UPDATE: Reddit has now removed “all subreddits that focus on sexualization of children.” And it only took them six years to realize that maybe catering to peodophiles was not such a good idea.
Yet another Reddit pedophilia explosion, this time centering around r/preteen_girls, a subreddit which is evidently filled with sexualized photos of preteen girls. (You thought the banning of Reddit’s Jailbait subreddit solved the problem? Nope; Reddit still hosts numerous subreddits catering to pedos.)
The subreddit came under some criticism elsewhere on Reddit a couple of days ago, and countless creeps leapt to its defense.
I don’t have the stomach to dig into this one, but ShitRedditSays is on the case.
Here are screenshots of a bunch of comments defending the subreddit, the pictures, and creepiness itself, collected by SRS regular littletiger. They’re all pretty repugnant, but this one really takes repugnance to a new level:
Here’s an SRS thread discussing the screenshots and the controversy in general.
Many of the defenders of r/preteen_girls have responded to the criticism by angrily asserting that the pictures there aren’t nude or pornographic. Which is not, actually, true, as this SRS thread makes clear. Indeed, here is a screenshot of the incredibly creepy discussion that ensued in r/preteen_girls when one nude picture got posted. (Note: this screenshot shows a small censored thumbnail of the nude picture in question.)
Naturally, all this led to yet more highly upvoted pedophilia jokes, something Reddit already has quite a surplus of.
(Thanks to SRS once again for pointing me to this comment.)
Here’s a discussion of the original thread (in r/wtf) in which some questioned the propriety of Reddit hosting a forum devoted to suggestive and possibly pornographic pictures of children; and another SRS thread highlighting one of the creepier r/preteen_girls defenders. (And if you want more, here’s that guy’s highly disturbing comment history.)
For more on Reddit’s pedophilia problem, see my previous posts on the r/jailbait controversies.
Reddit used to be owned by Conde Nast. It is still owned by Conde Nast’s parent company Advance Publications. Why would this publishing giant, which owns dozens of media properties ranging from the New Yorker and Vanity Fair to the uber-wholesome Sunday newspaper supplement Parade, want to associate itself with a site that continue to host forums devoted to sexualized photos of underage girls?
NOTE: None of the links in this post go to r/preteengirls itself; they are all to discussions of it elsewhere. None of them link to any of the pictures in question, though one, as I noted, contains a censored thumbnail image of one picture posted there.
Oh, Reddit. How you never fail to lower my expectations.
I never even heard of Reddit until I started reading over here–nor did I realized it was owned by a for-profit publishing company.
Very good questions, David?
Cue our resident Troll of the Year saying that those girls should never have taken those pictures or flaunted their sexuality. In before all that.
Do they really think a name change will fool anyone?
Hellkell: I don’t know that namechange is really the right word. It’s more like whack-a-mole with this. As SRS points out it’s more than one subreddit.
Oh gee, how could contributing to the sexualization of young children possibly harm them? The dumbfuckery is astounding.
“I didn’t harm these kids, I’m just looking at the pictures” is pretty much the same sentiment as “I’m an ethical vegetarian because I only eat animals someone else already killed.”
More than one subreddit? That’s awesome, only not.
@hellkell
also cue MRAs screeching about how we’re shaming their natural male sexual attraction to preteen girls and how oppressive age of consent laws are!
You know, much as I dislike ephebophilia, I can see how in our current culture some men are able to rationalize it to themselves as being OK. But preteens? Sorry guys, there’s pretty much no rationalizing that away.
Given that Reddit is a Conde Nast property, I think it’s about time someone threatened to smack the parents company with a lawsuit. My guess is that either a. the higher-ups over there have no idea what’s going on with Reddit and how often pics that are actually illegal are posted, or b. they know but are hoping that no one will ever think to tie it to them.
Either way – if companies can get their copywrited content taken off of YouTube, it should be possible to force Conde Nast to make Reddit remove content that’s actually illegal pretty much anywhere in the world.
Yeah, my opinion of reddit is so low that it’s basically nonexistent at this point. Not only is it an extremely hostile place to post if you are female, it’s a site that condones and defends shit like this. It makes my skin crawl.
Why don’t you just report it? I mean all this “exposure” or whatever, these guys don’t care, they’ve got their own pseudonyms.
@Holly
I’d say it’s far worse than the ethical vegetarian eating meat someone else killed, because that meat can only be killed once. The children pictured are victimized every time someone exploits them by treating them, through their photos, as sexual objects. And by having their faces attached to images and discussions about their sexual availability spread all over the internet, this exploitation can filter into their real lives. Look at the famous case of the barely even teenaged (I believe she was around 14) kid who had her photobucket hacked, which included clothed but provocative pictures. When those photos showed up in ads for porn sites, and those ads were seen by her classmates and spread around, she was bullied into dropping out of school.
I think this problem boils down to a lack of empathy. To the disgusting pedos who participate in this and defend this behavior, these children aren’t people, just objects. People have rights; objects don’t. That’s why they get so upset about the “censorship” of deleting this material–it means their possessions (the “sexuality” of children used for the adult’s sexual gratification) are being stolen from them.
Goddess Almighty this is fucking disgusting.
It’s the sense of entitlement that really pisses me off. I want it, therefore I should be able to have it! Why shouldn’t I have it, since it’s something that I like? Who cares about anyone else’s feelings or whether or not children are being harmed (which they totally aren’t, and you’re a prude for suggesting that they are)? You can’t censor the internet, and I should be able to do this if I want to!
(This has been my impersonation of a creeper attempting to justify his use of kiddieporn. Not necessarily specific to Reddit – these assholes show up all over the place.)
Damn it, I screwed up my blockquotes.
Cassandra, that attitude is pretty widespread throughout society, in my opinion. The difference is, these guys want something that is pretty awful, but the sentiment is the same.
MRAL, what are you doing back here? (My emphasis below.)
Men’s Rights Activist Lieutenant | February 9, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Liar. You didn’t even manage 46 hours. Get off the internet and seek help.
PS Please don’t misgender Ozy. Zir preferred pronoun is ‘zie’.
Sorry for misgendering.
Hey, how about we try itiliana’s suggestion and just stop feeding MRAL attention?
Can we just ignore the little shit who can’t stick his many flounces?
Why you in my head, Cassandra? 🙂
Also, I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. What I meant was I’m breaking the habit. I’m filling my days with other things, keeping super busy so I don’t have time to mope. But I still read the site, and might comment once in a while. No more flame wars, though, is what I meant.
Hey, hellkell, we already seem to be married to the same dude and in basically the same relationship, why not share a brain too?
(Because I’m claustraphobic.)
Yeah, for the record, my opening question of “MRAL, what are you doing back here?” was strictly rhetorical. I don’t require an answer!