racist or something about isps.
Also, if we're going to even bother speaking to the way that filtering and other such things get used by ISPs and web filters
those tools get used against certain minorities because of the politics of groups in power who wanted to use those tools against those groups, period.
That was not an errant effect or collateral damage of a tool created with the ostensible purpose of combating racists or misogynists or hate groups or whatever.
This was not "First they came for the racists, and then the gays suffered! They said they were after the terrorists, but actually it was the innocent Muslims who got punished as collateral damage!"
and if that's the narrative you're trying to pitch, you're fooling nobody.
So it basically has piss and all to do with this situation.
It's even worse than all that, Pony, when it comes down to it, because the question really is about a simple choice.
You and others are saying that if Reddit associates itself with racists, you will associate Reddit with racists and choose not to associate with Reddit. And people are saying that's bad because ..... well, I'm actually not sure. I mean, this is freedom of expression and freedom of association as intended.
The people saying we're bad for not wanting to associate with racists, you guys choose who you do and do not associate with all the time! And you're not oppressing those groups by doing so! Simply ignoring a viewpoint does not count as oppression. Reddit will choose whether or not to associate itself with racists and we say to Reddit, "If you associate with them by letting them use your platform, we will no longer associate with you."
That's how progress works!
This!
Exactly this!
And that's why reddit needs to clean up to stick around. Advertisers/VCs will eventually bail (and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that current sweet sweet VC didn't have some metrics around curation already tied to it...)
I don't give a damn about the challenges reddit would face in curating content. That sounds like an inherent flaw in the platform, or a flaw in implementation. I'm confident that if the will existed reddit would be plenty capable of creating a level of curation which would ostensibly meet their advertisers stated goals.
If you like reddit there are really only a couple of options here:
Reddit fails to monetize the platform and as such ceases to be.
Reddit successfully monetizes the platform and perhaps stays around.
Which do we think is more likely the way reddit currently stands?
Reddit remains unprofitable but maintains a user base by improving the tools people are asking for and continues on as it has.
Probably even draws in some additional money with the segregation of content, because people in general are pretty easy like that.
That VC is going to dry out eventually bud.
People aren't going to continue pumping $50MM into a place that can't become profitable.
[www.amazon.com]
Amazon has a business model and actually has been profitable in the past and will return to profitability in the future.
What does reddit do exactly?
Facebook and twitter aggregate data/personal information. Reddit appears to only have eyes. What happens when the next big thing comes around?
Myspace and Friendster (and hundreds of other sites with better models than reddit) say hi?
jmcdonald on
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
You know what would be great? If Reddit, instead of giving the racists their own free private platforms, just said they would do that, make them invitation only, and then be like "oh you can't get in? sorry I guess you weren't invited."
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
When does this slip start happening? Seriously, what's the fucking timeline?
Cause these forums have banned overt racism for at least as long as I've been here (9 years), so when does the hammer drop on these other minority viewpoints? When do we start banning the gays? Why hasn't it happened yet?
Where's my fucking slope and where's the fucking slip?
What, this clearly isn't the case. Calling people fucking faggots was like using punctuation here within what, the last three/four years?
And this isn't representative of every form. But I mean let's be clear, the last time we had Tube questions thread a number of people said they didn't fell comortable posting in the LGBT thread, and people have been kicked for posting their own experiences (like stating they felt that to an extent their sexuality was their choice). It would be hard to argue that wasn't because the change of the rules.
But that's not really relevant, because the key point is you've always had those anarchist alternatives out there, whereas the idea here is that they shouldn't exist.
Wait, so your example of the slippery slope is that people using gay slurs don't feel welcome either?
When does this start getting bad exactly? When do the mods start banning people for their non-bigotry-based opinions?
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
I am not sure it's fair to attempt to crack down on "analogy" in this context, and then imply analogy, in rebuttal, between reddit and PA.
I don't think "social platforms" are even one thing. This forum is NOTHING, in purpose, ubiquity, or execution, like reddit or facebook. Nor is it the same scale of moderation problem. To moderate something the size of reddit to the taste of those who want the most censorship might mean reddit becomes (even more) fiscally nonviable. Does that mean it should die? Does the expense of creating a safe space then become a barrier to entry to all platform builders...?
It's not one slippery slope, it's many. And we might not slide down any one, just slip a bit on all. ...
A question about the notion of "right to access" and reddit "not having to give" anyone a platform:
Facebook long ago replaced stand-alone IM programs for me. I would face severe personal and professional difficulty if I was kicked off it for unpopular or activist political views, of whatever stripe.
At what intersection of userbase penetration and usefulness DOES a platform become a defacto utility? We are essentially entitled to land line phone service, so long as we pay our bill and don't use it for active, illegal harassment, and sometimes even if we don't/can't pay, for humanitarian/social fabric reasons. The phone company can't really justify cutting off service to racists, or republicans, or police, or black people, for reasons related to their political views.... But the land line is dying out, and social media is rising.
Social media is a strange media censorship problem, because the transparency gives the appearance of non-neutrality, when the actual volume of "problematic" content and its ratio to content of utility might not justify actual non-neutrality.
Thousands of racist and misogynist acts have been planned over the phone, but no one ever wrote a blog about "the phone racism problem" or "the problematic man-children of AT and T"
The physical nature of the phone lines and the presumption of the work involved in censorship vs the utility delivered by the phone network effectively meant such a thing was never seriously considered.
This was compounded by the assumed neutrality of the phone system - phone operators weren't constantly entering conversations discussing the tone. It was assumed that by ponying up to the phone company, you got a modicum of privacy.
There were phone communities with their own rules and policing standards, but they weren't easy to find accidentally, and they weren't deeply enmeshed with the basic functionality the ordinary user needed day to day. My aunt Edna, in other words, was in a parallel pipe to me, and never had to hear me on a phonelosers voice bridge or a local sex chat room.
Now, that border is more diffuse: It requires active work on my part to prune shitposts out of my facebook and reddit feeds so I can use it how I please; LCD content and controversial content have become opt out, not opt in. Privacy between a hosted blog and my family was high, on facebook, I have to carefully prune who I post too, or risk that griping about last night's hookup be read by grandma.
Those are subtle, but major shifts in how we relate to our technology.
Also, we increasingly equate differing views, expressed, as harassing behavior, due, IMO, to the way the internet is simultaneously distancing and intimate: A man 500 miles away is yelling in your living room, in response to what you think of as your private thoughts, even though to that man, your thoughts are yelling into his living room with equal volume... and you can't see his face or family, nor he yours, only hear his yells, and yell back.
The genesis of the phone company was very different from a modern social media platform, but the functionality increasingly overlaps... Do we have an apolitical right to platform access if a private platform gets *big enough*?
So going back to the who "don't use social pressure against nazis" line I go back to the point in the thread where I ask "well then how do we fight against abhorent ideas?"
Do we just sit around and let them use social pressure to expand the abhorent views and do actual damage to people? We have already discussed how we aren't comfortable with prison or violence. It's pretty obvious that these groups aren't going to sit down and have a nice reasonable chat with us and come to the conclusion "oh well I guess we were wrong about that whole racism thing"!
