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>and that the emotional state of a listener is the responsibility of the speaker Reddit is not a nonprofit Free Speech machine. It's a business. So, yes, the e

>and that the emotional state of a listener is the responsibility of the speaker Reddit is not a nonprofit Free Speech machine. It's a business. So, yes, the emotional state of the listener -- in so far as that emotional state (positive or negative) is a determiner of traffic and therefore returns for investors -- is the responsiblity of the speaker (the website itself). I thought by now we had shed our idealism about platforms and corporations. We've mocked Google's now-defunct "Don't Be Evil" for years. The idea that Facebook is just a way for distant friends to stay connected has been subsumed by the reality that it's actually a privacy nightmare. But the myth that Reddit exists as a bastion of free speech at all costs has somehow held firm. It's puzzling.

Karunamon 11y ago
Myth? The site founders are on record in multiple places calling the site explicitly a place for free speech.
- intopieces 11y ago
  And yet here they are, "censoring" their site to rid itself of content that makes advertisers recoil. Corporate myths exist because the organization benefits from their propogation. Reddit likes to tout itself as a bastion of free speech, but all of us can read the writing on the wall: unfettered free speech is unpalatable to the groups that fund such platforms.
  - lhc- 11y ago
    To be fair, most of the things they deleted were also unpalatable to the vast majority of users, not just advertisers, and many were actively detracting from Reddit as a whole. Why shouldn't Reddit be allowed to do what is best for the group? They have no obligation to provide anything to trolls.
    - intopieces 11y ago
      Excellent point. Advertisers don't act unilaterally to content based on morality they came up with themselves. Ultimately they are concerned with the perception of their brand by the same people who visit the website and experience the "offensive" content. The people who are asking for the offensive content to remain on the site are not asking for "free speech" because Reddit isn't free. They're asked for "sponsored speech" -- they want the people who pay for the servers (directly) to sponsor their hate speech, or the hate speech of others. If this is how Reddit would like to run things, it should become a non-profit and operate on donations. I'm a member of three websites that feature message boards and operate like this. No ads, no data tracking, all funded by donations. The rules vary in strictness among them.
- bduerst 11y ago
  I think there is a common misconception here. Even John Stuart Mill, one of the biggest proponents of free speech philosophy, was okay in limiting free speech when allowing it would harm or cause damage to others. SCOTUS has also explicitly stated that first amendment (gov censorship) rights do not apply to threats of violence. The reddit execs have said as much through their communications, that they're okay with allowing hateful and biased communities so long as they're not targeting, damaging, or causing harm to individuals. People are misinterpreting that as reddit being a "bastion of free speech" without fully understanding what free speech really is.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    ..but then they turn around and flatten said communities out of annoyance. A lot of subreddits with the same idea as FatPeopleHate got swept up in their ban despite being run by different people and having never harassed anyone. A racist subreddit was banned out of some vague argument of being the focus of a lot of their time. (In other words, not for violating the rules.) It feels very much like another instance of what intopieces just described, a transparent PR lie.
    - bduerst 11y ago
      That's exactly the point - they're banning behavior, not ideas. They didn't ban all racist or biased communities, just the ones that they saw causing harmful and damaging behavior. Or evading the bans. And before you demand internal information, just imagine the witch hunt that would start if Reddit had released the evidence of such behavior. That would have caused even more harm, even against innocent bystanders. The fact that they selectively banned communities based on their behavior and not their ideas proves they are for free speech, but it's not the "bastion of free speech" that some people interpret it as.
      - Karunamon 11y ago
        ..did you miss the part where I said that subreddits who had explicitly not broken any rules were banned?
brianpgordon 11y ago
The site is a community and is only profitable at the whim of its users. Those users were pitched the idea of a "Free Speech Machine." If the company Reddit doesn't deliver on that promise, the users will go somewhere else- as demonstrated by the Pao blackouts. Don't be so eager to defend a corporation's right to be profitable. They also have to satisfy their customers/users.
- intopieces 11y ago
  >as demonstrated by the Pao blackouts. The Pao blackouts were orchestrated by the moderators, a group whose influence I did fail to consider. They're essentially Reddit's paying users, insofar as they pay with their time. Advertisers pay the server cost, though, so I imagine that in an all out battle between the two, Reddit would switch to being completely closed. I understand the community aspect has a wide appeal, but I wonder how much of the revenue-generating userbase exploits that aspect. Are most users subscribed to communities they choose, or are most users subscribed only to the default subreddits? >Don't be so eager to defend a corporation's right to be profitable. I neither condemn nor defend. I'm only interested in getting a realistic view of how Reddit plans to proceed as a company and website. Part of that is analyzing who is making decisions and who is influencing those who make decisions.

