Reddit’s plan to “contain” hate is so backwards that Reddit bigots are begging to be “contained”

I’d believe the 4chan dude. 4chan’s not an ideology, I doubt they care if they lose some pageviews. They just want a free space to share stuff with their fringe community without repercussion. And honestly, if he didn’t want to be contained, why else would he make the hitler post.

@Had To Be Said

The concern I have with that approach is that, even with the penalty you mention, the regular users of the unpromoted hate sites will still accumulate karma and build their pseudonymous reputation while crossing over to the rest of Reddit at will.

Had to be said-

Yeah, things that are unsearchable and that watchdogs can’t easily access are totally unwanted by the types who love trading in illegal activity such as terrorism, sexual assault tactics and child porn.

Fuck, given that Reddit has literally the same ineffective management chain and is made up of frozen peaches types who think rape threats aren’t really a big deal, I’m not seeing this as anything other than a means that horribly toxic people can use to organize and set up raids on the supposedly respectable parts of the site while enjoying zero oversight and zero watchdogs keeping an eye on them and calling out their behavior. Absolute shielding from counter-speech, access to a dark web like portal on a major site from which you can still easily access the sites that most of your targets are on.

Fuck, this is practically Christmas for the terrorist bigots out there, which is why they are all acting like its fucking Christmas.

And let’s note here that these are the same bigots who rant screaming death when a woman criticizes a piece of media they enjoy or who threaten to kill people over framerates in video games. If this was even remotely something they viewed as genuinely threatening to their bigot communities, they would not be silent about it.

The fact that they are means all the bigots know its a sweet deal and a transparent means by which the executives who tolerate and agree with them to hand-wave to the advertisers about the toxic cesspool they are running.

Y’know, usually when a site or part of a site goes ad-free it’s because it’s switched to a model where the user pays for the service directly. I wonder how these bigots would react if, the next time they went to their favorite subreddit, they were prompted to enter a credit card number?

@Leeshajoy,

btw, thanks for often ‘liking’ my comments. For some reason I never have the option to click like on anything except the main article.

I think making redditors pay for the privilege would kill reddit stone dead, though that would be no bad thing.

At the risk of being called names for attempting to explain how someone else might think, maybe the redditors dont want to draw a line because they dont want their forum to be for ony certain types of speech, but open to any speech…?

Um, perspective? You do know that Reddit does not equal the cherry-picked worst of Reddit, right?

What is most representative of the site as it is actually used by most is probably the front page. I don’t see any hate there.

You can go to redditlist to see the most popular subreddits. It’s not exactly a “toxic cesspool.” It’s a list of news, science, jokes and gifs. Of the hundreds of subreddits there, only r/4chan leaps out at me as something I’d want to avoid for sure. The only place CoonTown gets a mention is the currently 5th-fastest-growing subreddit called r/FuckCoonTown, a subreddit against hate.

Robert,

Why do you worry that your favorite subreddt, r/creepyPMs, will be “destroyed”? Ridiculing socially incompetent people is not against any rules that I am aware of, unless that ridicule crosses the line into doxing or harassment.

Cerberus,

Yeah, things that are unsearchable and that watchdogs can’t easily access are totally unwanted by the types who love trading in illegal activity such as terrorism, sexual assault tactics and child porn.

All of those are completely prohibited by Reddit’s rules. None qualify for the new classification. So I’m not sure what your point was.

I’m not seeing this as anything other than a means that horribly toxic people can use to organize and set up raids on the supposedly respectable parts of the site while enjoying zero oversight and zero watchdogs keeping an eye on them and calling out their behavior. Absolute shielding from counter-speech, access to a dark web like portal on a major site from which you can still easily access the sites that most of your targets are on.

Very little of this makes sense. Organized harassment campaigns are already forbidden. Anyone who wants to be a subreddit “watchdog” can easily make an alt account and subscribe to the subreddit to monitor it. No subreddit has “absolute shielding from counter-speech” because anyone can subscribe and post. There are no “dark web like portals” on Reddit, and it is already true that anyone can “easily access” every public website on the internet.

Um, perspective?

Hey, I have a totally insane and logically ridiculous question for the Reddit owners who are happily hosting this garbage on their site:

Why is it that NONE of them seem to understand basic concepts of compassion and empathy. Why is it that NONE of them seem to have even the simple ability to put themselves in the shoes of blacks, Jews, females in media, and other targets of those scummy sub-reddits, and imagine how they would feel at being exposed to some of the most truly toxic content on the internet aimed at them?