I mean I think violence is shitty too. But I don't think that bombing ISIS is wrong because I don't like violence and I seriously don't think people should let themselves be conquered by ISIS because they think violence is wrong. I think they should pick up guns and fight back.
So yea that terrible social pressure. That is how we fight these battles. We have no other weapons
Literally nobody here is saying that you can't tell people they're wrong and why you think that. Or at least so far as I can see.
We're saying, if you attack the idea that they should have a platform by virtue of thinking any platform which allows people to host thought you don't like is complicit, and therefore all those spaces should be removed, that is going to have a negative impact upon groups who have historically been punished for being outside the mainstream.
No one is saying that reddit should "tell racists they're wrong". We saying they should exert some social pressure and ban them.
Because "telling racists they're wrong" works about as well as stopping my the third reich by singing Kumbuya.
And frankly it's bullshit to say "well if we pick up arms against Nazi Germany this means we also have to invade Tibet".
And again. It's bullshit to compare reddit to google or ISPs or phones or "public goosing infrastructure" because it's not anything like that.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
And again. It's bullshit to compare reddit to google or ISPs or phones or "public goosing infrastructure" because it's not anything like that.
You say that because it suits an appealing platform to exclude analogy, but modern social media has function overlap with things previously considered "utilities," including the phone and the yellow pages.
Do you even still have yellow pages?
My regional FBs, yelps, reddits, have some quality of utility for me. They are extremely integrated into my life. Personal or especially household bans from them would be hardships. I don't agree they aren't at least partially analogs.
Thousands of racist and misogynist acts have been planned over the phone, but no one ever wrote a blog about "the phone racism problem" or "the problematic man-children of AT and T"
It's almost like Reddit is public forum and a phone call is a private conversation much like an AIM chat. We'd rather not have companies spying on us to get at some racists. It's just a trade-off you make, because at the end of the day racists are going to exist in some form. You can only chase them off but so much before it starts hurting benign users, so we minimize their presence where we can.
And again. It's bullshit to compare reddit to google or ISPs or phones or "public goosing infrastructure" because it's not anything like that.
You say that because it suits an appealing platform to exclude analogy, but modern social media has function overlap with things previously considered "utilities," including the phone an the yellow pages.
Do you even still have yellow pages?
My regional FBs, yelps, reddits, have some quality of utility for me. I don't agree they aren't at least partially analogs.
No. I say it because they're not analogous. As had been explained many times. As the people who claim they're analagous don't deal with and just keep saying they're analagous for reasons.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
Thousands of racist and misogynist acts have been planned over the phone, but no one ever wrote a blog about "the phone racism problem" or "the problematic man-children of AT and T"
It's almost like Reddit is public forum and a phone call is a private conversation much like an AIM chat. We'd rather not have companies spying on us to get at some racists. It's just a trade-off you make, because at the end of the day racists are going to exist in some form. You can only chase them off but so much before it starts hurting benign users, so we minimize their presence where we can.
Many of the "problematic" areas we're talking about aren't actually fully or expressly public. They aren't perfectly "public forums" or "private calls" - modern social media is a platform for private calls, public posts, and semi-public posts rolled together.
The evolving difference is overlap; I could get kicked of AIM and use ICQ and I would still have my xanga. I could also make a highly exclusive call easily, and had some control over my phone number - I wasn't required to put one number up for the public and another for private communication, because the option of mass phone or AIM transmission to an ostensible select group but in reality globally readable simply wasn't an option.
Now if I get kicked off "facebook," I'm kicked off facebook, but good. Maybe including everyone with my IP, which might be my parents or kids, who aren't complicit in my shitheadedness or don't care about my controversial politics.
Thousands of racist and misogynist acts have been planned over the phone, but no one ever wrote a blog about "the phone racism problem" or "the problematic man-children of AT and T"
It's almost like Reddit is public forum and a phone call is a private conversation much like an AIM chat. We'd rather not have companies spying on us to get at some racists. It's just a trade-off you make, because at the end of the day racists are going to exist in some form. You can only chase them off but so much before it starts hurting benign users, so we minimize their presence where we can.
The evolving difference is overlap; I could get kicked of AIM and use ICQ and I would still have my xanga. I could also make a highly exclusive call easily, and had some control over my phone number - I wasn't required to put one number up for the public and another for private communication, because the option of mass phone or AIM trasmission to an ostensible select group but in reality globally readable simply wasn't an option.
Now if I get kicked off "facebook," I'm kicked off facebook, but good. Maybe including everyone with my IP, which might be my parents or kids, who aren't complicit in my shitheadedness or don't care about my controversial politics.
When did this become the "problems with Facebook" thread?
Also, bad analogies are bad. Folks have curated personal versus professional lives forever. Cry me a river?
Ah yes, the old "why care about this specific problem when theres other similar problems to care about" argument.
People don't begin and end on this forum.
In other words, I'm not going to talk about my problems with twitter and facebook in the Reddit thread.
Someone said to only use analogies of comparable things.
Which those really are the only comparable things.
They are all universally fucking awful though so any attempt to use them pretty much turns into comparing kkk Facebook groups, twitter death threat campaigns and YouTube eugenics videos or /pol/ discussing welfare and indentured slavery to a subreddit. Which I mean, I guess? People seem to still use all those services around these parts. Seen plenty of you posting twitter links, YouTube links talking about taking relatives off Facebook, etc.
So I guess it just sounds pretty hypocritical, but it's hard to make a compelling analogy out of it so apologies.
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Edit: Someone said above, paraphrased, "What's wrong with associated a community that tolerates racism with racists and leaving it so as not to tolerate racism and associate with it ourselves"
It's personally inconvenient to me when a platform is ceded to the LCD and abandoned, and I've been through the cycle enough to see it cynically, as something that just happens.
It also irks me, a personal level, that all the really big social platforms are hideous kludgy pieces of shit that look and run terribly. I'd like to see reddit survive for the simple fact that it's sort of legible at least.
Also, the racists aren't fenced into reddit, they will migrate with everyone else.
I'm all for community standards, but in a more "stay and hash it out with them" way and less of a "take my ball and go home" way.
Granted, doing that requires some input with the people running the platform, and reddit may have a real problem there.
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
in my particular case, I use a fitness reddit and a local reddit that are both well and fairly run, and a couple fiction writing reddits as well as some IC fiction reddits like /nosleep
And they've been really good to me. I've probably used reddit for 3-4 years now and never stumbled onto any of this "problematic" content. When shown it, it's TINY subs; I think the biggest redpill one has maybe 10k people in it?
What people are mostly upset about is gruffness and coarseness in comments and I don't like that shit. But I do, past a certain point, just sort of shrug and go "Well, that person just outed himself as a jerk. Glad he self labled"
It doesn't hit me that hard, most of the time. Family and friends who post idiocy on facebook are worse on me, because I both love and feel "stuck" with them and thus pressured to engage.