Karunamon 11y ago

Myth? The site founders are on record in multiple places calling the site explicitly a place for free speech.

intopieces 11y ago
And yet here they are, "censoring" their site to rid itself of content that makes advertisers recoil. Corporate myths exist because the organization benefits from their propogation. Reddit likes to tout itself as a bastion of free speech, but all of us can read the writing on the wall: unfettered free speech is unpalatable to the groups that fund such platforms.
- lhc- 11y ago
  To be fair, most of the things they deleted were also unpalatable to the vast majority of users, not just advertisers, and many were actively detracting from Reddit as a whole. Why shouldn't Reddit be allowed to do what is best for the group? They have no obligation to provide anything to trolls.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    Excellent point. Advertisers don't act unilaterally to content based on morality they came up with themselves. Ultimately they are concerned with the perception of their brand by the same people who visit the website and experience the "offensive" content. The people who are asking for the offensive content to remain on the site are not asking for "free speech" because Reddit isn't free. They're asked for "sponsored speech" -- they want the people who pay for the servers (directly) to sponsor their hate speech, or the hate speech of others. If this is how Reddit would like to run things, it should become a non-profit and operate on donations. I'm a member of three websites that feature message boards and operate like this. No ads, no data tracking, all funded by donations. The rules vary in strictness among them.
bduerst 11y ago
I think there is a common misconception here. Even John Stuart Mill, one of the biggest proponents of free speech philosophy, was okay in limiting free speech when allowing it would harm or cause damage to others. SCOTUS has also explicitly stated that first amendment (gov censorship) rights do not apply to threats of violence. The reddit execs have said as much through their communications, that they're okay with allowing hateful and biased communities so long as they're not targeting, damaging, or causing harm to individuals. People are misinterpreting that as reddit being a "bastion of free speech" without fully understanding what free speech really is.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  ..but then they turn around and flatten said communities out of annoyance. A lot of subreddits with the same idea as FatPeopleHate got swept up in their ban despite being run by different people and having never harassed anyone. A racist subreddit was banned out of some vague argument of being the focus of a lot of their time. (In other words, not for violating the rules.) It feels very much like another instance of what intopieces just described, a transparent PR lie.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    That's exactly the point - they're banning behavior, not ideas. They didn't ban all racist or biased communities, just the ones that they saw causing harmful and damaging behavior. Or evading the bans. And before you demand internal information, just imagine the witch hunt that would start if Reddit had released the evidence of such behavior. That would have caused even more harm, even against innocent bystanders. The fact that they selectively banned communities based on their behavior and not their ideas proves they are for free speech, but it's not the "bastion of free speech" that some people interpret it as.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      ..did you miss the part where I said that subreddits who had explicitly not broken any rules were banned?

brianpgordon 11y ago

The site is a community and is only profitable at the whim of its users. Those users were pitched the idea of a "Free Speech Machine." If the company Reddit doesn't deliver on that promise, the users will go somewhere else- as demonstrated by the Pao blackouts. Don't be so eager to defend a corporation's right to be profitable. They also have to satisfy their customers/users.

intopieces 11y ago
>as demonstrated by the Pao blackouts. The Pao blackouts were orchestrated by the moderators, a group whose influence I did fail to consider. They're essentially Reddit's paying users, insofar as they pay with their time. Advertisers pay the server cost, though, so I imagine that in an all out battle between the two, Reddit would switch to being completely closed. I understand the community aspect has a wide appeal, but I wonder how much of the revenue-generating userbase exploits that aspect. Are most users subscribed to communities they choose, or are most users subscribed only to the default subreddits? >Don't be so eager to defend a corporation's right to be profitable. I neither condemn nor defend. I'm only interested in getting a realistic view of how Reddit plans to proceed as a company and website. Part of that is analyzing who is making decisions and who is influencing those who make decisions.