By David Futrelle
On Monday, Reddit announced what looked like a massive crackdown on hate, banning some 2000 subreddits guilty of hate speech and/or harassment, including The_Donald, once Reddit’s main hangout for Trump trolls and a vast virtual storehouse of hate.
But the closer one looks at Reddit’s actions the less dramatic they appear. The vast majority of the newly banned subreddits were tiny and/or inactive. The_Donald itself had been moribund for some time as its inhabitants, expecting an eventual ban, had long ago moved offsite. And some of the most hateful sudreddits out there remain intact — the misogynistic havens of the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit and the assorted “Red Pill” subreddits.
Yep, they launched a crusade against hate speech that simply ignored the extreme misogyny of the site’s MGTOWs and “Red Pillers” — exactly as I worried they would in a post here last week. Sure, Reddit took down the small and only semi-active AgainstWomensRights subreddit and seems to have cleared out some even tinier incel subreddits. But somehow they overlooked r/MGTOW and TheRedPill, each with a massive audience of its own.
Let’s consider r/MGTOW, perhaps the most egregiously hateful of the surviving subreddits. Were the higher-ups at Reddit fooled by the assertions of some MGTOWs that their movement, such as it is, has nothing to do with misogyny and is really about men celebrating life on their own terms? Because that’s complete bullshit; MGTOW men spend so much time slandering women they barely have time to cook themselves dinners.
Take a look at this selection of posts from r/MGTOW over the past several years and see if you can detect any hints of misogyny.
Huh. Seems to me that this might just be some sort of hate subreddit. And these are just the headlines. What happens when you click on the headlines and look at the actual posts in question? This is the sort of thing you get.
There are plenty more examples in the archives here. And even if you’re not convinced by the misogyny, there’s no way to get around the other forms of hate that run rampant in the MGTOW subreddit, including racism and antisemitism and all the other hatreds popular amongst the alt-right.
Reddit’s new rules claim that “communities and people that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.” It’s clear that the MGTOW subreddit is in constant violation of the rules for its promotion of hate against women — and that no reform of the subreddit is possible, as hatred of women is in fact the central tenet of MGTOW ideology. There’s no denying the obvious: if Reddit’s new rules are to mean anything the MGTOW subreddit should be banned immediately.
If the things MGTOWs say about women were said about any other group no one would have any trouble classifying them as hate speech. I don’t know why misogyny is so often given a pass when it comes to discussions of hate speech, but it shouldn’t be. Ban r/MGTOW now.
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I think the reason misogyny is given a pass is because it’s so heavily normalized, as I alluded to in my comments on the last post about this. It exists in literally every context so people just get habituated to it. Men are taught to perpetuate it and women are taught to tolerate it. As a result, it’s seen as “not a real issue” and pushed to the side.
I don’t think they were fooled, I feel like they just didn’t care and were willing to turn a blind eye.
Doubtful, or why do all those links say “Quarantined” on them on a bold yellow background like a warning sticker?
I suspect that the reason why Reddit won’t ban misogynists is essentially the same reason why Twitter won’t ban people who use language attributed to right-wing terrorist activity; because if they did that, they would need to ban a very large portion of their user base.
@Catalpa
Indeed, in addition IIRC the reason Twitter refused to ban a bunch of neo-Nazi dogwhistles was because they would have to ban a bunch of US politicians.
@Catalpa
I think another part of it is that CEO Steve Huffman is one of those libertarians who think that even the slightest amount of speech regulation is censorship on par with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union combined.
It must be nice to be able to ignore hate speech right until it starts hurting your profits.
They also believe that without capitalism and the state, anarchy would result and that it would be worse than the repressive regimes we have.
@Surplus
It was quarantined several months ago; maybe it’s been quarantined all this time or maybe it was released and re-quarantined recently, I’m not sure. But quarantine and banning are not equivalent.
@Anonymous
This is an important thing to keep in mind when arguing with conservatives. They don’t respond to arguments about harm to others or the world because they don’t care. They only care (and swiftly respond) when something hits them where it hurts: their wallets.
@PoM
AFAIK it’s been quarantined the whole time. From what I’ve seen this serves 2 purposes:
1. It makes it look like they’ve done something while really they haven’t and business and the flow of money continues as usual.
2. It makes it harder for outsiders to stumble across it and see truly how bad it is, thereby downplaying it.
And for once, I’m pretty sure every woman in the universe can agree on a man they hope will keep disliking them more and more and more.
As for why they don’t ban misogyny… What everyone else has said. Partly being blind to the fact it exists (or at least how it manifests) because it’s so prevalent and normalizes, and partly because it’s so prevalent it would mean banning everyone, like all the countries that have openly admitted the only reason they won’t accept fear of gender-based violence as grounds for asylum is because their asylum systems would be overwhelmed.
@Rabid Rabbit
The man doth protest too much methinks.
One thing I find that is common across bigots is how much they overestimate their appeal to the people they hate. Many a homophobic straight person (especially men, but I’ve heard this from straight women as well) is concerned a gay person will want to have sex with them, every transphobe is convinced that trans* people are trying to “trick” them into sex, and misogynists are obsessed with how many women they think are drawn to them. The vast majority of people do not want to fuck people who hate them.
@Naglfar:
I wonder if somewhere, hidden in the back of their lizard brains, there might be a tiny synapse suggesting to them that their horror at the thought of being desired by a gay man (or whoever) is similar to how many of the people they’re attracted to react to the idea. For that matter, I wonder if there’s a correlation between those who think that way and those who are convinced they’re irresistible to the type of person they’re attracted to. “I like women, so clearly they all want me, but wait! That means I’m irresistibly attractive, right? Oh crap, logic dictates that the gayz are going to be after me too…”
I mean, it’s also a sign of how bigots are obsessed with the idea of sex and have no other framework within which to conceive of cross-gender relationships (hello, Mike Pence), but still.