I don't, functionally, care if reddit were to switch over to a mod policy more like, say, PA. I do kind of care, in the abstract, if everyone who posted something awful or *chan or dare I say it SE style ON reddit started getting handed bans, because something that was legal, but in bad taste, a month ago, shouldn't be grounds to get the boot now.
And I don't think many people that post controversial shit online are all "bigots" in any real sense. I think a lot of them are experimenting with transgression and provocation as part of growing up. I find them tiresome, much like I find being lectured about hemp legalization or how a band used to be better tiresome, but I don't think they're "bigots" per se in all or even most cases.
Edit: Someone said above, paraphrased, "What's wrong with associated a community that tolerates racism with racists and leaving it so as not to tolerate racism and associate with it ourselves"
It's personally inconvenient to me when a platform is ceded to the LCD and abandoned, and I've been through the cycle enough to see it cynically, as something that just happens.
It also irks me, a personal level, that all the really big social platforms are hideous kludgy pieces of shit that look and run terribly. I'd like to see reddit survive for the simple fact that it's sort of legible at least.
Also, the racists aren't fenced into reddit, they will migrate with everyone else.
I'm all for community standards, but in a more "stay and hash it out with them" way and less of a "take my ball and go home" way.
Granted, doing that requires some input with the people running the platform, and reddit may have a real problem there.
It's a slow process. A glacial process. It's like erosion. But eventually bigots really will run out of places to go.
Plus, you always lose people in a migration:
- Some people will decide it's not worth it. They will decide to live with the mods' decisions.
- Some people will actually think about the issue and will convert.
And some people will leave. But it will be less and less and less.
Will we literally kill bigotry this way? Maybe not. But it's a step in the right direction.
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
in my particular case, I use a fitness reddit and a local reddit that are both well and fairly run, and a couple fiction writing reddits as well as some IC fiction reddits like /nosleep
And they've been really good to me. I've probably used reddit for 3-4 years now and never stumbled onto any of this "problematic" content. When shown it, it's TINY subs; I think the biggest redpill one has maybe 10k people in it?
What people are mostly upset about is gruffness and coarseness in comments and I don't like that shit. But I do, past a certain point, just sort of shrug and go "Well, that person just outed himself as a jerk. Glad he self labled"
It doesn't hit me that hard, most of the time. Family and friends who post idiocy on facebook are worse on me, because I both love and feel "stuck" with them and thus pressured to engage.
But do you really feel that any backlash from marginalizing the bullshit will actually impact your experience as a fitness-focused redditor in any tangible or meaninful way (negatively)? If so, how do you see all this playing into that outcome?
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
in my particular case, I use a fitness reddit and a local reddit that are both well and fairly run, and a couple fiction writing reddits as well as some IC fiction reddits like /nosleep
And they've been really good to me. I've probably used reddit for 3-4 years now and never stumbled onto any of this "problematic" content. When shown it, it's TINY subs; I think the biggest redpill one has maybe 10k people in it?
What people are mostly upset about is gruffness and coarseness in comments and I don't like that shit. But I do, past a certain point, just sort of shrug and go "Well, that person just outed himself as a jerk. Glad he self labled"
It doesn't hit me that hard, most of the time. Family and friends who post idiocy on facebook are worse on me, because I both love and feel "stuck" with them and thus pressured to engage.
But do you really feel that any backlash from marginalizing the bullshit will actually impact your experience as a fitness-focused redditor in any tangible or meaninful way (negatively)? If so, how do you see all this playing into that outcome?
If anything, it would seem to me that Reddit's NOT banning the racist subreddits is more likely to negatively impact your experience in your preferred subreddits, at least in the immediate future, as Reddit continues to get hit by terrible PR that causes potentially positive members to not sign up.
hippofant on
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
in my particular case, I use a fitness reddit and a local reddit that are both well and fairly run, and a couple fiction writing reddits as well as some IC fiction reddits like /nosleep
And they've been really good to me. I've probably used reddit for 3-4 years now and never stumbled onto any of this "problematic" content. When shown it, it's TINY subs; I think the biggest redpill one has maybe 10k people in it?
What people are mostly upset about is gruffness and coarseness in comments and I don't like that shit. But I do, past a certain point, just sort of shrug and go "Well, that person just outed himself as a jerk. Glad he self labled"
It doesn't hit me that hard, most of the time. Family and friends who post idiocy on facebook are worse on me, because I both love and feel "stuck" with them and thus pressured to engage.
But do you really feel that any backlash from marginalizing the bullshit will actually impact your experience as a fitness-focused redditor in any tangible or meaninful way (negatively)? If so, how do you see all this playing into that outcome?
nah, I don't really care. But I have also had TERRIBLE experiences with passive aggressive, shitty, cliquey people on heavily moderated boards. I really don't think it makes any difference. I see reddit as a secondary provider of free BBSes; I don't really CARE if they monetize the eyeshare of a bunch of mouthbreathers on another board. To me, and maybe this is the disconnect, I see the population of /randomshittyreddit and /redditIgoTo to be very nearly as unrelated as PA and stormfront. I just don't care that much; I DO see it like an ISP-ish relationship.
Equally importantly, it's sending a positive message along with the negative. These people aren't welcome here, but you are.
It keeps being quietly swept aside, but the default state of not moderating hateful content isn't a free for all of independent people expressing their independent views in equal competition. It's loud angry people sending the signal that certain types aren't wanted. Being inclusive of some groups implies hostility towards others. So maybe reddit isn't saying that women and people of color aren't welcome, but a significant number of their user base happily do so, and Reddit's inaction tacitly confirms that statement. That some users who are otherwise decent people don't hear it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Shutting that signal off goes some of the way towards reversing the message, inviting in those most often excluded from these spheres, which I assume is something most of us do want.
OneAngryPossum on
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jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
in my particular case, I use a fitness reddit and a local reddit that are both well and fairly run, and a couple fiction writing reddits as well as some IC fiction reddits like /nosleep
And they've been really good to me. I've probably used reddit for 3-4 years now and never stumbled onto any of this "problematic" content. When shown it, it's TINY subs; I think the biggest redpill one has maybe 10k people in it?
What people are mostly upset about is gruffness and coarseness in comments and I don't like that shit. But I do, past a certain point, just sort of shrug and go "Well, that person just outed himself as a jerk. Glad he self labled"
It doesn't hit me that hard, most of the time. Family and friends who post idiocy on facebook are worse on me, because I both love and feel "stuck" with them and thus pressured to engage.
But do you really feel that any backlash from marginalizing the bullshit will actually impact your experience as a fitness-focused redditor in any tangible or meaninful way (negatively)? If so, how do you see all this playing into that outcome?
nah, I don't really care. But I have also had TERRIBLE experiences with passive aggressive, shitty, cliquey people on heavily moderated boards. I really don't think it makes any difference. I see reddit as a secondary provider of free BBSes; I don't really CARE if they monetize the eyeshare of a bunch of mouthbreathers on another board. To me, and maybe this is the disconnect, I see the population of /randomshittyreddit and /redditIgoTo to be very nearly as unrelated as PA and stormfront. I just don't care that much; I DO see it like an ISP-ish relationship.
