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But there are sexists and racists both in real life and online. Reddit is like a giant building with many halls for discussions. You don't have to enter or part

But there are sexists and racists both in real life and online. Reddit is like a giant building with many halls for discussions. You don't have to enter or participate in the ones that racism is welcome but you don't need to avoid the building. I don't see it as hanging out together, but using the same tools. Yes the analogy is a bit of a stretch but I hope you get my point. In short, IMHO, reddit is a tool and tools don't have political statements to make.

wetmore 11y ago
As a heavy reddit user for the past 5 or 6 years I'd say the issue of intolerance on reddit is not entirely the fact that there are subreddits for racist or sexist ideals. What bothers me most is the way racism and sexism has seeped into the general site culture. The large subreddits which appear on an unregistered user's frontpage are full of comments and submissions whose magnitude of upvotes paint a picture of a casually intolerant status quo. Using your analogy, I'm not upset because I can walk into a hall called "coontown" and see racism; I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words. Since I've been using reddit for some time now there has been a very noticeable shift in the status quo when it comes to the level of discourse and the amount of hate speech that shows up, and I'm really not happy with it.
- pil4rin 11y ago
  Take a look at http://redditenhancementsuite.com/features.html http://redditenhancementsuite.com/features.html I understand your issue is with the underlying platform and it's users, however, RES will allow you to setup filters by word- across all subs. I believe alienblue (the reddit client for iOS) allows for this functionality as well.
- mreiland 11y ago
  then unsubscribe from /r/videos and /r/worldnews. problem solved and done so in a way that you have complete control over and doesn't impose yourself on others.
  - anu_gupta 11y ago
    Or, better still, don't unsubscribe, and instead challenge the intolerance and prejudice. If you don't like that, then perhaps you can unsubscribe from places where people don't want to put up with this kind of behaviour.
    - stinkytaco 11y ago
      Hey! Someone is wrong on the Internet! Seriously, though, I find this is rarely a debate worth having, and certainly not in the quip-centric, 3 sentences or less culture that makes up Internet discussion boards. I would much rather pursue systemic solutions to problems like this than embark on trying to convert anonymous strangers.
    - mreiland 11y ago
      If reddit means so much to you that you're willing to spend the time brigading against it, be my guest. Just don't be surprised with many people (most?) don't want to put that sort of emotional investment into a news aggregation site.
    - tsotha 11y ago
      >Or, better still, don't unsubscribe, and instead challenge the intolerance and prejudice. Good lord, no. 99% of the "intolerance and prejudice" is from out-and-out trolls. They're posting because they want to see a bunch of angry denunciations. Don't give them what they want.
  - wetmore 11y ago
    But these are subreddits whose original purpose is to provide content I want to see, so the problem isn't solved.
    - chiph 11y ago
      Start your own subreddit for sharing content that you like.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
- akira2501 11y ago
  > Since I've been using reddit for some time now there has been a very noticeable shift in the status quo when it comes to the level of discourse and the amount of hate speech that shows up, and I'm really not happy with it. Are you sure this isn't just a personal bias? None of this is new on reddit, the volume has increased, sure.. but so has the general userbase of the site.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    Reddit isn't static. I think the whole fatpeoplehate debacle and it's preceding growth demonstrated that reddit is capable of generating large, biased communities that can dominate the site.
- mercurial 11y ago
  I don't use r/videos, but r/worldnews is the youtube of reddit: full of bigoted, intolerant, can-barely-form-a-coherent-thought, what's-spelling posts. In my experience, it has remained pretty much consistent over time.
- derefr 11y ago