Yeah, there are definitely folks out there who find it absolutely inconceivable that they aren’t desired by absolutely everyone. If I had a nickel for how many times I’ve been told “you just say you’re asexual because no one wants to fuck you”, I’d have about a quarter.
Those folks are still preferable to the pushy, rapey “I can change your mind” ones, though.
I guess Jordan Peterson stanning is back in full force, because Twitter dudes are currently telling me to watch lots and lots of his videos.
This was in response to him defending Hitler.
Good to have that section of the interwebs back in action.
Sigh.
It’s okay, MGTOW. Hate me as much as you want. Just don’t come near me, dox me, or stalk me, and we’ll get along just fine.
Meanwhile, they did ban the sub r/blatantmisogyny which posted screen shots of you guessed it: blatant misogyny (often from other subs). And no, it wasn’t a TERF sub and it was very well moderated to prevent any form of bigotry. They haven’t even told the moderator why it was banned.
While I’m not exactly sad that they banned some of the bigger TERF subs, doing that while not banning MGTOW or redpill subs unfortunately gave them lots of ammunition for their new favourite argument that advocating for trans rights is men’s rights activism. There’s been an influx of TERFs in the feminist spaces like trollXchromosomes and WitchesVsPatriarchy complaining about it ever since the ban.
I’m also a little worried about one of my favourite leftist spaces, AntiConsumption. They banned the fascist counterpart, ConsumeProduct and we’ve had a lot of new users since then. And unfortunately, there is only a single moderator who has stated that he believes in open discussions and will only ban outright bigotry. I foresee a lot of fascist dog whistles leading to the sub being taken over by the fascists, unfortunately. I hope it doesn’t happen, but a single mod, 230k users and a policy that allows dog whistles and “open discussion” doesn’t bode well.
I’ve just stumbled out of a topic on r/worldnews about low rape reporting/prosecutions and it’s been brigaded to hell and back by misogynists. 80% of the comment section is screeching about false accusations. Comments that pushed back a bit got downvoted heavily. Reddit disgusts me sometimes. I’m so sick of the fact that, on front page subs at least, nobody can ever discuss an issue that mainly affects women without men crashing in to turn the spotlight back to themselves. And yeah, Reddit is awful for this.
Its happens all around the world women’s are struggling ignorance and hate speech due to their gender hope its will easy in future and womwn get more job opportunity
@Rabid Rabbit
I doubt it, I feel like that would require the tiniest bit of self awareness, which they lack. If the thought ever entered their head, they would immediately shove it away because it would imply they are similar to the gay men they despise.
@Johanna
I would guess this was banned because it kept bringing up evidence of why Reddit needed to take action against misogynists, and Reddit didn’t like being confronted with that evidence so they shot the messenger because it was easier than fixing the problem.
As for the influx of TERFs in other subreddits, that is unfortunate. They’re also very upset on Twitter about this and Graham Linehan’s ban. The Twitter account left over for r/GenderCritical has suggested that they give the app a bad rating, as they seem to think this will bring back their subreddit. What I suspect that will actually do, however, is demonstrate to TERFs what a small minority they are and how most people do not agree with them.
r/TwoXChromosomes is a sub that frequently appears on the front page (at least in mobile) and invariably on a popular post complaining about some kind of issue, there are men posting that they don’t do this thing, basically asking for cookies for meeting minimum standards. The sub has no rule that men cannot post, which is fine, but it’s annoying to see men constantly try to re-center the conversation on their personal, individual behavior rather than the larger pattern in society. It’s like these men see women talking, and bull their way into the conversation despite having little to say about it, because they just can’t stand not being the topic themselves always.
@PoM
This also happens a lot on Twitter (I’m way more active on Twitter than Reddit so I notice it there more). Women regularly post threads about something that men do that they shouldn’t, and every time there are a ton of men in the replies talking about how they would never do this and “not all men” (though usually not those exact words) etc. I’m not sure if men think this somehow makes it better or if they’re just trying to get attention.
I think part of the reason it’s given a pass in a way that racism, etc aren’t, is because of an illusion that women as a group are still “safe” in that we can, in theory, kill off all non-white, non-Christian, non-lgbt, non-able people and still be able to carry on as a species. So most people think, “oh misogyny is terrible” but they think of the deaths on an individual level and not on a group level. To them it “just doesn’t make sense that any man would really want to kill all women, how would we carry on as a species bla bla bla”. However, as someone who watches these guys and actually pays attention to them I, and most of the people commenting here, know there are people in these groups who would gladly do that once we figure out how to make sex dolls that are up to their standards. They think soon we’ll have the technology that will make women “obsolete”.
This is not all, but I think it is at least part of the reason it’s not taken seriously.
Why is that many of these internet companies like Reddit, YouTube, and others don’t properly regulate the dangerous and hateful stuff that comes out of them? I know many here have answered this question in one way or the other, but I’m genuinely confused as to why this happens.
Sorry if the question’s too obvious.
TBH I strongly question the idea that antisemitism and especially racism aren’t given a pass, at least in the US. “Normal” being dog-whistles instead of over-the-top slurs is still a pass – it’s a different kind of normalization, but it’s still normalization, and just like sexism it still perpetuates violence.
@Cyborgette
In addition, there’s no shortage of those in r/MGTOW or r/TheRedPill either. Even if Reddit won’t take misogynistic subreddits down (which they should take down), those subs are horrifically racist and antisemitic enough that they should warrant takedown on that basis as well, because where there’s one bigotry there will be others.
No, you’re right. I really wish I could delete comments here. I reread what I said, and wow, please everyone ignore me. It’s sounds… just super privileged. Sorry!