But, and here's the issue, it's not an "ISPish" relationship.
The boards you like? They'll go dark if reddit can't pay the bills just like every other reddit board. So, if you like reddit (and it appears you do) then what will help reddit keep the lights on? Supporting the racist/misogynist boards, or not supporting them.
I'm really of the mind that people are completely muddling an argument when we switch back and forth between a philosophical argument (essentially, all speech must be protected, or else none will be!) and a practical argument (reddit is subsidizing hate groups).
The philosophical argument is, perhaps, an interesting one. Disregarding the argument about how reddit isn't analogous to other forms of "free speech" (i.e., Reddit is not a government entity), reddit has stated that they wish to ensure an open space for people to discuss whatever they want, as long as it doesn't directly harm other humans.
I find this position also interesting, as this justification allows things like r/racialslurtown to exist, so long as its members don't actively pursue harassment outside of their treehouse. What fascinates me about this mindset is that it hearkens back to the core argument a lot of people have when discussing instances of sexism and racism- how do you define "harm"? Some people view the very existence of r/fatpeoplehate, or r/racialslurtown as harmful, but others (and, critically in this discussion, Reddit specifically) only classifies harm as things like off-site targeted harassment. Thus, posting something on their subreddit that says "This fat-positive youtuber is a stupid bitch," is alright, because it isn't harassment. It doesn't harm this person directly. However, navigating to her Youtube channel and posting that exact statement is harm, because it is direct harassment. Likewise with r/racialslurtown.
Obviously I, and many others, believe that both instances represent an unacceptable amount of harm- even if the object of hate never sees these shitty comments, there is a societal harm in allowing these views to fester, even if they are out of sight and out of mind. This, then, represents the first level of disconnect between people who want to see reddit take more severe action, and those who worry about the implications of more stringent moderator oversight on a philosophical level. But here we see the first problem, as I said above- we are extending a philosophical argument when the problem is a practical one...or rather, we haven't solved the first philosophical problem, which is "what is harm?" and not "should there be limits to free expression?"
What I find most interesting is that there are some people who have maintained the position that r/racialslurtown is an unacceptable level of harm, that it is terrible and awful and in a just world it would not exist....and yet when they get to the second philosophical problem, they conclude that all speech should be free, because the alternative is worse than allowing harmful speech to exist.
My ultimate point is this- there is both a practical side to this discussion (should reddit allow hate groups on the site), and two very complicated philosophical arguments. Moreover, there are a wide variety of answers to all three questions, and many people are not taking the time to suss out exactly what position everyone in the discussion holds on all three, including themselves.
Personally I'm of the opinion that 1. reddit should work to eliminate hate groups of all stripes on their site because 2. hate in any form (directed against groups of people or specific individuals) is intolerable and thus 3. there should be restrictions on people's free expression (especially on a privately run website) if these individuals are causing harm (see point 2).
Equally importantly, it's sending a positive message along with the negative. These people aren't welcome here, but you are.
It keeps being quietly swept aside, but the default state of not moderating hateful content isn't a free for all of independent people expressing their independent views in equal competition. It's loud angry people sending the signal that certain types aren't wanted. Being inclusive of some groups implies hostility towards others. So maybe reddit isn't saying that women and people of color aren't welcome, but a significant number of their user base happily do so, and Reddit's inaction tacitly confirms that statement. That some users who are otherwise decent people don't hear it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Shutting that signal off goes some of the way towards reversing the message, inviting in those most often excluded from these spheres, which I assume is something most of us do want.
You do have to pick and choose past a certain point.
But I learned growing up to also be cautious of "safe hate" and that there are a lot of people who are, by temperament, just vile. I've seen them in radical environmentalism and in the antifacist punk scene: They wanted to kick teeth, so they found a way to get away with without owning it.
So I don't see it as a problem of groups I don't want around, I see it as a problem of temperaments and behaviors I don't want around. Yes, there are groups I associate with behaviors and vice versa, but ultimately, it's the behaviors I don't like, not the groups. I don't care if a racist is on my site learning homebrewing, I only care if he's harassing PoCs while doing so.
And here's the thing, even if given a lens into his ugly head, I would still only moderate the incivility and not kick him out on basis of his internal process, because I want him mingling with the world in the hopes of his head being healed.
I'm walking far enough out in the grass that I don't know what it has to do with actionable steps at reddit, I guess, I'm just thinking out loud.
Reddit telling rapists and racists to hit the road does not mean they are not allowed to go say whatever shit they want elsewhere.
This is social pressure. Sometimes that goes in the wrong direction, but as arguably intelligent human beings we should be able to know when that happens. This isn't one of those times! Making it known that certain shit will make you a social pariah isn't inherently a bad thing, and if you're afraid one day you won't be able to tell the difference between good pressure and bad, that is your problem.
The argument that social pressure is always going to be good, and weigh on the just side in the end isn't particularly convincing given it's taken until the year of our lord 2000+ for even the most forward thinking of governments to legalise gay marrige, and the majority of people here have parents who were alive when it was still a criminal act.
So I don't think it's a great leap to suggest that attacking any platfrom for merely allowing people to host offence comment, and encouraging that this is done across the baord won't necessarily have a chilling effect. 'But' the argument comes, you can always host your own content! Which is great and all, and the barriers for input are lower, but that's similar to saying thirty years ago 'just host your own television channel if all the other content providers have decided that they refuse to show any gay content', or better I suppose, write your own book despite every single recogniseable book store refusing to hold any gay books.
And to be clear here, the argument seems to be that reddit is by virtue of merely hosting this content responsible, so the claims that it can be hosted elsewhere appear hollow giventhe exact same critiques apply to wherever else they host it.
I suppose you can make the critque that this is a slipper slope, but I fail to see how the exact same idea that we use to oppose censorship (and I'll clarify here since this a point of contention, I mean the made up internet defintion of government power + legislation) of allowing the government to outlaw bad speech we oppose for ideological reasons, doesn't lead to us opening the door to censoring speech we like. Canada got brought up here as a counterpoint to the american view of free speech, and Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Canada (Minister of Justice) instantly sprung to mind.
Which is part of my key fear around this. Minority viewpoints have always born the brunt of social censure, and they have gained so much from allowing instant communication across the web, that I don't think wielding such an incredibly blunt tool can't help but have negative effects once people decide on the next target to crusade against.
Seriously?
"If they come for the racists, next they'll come for the gays"
Is that the sum up, here?
That it's impossible to moderate one kind of speech without inevitably restricting all kinds, and on a long enough timeline, minorities will suffer most!
Oh please.
And that's why gay people can't post about their lives on these forums.
Because after the mods kicked people who just wanted to scream the n-word everywhere, the banning of all gays from these forums became inevitable.
Holy shit that's a thing that still happens here??
First they came for the people who hate minorities, then they came for the minorities, then they came for... Wait, I guess the not awful portion of the majority?
No I don't.
