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Many large(and small) subreddits are highly censored. r/worldnews r/news r/europe to name a few. Here's a recent example, not even the most egregious,

by cb18 10y ago

Many large(and small) subreddits are highly censored. r/worldnews r/news r/europe to name a few. Here's a recent example, not even the most egregious, just a recent one. https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4ew68z/half_of_all_jobless_in_sweden_are_foreigners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4ew68z/half_of_a... Noticed how many xx deep comment threads voted high up in the comment stack have been excised from the discussion. It's disgusting. It's very often the case that the top voted contributions have been 'disappeared.' Again, just disgusting. What exactly is the point of a 'democratic' news site, if there is this constant intervention from unaccountable authorities, constantly policing what information and opinions are allowed to be discussed. Any information outside the scope of a narrow ideological agenda is summarily terminated. Is this the public square of the future that we want? kn0thing, spez, What are your thoughts?

DanBC 10y ago
...and yet when anyone talks about a good subreddit it's almost always a sub that has strict rules and vigorous moderation, or a tiny sub that has a tiny number of users.
- cb18 10y ago
  Well, I'm saying those are bad subs, because they have 'vigorous' moderation. So subs with 'strict, vigorous moderation' is not a feature that automatically connotes, good sub.
  - azernik 10y ago
    Well, they're the subreddits that get cited whenever anyone talks about the glorious goodness of reddit: /r/ama, /r/iama, /r/askscience, /r/syriancivilwar (cited by news organizations as a source and informing their methodology)... Moderation doesn't automatically connote good subs, but the correlation is very strong.
braythwayt 10y ago
And yet, you can start your own damn subreddit. You can talk about anything you want, even violent, openly racist stuff. You can decide not to moderate it at all. So clearly, you can talk about nearly anything you want on reddit. Your problem is that you want to be able to talk about anything you want in somebody else’s subreddit. It’s as if you move onto my street, live in a perfectly good house, but complain about the fact that you can’t do whatever you like in my house. Freedom to say whatever you want is not the same thing as forcing other people to pay attention to it. You need to either find like-minded people moderating a like-minded subreddit, or find a way to get other people interested in your own subreddit. This business of demanding that everybody else give you a platform because “freedom of speech” is flat-out wrong.
- lumberjack 10y ago
  The point (of the problem on reddit) as a I see it has less to do with free speech and more to do with malicious moderation intended as a means of propaganda.
  - braythwayt 10y ago
    One person’s editorial policy is another’s malicious propaganda. Either way, the moderators control the content and I agree that it’s important not to confuse a private platform (like a subreddit or even reddit as a whole) with a free platform. Your own blog is the only free platform (for non-extreme definitions of “free.”) All other media involve some sort of overt or more subtle curation.
lumberjack 10y ago
I don't know why you are downvoted. What you say is entirely accurate. In particular /r/europe which I used to frequent is horribly biased. When TTIP was in the news all negative criticism of TTIP was censored. If you visited the subreddit you'd think 100% of European redditors were pro-TTIP fanatics.

by cb18 10y ago

DanBC 10y ago

...and yet when anyone talks about a good subreddit it's almost always a sub that has strict rules and vigorous moderation, or a tiny sub that has a tiny number of users.

cb18 10y ago
Well, I'm saying those are bad subs, because they have 'vigorous' moderation. So subs with 'strict, vigorous moderation' is not a feature that automatically connotes, good sub.
- azernik 10y ago
  Well, they're the subreddits that get cited whenever anyone talks about the glorious goodness of reddit: /r/ama, /r/iama, /r/askscience, /r/syriancivilwar (cited by news organizations as a source and informing their methodology)... Moderation doesn't automatically connote good subs, but the correlation is very strong.

braythwayt 10y ago

And yet, you can start your own damn subreddit. You can talk about anything you want, even violent, openly racist stuff. You can decide not to moderate it at all. So clearly, you can talk about nearly anything you want on reddit. Your problem is that you want to be able to talk about anything you want in somebody else’s subreddit. It’s as if you move onto my street, live in a perfectly good house, but complain about the fact that you can’t do whatever you like in my house. Freedom to say whatever you want is not the same thing as forcing other people to pay attention to it. You need to either find like-minded people moderating a like-minded subreddit, or find a way to get other people interested in your own subreddit. This business of demanding that everybody else give you a platform because “freedom of speech” is flat-out wrong.

lumberjack 10y ago
The point (of the problem on reddit) as a I see it has less to do with free speech and more to do with malicious moderation intended as a means of propaganda.
- braythwayt 10y ago
  One person’s editorial policy is another’s malicious propaganda. Either way, the moderators control the content and I agree that it’s important not to confuse a private platform (like a subreddit or even reddit as a whole) with a free platform. Your own blog is the only free platform (for non-extreme definitions of “free.”) All other media involve some sort of overt or more subtle curation.

lumberjack 10y ago

I don't know why you are downvoted. What you say is entirely accurate. In particular /r/europe which I used to frequent is horribly biased. When TTIP was in the news all negative criticism of TTIP was censored. If you visited the subreddit you'd think 100% of European redditors were pro-TTIP fanatics.