  > I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words These subreddits are big enough that their userbases are converging toward a statistically-normal sampling of the world population. To the degree to which the world contains prejudiced people, so will large subreddits. To the degree to which the world contains groups that venerate prejudice, prejudiced comments on large subreddits will be upvoted. The big difference between a large subreddit, and the world-at-large, is that the majority cannot hang the implicit threat of mob violence over a disliked minority. In the world-at-large, disliked minorities usually meet in secret because they fear what would happen if they were outspoken in the presence of the majority. On a subreddit, there is no such fear to throttle behavior. As long as that fact remains true, large open online communities will always be outspoken-minority cesspools.
  - throwawaymaroon 11y ago
    This is a straightforward way of saying the problem people have here isn't with Reddit, but with humanity.
    - learning_still 11y ago
      I think the only problem here is that not everyone can handle the internet. And worse, instead of realizing this, they expect websites to cater to their special needs. They are expecting websites to babysit them, to put people they don't like on timeouts, to exclude participation from anyone they don't like. This has been a huge issue since the internet became popularized. Things were not always this way.
      - tomlock 11y ago
        To quote another one of your comments: "The case seems pretty clear to me. You are free to create any subreddit you see fit, and moderate it however you wish. Why should every existing subreddit be forced to conform to your personal sensitivities? Just go make your own subreddit." So, why don't you create your own internet? You really could if you wanted to. It seems like you feel entitled to the internet, whereas people on the other side can't feel entitled to generic subreddits?
- eertami 11y ago
  >Using your analogy, I'm not upset because I can walk into a hall called "coontown" and see racism; I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words. Since I've been using reddit for some time now there has been a very noticeable shift in the status quo when it comes to the level of discourse and the amount of hate speech that shows up, and I'm really not happy with it. What do you expect to happen when you start removing those halls where people can go talk freely about it? It's not like the subscribers suddenly disappear when you ban a subreddit. They stay there, but without a place for the content they like they will take that same content to other places.
  - Excavator 11y ago
    As I see it, the issues are mainly caused by SRS being allowed to police the site. Not only closing "venting chambers" but also causing a lot of backlash and increasingly severe behaviour due to their harassment. Harassment on the level of harassing or threatening family, friends, and co-workers of their target.
  - res0nat0r 11y ago
    That was happening long before any type of this subreddit "crisis" and overreacting drama.
- learning_still 11y ago
  So what exactly are you proposing. Are you saying that the large subreddits that appear on the front page should be replaced with other subs because the moderators aren't doing a good enough job of excluding the kind of participation you want them to exclude?
- kobayashi 11y ago
  Hopefully more of the bigots will continue their migration to Voat and reddit might perhaps 'revert' to its more reasonable, tolerant roots
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- wtbob 11y ago
  > I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words Yeah, well I'm upset because I walk into a hall called 'politics' and see people throwing around stereotypes about anyone who's not a coastal leftist with great prejudice behind their words. I am, actually. I remember when one could actually have a somewhat decent political conversation in /r/politics. But, well, that's life. Perhaps it helps to think of the subreddit labels as merely suggestions. Each community is what it is, despite its label.
- lagadu 11y ago
  Those two are very large, general subs. You find sexism and racism in them as you would in any other semi-randomly sampled population extracted from the planet. You're actually angry that the subs are large enough to contain people whose opinions you don't agree with, which is exactly like the real world.
shinigami 11y ago
Sure, you can avoid the hate-specific subreddits. The problem is that this kind of behaviour is mostly everywhere in reddit.