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Orphanerivers of redthat run to seaRegistered Userregular
Reddit telling rapists and racists to hit the road does not mean they are not allowed to go say whatever shit they want elsewhere.
This is social pressure. Sometimes that goes in the wrong direction, but as arguably intelligent human beings we should be able to know when that happens. This isn't one of those times! Making it known that certain shit will make you a social pariah isn't inherently a bad thing, and if you're afraid one day you won't be able to tell the difference between good pressure and bad, that is your problem.
The argument that social pressure is always going to be good, and weigh on the just side in the end isn't particularly convincing given it's taken until the year of our lord 2000+ for even the most forward thinking of governments to legalise gay marrige, and the majority of people here have parents who were alive when it was still a criminal act.
So I don't think it's a great leap to suggest that attacking any platfrom for merely allowing people to host offence comment, and encouraging that this is done across the baord won't necessarily have a chilling effect. 'But' the argument comes, you can always host your own content! Which is great and all, and the barriers for input are lower, but that's similar to saying thirty years ago 'just host your own television channel if all the other content providers have decided that they refuse to show any gay content', or better I suppose, write your own book despite every single recogniseable book store refusing to hold any gay books.
And to be clear here, the argument seems to be that reddit is by virtue of merely hosting this content responsible, so the claims that it can be hosted elsewhere appear hollow giventhe exact same critiques apply to wherever else they host it.
I suppose you can make the critque that this is a slipper slope, but I fail to see how the exact same idea that we use to oppose censorship (and I'll clarify here since this a point of contention, I mean the made up internet defintion of government power + legislation) of allowing the government to outlaw bad speech we oppose for ideological reasons, doesn't lead to us opening the door to censoring speech we like. Canada got brought up here as a counterpoint to the american view of free speech, and Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Canada (Minister of Justice) instantly sprung to mind.
Which is part of my key fear around this. Minority viewpoints have always born the brunt of social censure, and they have gained so much from allowing instant communication across the web, that I don't think wielding such an incredibly blunt tool can't help but have negative effects once people decide on the next target to crusade against.
Seriously?
"If they come for the racists, next they'll come for the gays"
Is that the sum up, here?
That it's impossible to moderate one kind of speech without inevitably restricting all kinds, and on a long enough timeline, minorities will suffer most!
Oh please.
And that's why gay people can't post about their lives on these forums.
Because after the mods kicked people who just wanted to scream the n-word everywhere, the banning of all gays from these forums became inevitable.
Holy shit that's a thing that still happens here??
i am not shryke but i am pretty sure he was posting jokingly/sarcastically
Equally importantly, it's sending a positive message along with the negative. These people aren't welcome here, but you are.
It keeps being quietly swept aside, but the default state of not moderating hateful content isn't a free for all of independent people expressing their independent views in equal competition. It's loud angry people sending the signal that certain types aren't wanted. Being inclusive of some groups implies hostility towards others. So maybe reddit isn't saying that women and people of color aren't welcome, but a significant number of their user base happily do so, and Reddit's inaction tacitly confirms that statement. That some users who are otherwise decent people don't hear it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Shutting that signal off goes some of the way towards reversing the message, inviting in those most often excluded from these spheres, which I assume is something most of us do want.
I think this is the point that ultimately makes me feel most uncomfortable with reddit's administration, and thus reddit itself writ large.
The administration not only specifically said r/racialslurtown is fine, as long as they keep to themselves, they instituted policies to help keep them around, provided they don't do anything directly to anybody. Which is, I think, the part where I stop being logical and start just having a gut reaction to this whole business.
Earlier in the thread, someone quoted a longtime member of the r/javascript community, who was black, and felt that he was unwelcome on reddit given that the administration was fine with keeping racists around and spewing hate, just contained in their own little basement. I feel the same way. I'm mostly certain that those who post in r/racialslurtown don't limit themselves to activity in just that subreddit. Why would they? Sure, the administration has said that they don't agree with their positions, but they were also given their own little secret clubhouse. That sounds pretty welcoming to me. The same with posters in r/fatpeoplehate, or r/rapingwomen, or any of the other vile secret hatereddits. Racists, misogynists, and every other stripe of people full of hate are still people, and they still like things other people like- video games, gifs, pictures of puppies, and Neil deGrasse Tyson quotes superimposed on pictures of space. They are obviously still welcome to post about any of those things as long as they don't end posts with "and all black people are useless," and more importantly, I'm sure minorities know this as well! They know that the racists have their own little treehouse on reddit, and I'm sure it makes them uncomfortable knowing that people so full of hate they need to share it with other people now have their own secret safe space, and yet the objects of that hate don't have their own safe spaces.
I'll eat my words, but I doubt r/twoxchromosomes is ever going to become a private, opt-in subreddit....yet I'm certain that eventually many of the MRA subreddits will.
So my actual argument is this- I don't feel it is appropriate to provide a safe space for hatred, when the same sorts of safe spaces are not guaranteed for those who are their targets. I'm pretty certain that reddit wouldn't subsidize female or black only subreddits. I could only imagine the backlash if they did.
Equally importantly, it's sending a positive message along with the negative. These people aren't welcome here, but you are.
It keeps being quietly swept aside, but the default state of not moderating hateful content isn't a free for all of independent people expressing their independent views in equal competition. It's loud angry people sending the signal that certain types aren't wanted. Being inclusive of some groups implies hostility towards others. So maybe reddit isn't saying that women and people of color aren't welcome, but a significant number of their user base happily do so, and Reddit's inaction tacitly confirms that statement. That some users who are otherwise decent people don't hear it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Shutting that signal off goes some of the way towards reversing the message, inviting in those most often excluded from these spheres, which I assume is something most of us do want.
Subreddits can choose to moderate themselves more than the baseline, yes? So I continue to not see how what goes on in one subreddit has any influence on what happens in another.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
I think society has a responsibility to uphold the concept of "free speech" as much as it can. I also think society has a responsibility to thwart bigotry as much as it can. These ideals compete. When it comes to marginalizing people, I'd rather marginalize bigots for choosing to be bigoted than black people for being born black (or any other such group). I don't see what society gains by giving quarter to those who promote hatred against those that have no choice to be what they are.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
in my particular case, I use a fitness reddit and a local reddit that are both well and fairly run, and a couple fiction writing reddits as well as some IC fiction reddits like /nosleep
And they've been really good to me. I've probably used reddit for 3-4 years now and never stumbled onto any of this "problematic" content. When shown it, it's TINY subs; I think the biggest redpill one has maybe 10k people in it?
What people are mostly upset about is gruffness and coarseness in comments and I don't like that shit. But I do, past a certain point, just sort of shrug and go "Well, that person just outed himself as a jerk. Glad he self labled"
It doesn't hit me that hard, most of the time. Family and friends who post idiocy on facebook are worse on me, because I both love and feel "stuck" with them and thus pressured to engage.