There’s a famous poem that I half-remember, perhaps someone here could help me out with this, but basically it starts with something like:

“First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew”

And it goes on in a similar vein for a few more verses, before concluding with:

“And then they came for me, and there was no-one left to speak out for me”

Again, I cannot believe that this is the kind of stuff Reddit would willingly associate itself with. Why sacrifice compassion and empathy on the alter of allowing actually pretty dangerous hate and prejudice to fester on their site, especially considering that Reddit are now in fact essentially paying for them to remain on there?

Also, how do I blockquote, bold, and italic, among other useful site commenting features?

KL,

The Reddit CEO’s announcement that David recently linked to pretty much says what you are speculating:

We started Reddit to be—as we said back then with our tongues in our cheeks—“The front page of the Internet.” Reddit was to be a source of enough news, entertainment, and random distractions to fill an entire day of pretending to work, every day. Occasionally, someone would start spewing hate, and I would ban them. The community rarely questioned me. When they did, they accepted my reasoning: “because I don’t want that content on our site.”

As we grew, I became increasingly uncomfortable projecting my worldview on others. More practically, I didn’t have time to pass judgement on everything, so I decided to judge nothing.

So we entered a phase that can best be described as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. This worked temporarily, but once people started paying attention, few liked what they found. A handful of painful controversies usually resulted in the removal of a few communities, but with inconsistent reasoning and no real change in policy.

One thing that isn’t up for debate is why Reddit exists. Reddit is a place to have open and authentic discussions. The reason we’re careful to restrict speech is because people have more open and authentic discussions when they aren’t worried about the speech police knocking down their door. When our purpose comes into conflict with a policy, we make sure our purpose wins.

As Reddit has grown, we’ve seen additional examples of how unfettered free speech can make Reddit a less enjoyable place to visit, and can even cause people harm outside of Reddit. Earlier this year, Reddit took a stand and banned non-consensual pornography. This was largely accepted by the community, and the world is a better place as a result (Google and Twitter have followed suit). Part of the reason this went over so well was because there was a very clear line of what was unacceptable.

Therefore, today we’re announcing that we’re considering a set of additional restrictions on what people can say on Reddit—or at least say on our public pages—in the spirit of our mission.

You do know that Reddit does not equal the cherry-picked worst of Reddit, right?

Even if the worst of the worst was actively difficult to find, Reddit would still be responsible for its existence and everyone would have the right to judge them by it. There are many websites that don’t contain material that violates a sense of human decency or, if it appears, immediately delete it and ban the perpetrators.

Reddit’s failure to do so is a completely reasonable criterion to use when evaluating whether the site has merit.

Didn’t we chew out How to Be Said for being a stupid git in a different thread about something? Why are we even entertaining them on this thread?

Not all reddit. Blah, blah, blah.

Had to be Said-

All of those are completely prohibited by Reddit’s rules. None qualify for the new classification. So I’m not sure what your point was.

Who will be looking to ensure those things will be banned on the shadow redditt. No one currently keeping the worst of the subreddits semi-honest (let’s be frank on how those sites have still coordinated illegal activity such as the trading of illegally gained pictures, trading tips on how to get away with rape and how to harass women online through swatting and the likes) will be able to access and read the worst of the subs when they are discussing in what they view as safe locations.

And that’s never ever lead to anything bad ever in the history of America, right?

Very little of this makes sense.

Then you are intentionally ignorant about the site you are defending.

Organized harassment campaigns are already forbidden.

cough cough, Kotaku in Action, cough cough.

Anyone who wants to be a subreddit “watchdog” can easily make an alt account and subscribe to the subreddit to monitor it. No subreddit has “absolute shielding from counter-speech” because anyone can subscribe and post.

Yes, to keep an eye on the speech, all anyone has to do is make alt accounts that moderate it and those aren’t scrubbed ever. Hmm, isn’t that the same thing that is technically true of the dark web. I mean, anyone can technically join the site and keep an eye on them. So, really what’s the big deal. Nothing bad ever happens there in a space that is really hard for law enforcement and watchdog organizations to access it.

There are no “dark web like portals” on Reddit, and it is already true that anyone can “easily access” every public website on the internet.

Oh hey, you just own goaled your point on the dark web. Good job. Go team.

Now go the fuck home. You don’t know what you are talking about and your attempt to bloviate like you do is tiring, boring, and frankly embarrassing for yourself. Have a nice life, don’t call again, bye bye.