wetmore 11y ago

As a heavy reddit user for the past 5 or 6 years I'd say the issue of intolerance on reddit is not entirely the fact that there are subreddits for racist or sexist ideals. What bothers me most is the way racism and sexism has seeped into the general site culture. The large subreddits which appear on an unregistered user's frontpage are full of comments and submissions whose magnitude of upvotes paint a picture of a casually intolerant status quo. Using your analogy, I'm not upset because I can walk into a hall called "coontown" and see racism; I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words. Since I've been using reddit for some time now there has been a very noticeable shift in the status quo when it comes to the level of discourse and the amount of hate speech that shows up, and I'm really not happy with it.

pil4rin 11y ago
Take a look at http://redditenhancementsuite.com/features.html http://redditenhancementsuite.com/features.html I understand your issue is with the underlying platform and it's users, however, RES will allow you to setup filters by word- across all subs. I believe alienblue (the reddit client for iOS) allows for this functionality as well.
mreiland 11y ago
then unsubscribe from /r/videos and /r/worldnews. problem solved and done so in a way that you have complete control over and doesn't impose yourself on others.
- anu_gupta 11y ago
  Or, better still, don't unsubscribe, and instead challenge the intolerance and prejudice. If you don't like that, then perhaps you can unsubscribe from places where people don't want to put up with this kind of behaviour.
  - stinkytaco 11y ago
    Hey! Someone is wrong on the Internet! Seriously, though, I find this is rarely a debate worth having, and certainly not in the quip-centric, 3 sentences or less culture that makes up Internet discussion boards. I would much rather pursue systemic solutions to problems like this than embark on trying to convert anonymous strangers.
  - mreiland 11y ago
    If reddit means so much to you that you're willing to spend the time brigading against it, be my guest. Just don't be surprised with many people (most?) don't want to put that sort of emotional investment into a news aggregation site.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    >Or, better still, don't unsubscribe, and instead challenge the intolerance and prejudice. Good lord, no. 99% of the "intolerance and prejudice" is from out-and-out trolls. They're posting because they want to see a bunch of angry denunciations. Don't give them what they want.
- wetmore 11y ago
  But these are subreddits whose original purpose is to provide content I want to see, so the problem isn't solved.
  - chiph 11y ago
    Start your own subreddit for sharing content that you like.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
akira2501 11y ago
> Since I've been using reddit for some time now there has been a very noticeable shift in the status quo when it comes to the level of discourse and the amount of hate speech that shows up, and I'm really not happy with it. Are you sure this isn't just a personal bias? None of this is new on reddit, the volume has increased, sure.. but so has the general userbase of the site.
- bduerst 11y ago
  Reddit isn't static. I think the whole fatpeoplehate debacle and it's preceding growth demonstrated that reddit is capable of generating large, biased communities that can dominate the site.
mercurial 11y ago
I don't use r/videos, but r/worldnews is the youtube of reddit: full of bigoted, intolerant, can-barely-form-a-coherent-thought, what's-spelling posts. In my experience, it has remained pretty much consistent over time.
derefr 11y ago
> I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words These subreddits are big enough that their userbases are converging toward a statistically-normal sampling of the world population. To the degree to which the world contains prejudiced people, so will large subreddits. To the degree to which the world contains groups that venerate prejudice, prejudiced comments on large subreddits will be upvoted. The big difference between a large subreddit, and the world-at-large, is that the majority cannot hang the implicit threat of mob violence over a disliked minority. In the world-at-large, disliked minorities usually meet in secret because they fear what would happen if they were outspoken in the presence of the majority. On a subreddit, there is no such fear to throttle behavior. As long as that fact remains true, large open online communities will always be outspoken-minority cesspools.
- throwawaymaroon 11y ago
  This is a straightforward way of saying the problem people have here isn't with Reddit, but with humanity.
  - learning_still 11y ago
    I think the only problem here is that not everyone can handle the internet. And worse, instead of realizing this, they expect websites to cater to their special needs. They are expecting websites to babysit them, to put people they don't like on timeouts, to exclude participation from anyone they don't like. This has been a huge issue since the internet became popularized. Things were not always this way.
    - tomlock 11y ago
      To quote another one of your comments: "The case seems pretty clear to me. You are free to create any subreddit you see fit, and moderate it however you wish. Why should every existing subreddit be forced to conform to your personal sensitivities? Just go make your own subreddit." So, why don't you create your own internet? You really could if you wanted to. It seems like you feel entitled to the internet, whereas people on the other side can't feel entitled to generic subreddits?
eertami 11y ago
>Using your analogy, I'm not upset because I can walk into a hall called "coontown" and see racism; I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words. Since I've been using reddit for some time now there has been a very noticeable shift in the status quo when it comes to the level of discourse and the amount of hate speech that shows up, and I'm really not happy with it. What do you expect to happen when you start removing those halls where people can go talk freely about it? It's not like the subscribers suddenly disappear when you ban a subreddit. They stay there, but without a place for the content they like they will take that same content to other places.
- Excavator 11y ago
  As I see it, the issues are mainly caused by SRS being allowed to police the site. Not only closing "venting chambers" but also causing a lot of backlash and increasingly severe behaviour due to their harassment. Harassment on the level of harassing or threatening family, friends, and co-workers of their target.
- res0nat0r 11y ago
  That was happening long before any type of this subreddit "crisis" and overreacting drama.
learning_still 11y ago
So what exactly are you proposing. Are you saying that the large subreddits that appear on the front page should be replaced with other subs because the moderators aren't doing a good enough job of excluding the kind of participation you want them to exclude?
kobayashi 11y ago
Hopefully more of the bigots will continue their migration to Voat and reddit might perhaps 'revert' to its more reasonable, tolerant roots
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wtbob 11y ago
> I'm upset because I walk into a hall called "videos" or "worldnews" and see people throwing around stereotypes of women and minorities with great prejudice behind their words Yeah, well I'm upset because I walk into a hall called 'politics' and see people throwing around stereotypes about anyone who's not a coastal leftist with great prejudice behind their words. I am, actually. I remember when one could actually have a somewhat decent political conversation in /r/politics. But, well, that's life. Perhaps it helps to think of the subreddit labels as merely suggestions. Each community is what it is, despite its label.
lagadu 11y ago
Those two are very large, general subs. You find sexism and racism in them as you would in any other semi-randomly sampled population extracted from the planet. You're actually angry that the subs are large enough to contain people whose opinions you don't agree with, which is exactly like the real world.

shinigami 11y ago

Sure, you can avoid the hate-specific subreddits. The problem is that this kind of behaviour is mostly everywhere in reddit.