But do you really feel that any backlash from marginalizing the bullshit will actually impact your experience as a fitness-focused redditor in any tangible or meaninful way (negatively)? If so, how do you see all this playing into that outcome?
nah, I don't really care. But I have also had TERRIBLE experiences with passive aggressive, shitty, cliquey people on heavily moderated boards. I really don't think it makes any difference. I see reddit as a secondary provider of free BBSes; I don't really CARE if they monetize the eyeshare of a bunch of mouthbreathers on another board. To me, and maybe this is the disconnect, I see the population of /randomshittyreddit and /redditIgoTo to be very nearly as unrelated as PA and stormfront. I just don't care that much; I DO see it like an ISP-ish relationship.
But, and here's the issue, it's not an "ISPish" relationship.
The boards you like? They'll go dark if reddit can't pay the bills just like every other reddit board. So, if you like reddit (and it appears you do) then what will help reddit keep the lights on? Supporting the racist/misogynist boards, or not supporting them.
maybe I don't understand reddit's business model. How does supporting minute, in comparison to the iceburg, subreddits "keep the lights on?"
I don't think they effect business one way or another, as far as say, ad revenue goes.
But I don't "support" those boards. I just didn't know about them. I'm not making a first time decision to use or not use reddit, I'm stuck with an old, vested account and leaving doesn't feel like I'm teaching reddit a lesson, it feels like I'm ceding the floor to the bad element.
In fact, correct me if I'm wrong (I'll do some digging) but wasn't there are gigantic shitfest when r/twoxchromosomes became one of the default subreddits on the main page? If I recall the first few weeks of that event were full of absolute garbage people posting hateful shit on women who were sharing their own stories in what was, ostensibly, a safe space.
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Oh I'd totally use reddit. I like a lot of things about it. A friend of mine uses it for military stuff and that part sounds great. I just opt not to cause, you know, the awful bits.
And my response would be that if Reddit wants to claim* that they stand by their principle of non-moderated (or minimally moderated) content, of enabling users to post whatever content they want under the principle of "free speech", then I think that's more than enough justification to override the minimal real impact that would occur if they were to ban all these racist subreddits.
I don't support these racist subreddits, but... sometimes, it's just how things go. I don't have the same confidence that, say, Pony and Death of Rats do in declaring that, in essence, they should be allowed to silence whichever opinions they do not like. If we're going to say things like, it's right for Google to enable access to all content, that ISPs should be mandated to carry all content, etc, then I can buy Reddit's argument. Maybe not in its entirety or as strongly, but enough.
And if that's the argument to be had, weighing the (minimal?) positive impact that banning such subreddits would have versus the costs, both philosophical and practical, then I very much entertain the possibility that I am wrong about the size of the impact or the costs. But the argument that allowing/providing for such speech means supporting such speech, and that supporting such speech is wrong, so allowing/providing for such speech is wrong, and so Reddit should stop is not one I buy. (One may, of course, choose not to associate with Reddit if they do not ban such subreddits. I don't associate with them either.)
I also don't buy the one that says everybody should block such speech, but laws say Reddit can whereas ISPs can't (or whatever reasons Google can't), so Reddit should and others don't have to (for whatever reason). At least not prima facie. If there's a societal... vision there that someone can articulate to me that squares some of the contentious circles there, okay, but for me, again, it's all people all making our own rules governing ourselves.
* Whether they have a legitimate claim to this may be up for debate.
Because if racism becomes a minority viewpoint then all the sudden you're targeting a minority and therefor you're the true racist or something about isps.
those tools get used against certain minorities because of the politics of groups in power who wanted to use those tools against those groups, period.
That was not an errant effect or collateral damage of a tool created with the ostensible purpose of combating racists or misogynists or hate groups or whatever.
This was not "First they came for the racists, and then the gays suffered! They said they were after the terrorists, but actually it was the innocent Muslims who got punished as collateral damage!"
and if that's the narrative you're trying to pitch, you're fooling nobody.
So it basically has piss and all to do with this situation.
Twitter. Facebook and YouTube.
Man I'd start linking stuff from those but I'd totally get banned.
This!
Exactly this!
And that's why reddit needs to clean up to stick around. Advertisers/VCs will eventually bail (and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that current sweet sweet VC didn't have some metrics around curation already tied to it...)
In other words, I'm not going to talk about my problems with twitter and facebook in the Reddit thread.
Amazon has a business model and actually has been profitable in the past and will return to profitability in the future.
What does reddit do exactly?
Facebook and twitter aggregate data/personal information. Reddit appears to only have eyes. What happens when the next big thing comes around?
Myspace and Friendster (and hundreds of other sites with better models than reddit) say hi?
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Wait, so your example of the slippery slope is that people using gay slurs don't feel welcome either?
When does this start getting bad exactly? When do the mods start banning people for their non-bigotry-based opinions?
I am not sure it's fair to attempt to crack down on "analogy" in this context, and then imply analogy, in rebuttal, between reddit and PA.
I don't think "social platforms" are even one thing. This forum is NOTHING, in purpose, ubiquity, or execution, like reddit or facebook. Nor is it the same scale of moderation problem. To moderate something the size of reddit to the taste of those who want the most censorship might mean reddit becomes (even more) fiscally nonviable. Does that mean it should die? Does the expense of creating a safe space then become a barrier to entry to all platform builders...?
It's not one slippery slope, it's many. And we might not slide down any one, just slip a bit on all. ...
A question about the notion of "right to access" and reddit "not having to give" anyone a platform:
Facebook long ago replaced stand-alone IM programs for me. I would face severe personal and professional difficulty if I was kicked off it for unpopular or activist political views, of whatever stripe.
At what intersection of userbase penetration and usefulness DOES a platform become a defacto utility? We are essentially entitled to land line phone service, so long as we pay our bill and don't use it for active, illegal harassment, and sometimes even if we don't/can't pay, for humanitarian/social fabric reasons. The phone company can't really justify cutting off service to racists, or republicans, or police, or black people, for reasons related to their political views.... But the land line is dying out, and social media is rising.
Social media is a strange media censorship problem, because the transparency gives the appearance of non-neutrality, when the actual volume of "problematic" content and its ratio to content of utility might not justify actual non-neutrality.
Thousands of racist and misogynist acts have been planned over the phone, but no one ever wrote a blog about "the phone racism problem" or "the problematic man-children of AT and T"
The physical nature of the phone lines and the presumption of the work involved in censorship vs the utility delivered by the phone network effectively meant such a thing was never seriously considered.
This was compounded by the assumed neutrality of the phone system - phone operators weren't constantly entering conversations discussing the tone. It was assumed that by ponying up to the phone company, you got a modicum of privacy.
There were phone communities with their own rules and policing standards, but they weren't easy to find accidentally, and they weren't deeply enmeshed with the basic functionality the ordinary user needed day to day. My aunt Edna, in other words, was in a parallel pipe to me, and never had to hear me on a phonelosers voice bridge or a local sex chat room.
Now, that border is more diffuse: It requires active work on my part to prune shitposts out of my facebook and reddit feeds so I can use it how I please; LCD content and controversial content have become opt out, not opt in. Privacy between a hosted blog and my family was high, on facebook, I have to carefully prune who I post too, or risk that griping about last night's hookup be read by grandma.
Those are subtle, but major shifts in how we relate to our technology.
Also, we increasingly equate differing views, expressed, as harassing behavior, due, IMO, to the way the internet is simultaneously distancing and intimate: A man 500 miles away is yelling in your living room, in response to what you think of as your private thoughts, even though to that man, your thoughts are yelling into his living room with equal volume... and you can't see his face or family, nor he yours, only hear his yells, and yell back.
The genesis of the phone company was very different from a modern social media platform, but the functionality increasingly overlaps... Do we have an apolitical right to platform access if a private platform gets *big enough*?
I host a podcast about movies.
No one is saying that reddit should "tell racists they're wrong". We saying they should exert some social pressure and ban them.
Because "telling racists they're wrong" works about as well as stopping my the third reich by singing Kumbuya.
And frankly it's bullshit to say "well if we pick up arms against Nazi Germany this means we also have to invade Tibet".
And again. It's bullshit to compare reddit to google or ISPs or phones or "public goosing infrastructure" because it's not anything like that.
You say that because it suits an appealing platform to exclude analogy, but modern social media has function overlap with things previously considered "utilities," including the phone and the yellow pages.
Do you even still have yellow pages?
My regional FBs, yelps, reddits, have some quality of utility for me. They are extremely integrated into my life. Personal or especially household bans from them would be hardships. I don't agree they aren't at least partially analogs.
I host a podcast about movies.
No. I say it because they're not analogous. As had been explained many times. As the people who claim they're analagous don't deal with and just keep saying they're analagous for reasons.
Many of the "problematic" areas we're talking about aren't actually fully or expressly public. They aren't perfectly "public forums" or "private calls" - modern social media is a platform for private calls, public posts, and semi-public posts rolled together.
The evolving difference is overlap; I could get kicked of AIM and use ICQ and I would still have my xanga. I could also make a highly exclusive call easily, and had some control over my phone number - I wasn't required to put one number up for the public and another for private communication, because the option of mass phone or AIM transmission to an ostensible select group but in reality globally readable simply wasn't an option.
Now if I get kicked off "facebook," I'm kicked off facebook, but good. Maybe including everyone with my IP, which might be my parents or kids, who aren't complicit in my shitheadedness or don't care about my controversial politics.
I host a podcast about movies.
When did this become the "problems with Facebook" thread?
Also, bad analogies are bad. Folks have curated personal versus professional lives forever. Cry me a river?
Someone said to only use analogies of comparable things.
Which those really are the only comparable things.
They are all universally fucking awful though so any attempt to use them pretty much turns into comparing kkk Facebook groups, twitter death threat campaigns and YouTube eugenics videos or /pol/ discussing welfare and indentured slavery to a subreddit. Which I mean, I guess? People seem to still use all those services around these parts. Seen plenty of you posting twitter links, YouTube links talking about taking relatives off Facebook, etc.
So I guess it just sounds pretty hypocritical, but it's hard to make a compelling analogy out of it so apologies.
The government doesn't have much of a place dictating what society has a right to engage in, or think about, or say, but society certainly has a right and, I would argue, a duty to push itself in a better direction, and that means away from bigotry, and that means telling bigots to go away.
If they clash irreconcilably, sure.
And I like pressuring platforms I use to run better.
That's actually why mass exoduses terrify me.
Edit: Someone said above, paraphrased, "What's wrong with associated a community that tolerates racism with racists and leaving it so as not to tolerate racism and associate with it ourselves"
It's personally inconvenient to me when a platform is ceded to the LCD and abandoned, and I've been through the cycle enough to see it cynically, as something that just happens.
It also irks me, a personal level, that all the really big social platforms are hideous kludgy pieces of shit that look and run terribly. I'd like to see reddit survive for the simple fact that it's sort of legible at least.
Also, the racists aren't fenced into reddit, they will migrate with everyone else.
I'm all for community standards, but in a more "stay and hash it out with them" way and less of a "take my ball and go home" way.
Granted, doing that requires some input with the people running the platform, and reddit may have a real problem there.
I host a podcast about movies.
Eventually, bigots will run out of places to go. And any non-bigots joining the exodus are really just kidding themselves and will eventually dissociate with the bigots they are defending in the name of "free speech."
So I'm fine with it.
Granted, I have no personal stake in /reddit/ - maybe you do and, so, of course it sucks when change threatens to disrupt the fabric of what you are used to. People are territorial about their communities. How many splinter communities has PA had? I barely remember their names anymore, but there were at least 4 huge ones that I can remember and I'm sure there are or were plenty more.
Hell, I was worried when my local watering hole changed their name and menu, even though it was the same owners and staff. Even subtle changes to a community can change it forever, and sometimes not for the better (at least from your personal, individual perspective).
But holistically, I think cutting off avenues where bigots feel welcome is a good thing.
in my particular case, I use a fitness reddit and a local reddit that are both well and fairly run, and a couple fiction writing reddits as well as some IC fiction reddits like /nosleep
And they've been really good to me. I've probably used reddit for 3-4 years now and never stumbled onto any of this "problematic" content. When shown it, it's TINY subs; I think the biggest redpill one has maybe 10k people in it?
What people are mostly upset about is gruffness and coarseness in comments and I don't like that shit. But I do, past a certain point, just sort of shrug and go "Well, that person just outed himself as a jerk. Glad he self labled"
It doesn't hit me that hard, most of the time. Family and friends who post idiocy on facebook are worse on me, because I both love and feel "stuck" with them and thus pressured to engage.
I don't, functionally, care if reddit were to switch over to a mod policy more like, say, PA. I do kind of care, in the abstract, if everyone who posted something awful or *chan or dare I say it SE style ON reddit started getting handed bans, because something that was legal, but in bad taste, a month ago, shouldn't be grounds to get the boot now.
And I don't think many people that post controversial shit online are all "bigots" in any real sense. I think a lot of them are experimenting with transgression and provocation as part of growing up. I find them tiresome, much like I find being lectured about hemp legalization or how a band used to be better tiresome, but I don't think they're "bigots" per se in all or even most cases.
I host a podcast about movies.
It's a slow process. A glacial process. It's like erosion. But eventually bigots really will run out of places to go.
Plus, you always lose people in a migration:
- Some people will decide it's not worth it. They will decide to live with the mods' decisions.
- Some people will actually think about the issue and will convert.
And some people will leave. But it will be less and less and less.
Will we literally kill bigotry this way? Maybe not. But it's a step in the right direction.
But do you really feel that any backlash from marginalizing the bullshit will actually impact your experience as a fitness-focused redditor in any tangible or meaninful way (negatively)? If so, how do you see all this playing into that outcome?
If anything, it would seem to me that Reddit's NOT banning the racist subreddits is more likely to negatively impact your experience in your preferred subreddits, at least in the immediate future, as Reddit continues to get hit by terrible PR that causes potentially positive members to not sign up.
nah, I don't really care. But I have also had TERRIBLE experiences with passive aggressive, shitty, cliquey people on heavily moderated boards. I really don't think it makes any difference. I see reddit as a secondary provider of free BBSes; I don't really CARE if they monetize the eyeshare of a bunch of mouthbreathers on another board. To me, and maybe this is the disconnect, I see the population of /randomshittyreddit and /redditIgoTo to be very nearly as unrelated as PA and stormfront. I just don't care that much; I DO see it like an ISP-ish relationship.
I host a podcast about movies.
It keeps being quietly swept aside, but the default state of not moderating hateful content isn't a free for all of independent people expressing their independent views in equal competition. It's loud angry people sending the signal that certain types aren't wanted. Being inclusive of some groups implies hostility towards others. So maybe reddit isn't saying that women and people of color aren't welcome, but a significant number of their user base happily do so, and Reddit's inaction tacitly confirms that statement. That some users who are otherwise decent people don't hear it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Shutting that signal off goes some of the way towards reversing the message, inviting in those most often excluded from these spheres, which I assume is something most of us do want.
But, and here's the issue, it's not an "ISPish" relationship.
The boards you like? They'll go dark if reddit can't pay the bills just like every other reddit board. So, if you like reddit (and it appears you do) then what will help reddit keep the lights on? Supporting the racist/misogynist boards, or not supporting them.
The philosophical argument is, perhaps, an interesting one. Disregarding the argument about how reddit isn't analogous to other forms of "free speech" (i.e., Reddit is not a government entity), reddit has stated that they wish to ensure an open space for people to discuss whatever they want, as long as it doesn't directly harm other humans.
I find this position also interesting, as this justification allows things like r/racialslurtown to exist, so long as its members don't actively pursue harassment outside of their treehouse. What fascinates me about this mindset is that it hearkens back to the core argument a lot of people have when discussing instances of sexism and racism- how do you define "harm"? Some people view the very existence of r/fatpeoplehate, or r/racialslurtown as harmful, but others (and, critically in this discussion, Reddit specifically) only classifies harm as things like off-site targeted harassment. Thus, posting something on their subreddit that says "This fat-positive youtuber is a stupid bitch," is alright, because it isn't harassment. It doesn't harm this person directly. However, navigating to her Youtube channel and posting that exact statement is harm, because it is direct harassment. Likewise with r/racialslurtown.
Obviously I, and many others, believe that both instances represent an unacceptable amount of harm- even if the object of hate never sees these shitty comments, there is a societal harm in allowing these views to fester, even if they are out of sight and out of mind. This, then, represents the first level of disconnect between people who want to see reddit take more severe action, and those who worry about the implications of more stringent moderator oversight on a philosophical level. But here we see the first problem, as I said above- we are extending a philosophical argument when the problem is a practical one...or rather, we haven't solved the first philosophical problem, which is "what is harm?" and not "should there be limits to free expression?"
What I find most interesting is that there are some people who have maintained the position that r/racialslurtown is an unacceptable level of harm, that it is terrible and awful and in a just world it would not exist....and yet when they get to the second philosophical problem, they conclude that all speech should be free, because the alternative is worse than allowing harmful speech to exist.
My ultimate point is this- there is both a practical side to this discussion (should reddit allow hate groups on the site), and two very complicated philosophical arguments. Moreover, there are a wide variety of answers to all three questions, and many people are not taking the time to suss out exactly what position everyone in the discussion holds on all three, including themselves.
Personally I'm of the opinion that 1. reddit should work to eliminate hate groups of all stripes on their site because 2. hate in any form (directed against groups of people or specific individuals) is intolerable and thus 3. there should be restrictions on people's free expression (especially on a privately run website) if these individuals are causing harm (see point 2).
You do have to pick and choose past a certain point.
But I learned growing up to also be cautious of "safe hate" and that there are a lot of people who are, by temperament, just vile. I've seen them in radical environmentalism and in the antifacist punk scene: They wanted to kick teeth, so they found a way to get away with without owning it.
So I don't see it as a problem of groups I don't want around, I see it as a problem of temperaments and behaviors I don't want around. Yes, there are groups I associate with behaviors and vice versa, but ultimately, it's the behaviors I don't like, not the groups. I don't care if a racist is on my site learning homebrewing, I only care if he's harassing PoCs while doing so.
And here's the thing, even if given a lens into his ugly head, I would still only moderate the incivility and not kick him out on basis of his internal process, because I want him mingling with the world in the hopes of his head being healed.
I'm walking far enough out in the grass that I don't know what it has to do with actionable steps at reddit, I guess, I'm just thinking out loud.
I host a podcast about movies.
Holy shit that's a thing that still happens here??
i am not shryke but i am pretty sure he was posting jokingly/sarcastically
I think this is the point that ultimately makes me feel most uncomfortable with reddit's administration, and thus reddit itself writ large.
The administration not only specifically said r/racialslurtown is fine, as long as they keep to themselves, they instituted policies to help keep them around, provided they don't do anything directly to anybody. Which is, I think, the part where I stop being logical and start just having a gut reaction to this whole business.
Earlier in the thread, someone quoted a longtime member of the r/javascript community, who was black, and felt that he was unwelcome on reddit given that the administration was fine with keeping racists around and spewing hate, just contained in their own little basement. I feel the same way. I'm mostly certain that those who post in r/racialslurtown don't limit themselves to activity in just that subreddit. Why would they? Sure, the administration has said that they don't agree with their positions, but they were also given their own little secret clubhouse. That sounds pretty welcoming to me. The same with posters in r/fatpeoplehate, or r/rapingwomen, or any of the other vile secret hatereddits. Racists, misogynists, and every other stripe of people full of hate are still people, and they still like things other people like- video games, gifs, pictures of puppies, and Neil deGrasse Tyson quotes superimposed on pictures of space. They are obviously still welcome to post about any of those things as long as they don't end posts with "and all black people are useless," and more importantly, I'm sure minorities know this as well! They know that the racists have their own little treehouse on reddit, and I'm sure it makes them uncomfortable knowing that people so full of hate they need to share it with other people now have their own secret safe space, and yet the objects of that hate don't have their own safe spaces.
I'll eat my words, but I doubt r/twoxchromosomes is ever going to become a private, opt-in subreddit....yet I'm certain that eventually many of the MRA subreddits will.
So my actual argument is this- I don't feel it is appropriate to provide a safe space for hatred, when the same sorts of safe spaces are not guaranteed for those who are their targets. I'm pretty certain that reddit wouldn't subsidize female or black only subreddits. I could only imagine the backlash if they did.
Subreddits can choose to moderate themselves more than the baseline, yes? So I continue to not see how what goes on in one subreddit has any influence on what happens in another.
maybe I don't understand reddit's business model. How does supporting minute, in comparison to the iceburg, subreddits "keep the lights on?"
I don't think they effect business one way or another, as far as say, ad revenue goes.
But I don't "support" those boards. I just didn't know about them. I'm not making a first time decision to use or not use reddit, I'm stuck with an old, vested account and leaving doesn't feel like I'm teaching reddit a lesson, it feels like I'm ceding the floor to the bad element.
I host a podcast about movies.