23 ms·

Redditors are outraged at r/news moderator's handling of Orlando shooting news

23 points by arprocter 10y ago

Sorry_Rum_Ham 10y ago
The way the entire thing was handled was deplorable. I got shadowbanned for posting a link to a BBC article on the shooting, which I only did because I thought it was weird as shit that it seemed like no one had done so yet.
abritinthebay 10y ago
Given the cess-pit of right-wing hate that erupts on /r/news (helped in no small part by users from The_Donald)... this is not a surprise. Heavy handed? Sure, agreed. But not a surprise. Telling level of dog whistles in all those comments too - talking about how white people are oppressed/discriminated against. Just another day in alt-right shit-posting ppl, nothing to see here.
- JPKab 10y ago
  As a left-wing dude who voted for (and campaigned for) Obama in 2008 and 2012, I strongly disagree with your premise. Censorship is censorship, and the Reddit users do a fine job of downvoting the speech they view as not contributing to the conversation. I think a term that is often used by conservatives (as well as folks like Bill Maher) is getting sadly accurate: the regressive left. The first step of the regressive left in silencing opinions they don't agree with, instead of simply countering those opinions with their own, is to label that speech and/or the person using it as some form of hate speech. Once the speech and/or the person is labelled (subjectively) as such, they are sufficiently dehumanized to make them unworthy of being heard and/or argued with. It hurts us when we do this. The people in the middle who might actually be swayed in an argument see the silencing of dissent, and it makes them hate us.
  - deciplex 10y ago
    Just a quick thought experiment out of curiosity: Say you've got a tribe of 100 people, and 80 of them basically agree on most things, and amicably sort out their disagreements when they don't, and are able to work together most of the time. Then, you've got the other 20 people, who scream and bitch about every fucking thing, and constantly insist that some small number of people among the 80 are "out to get them" and "destroy the tribe" and demonize them, and it's always some slightly different subset of the 80 every time such that most people, at one point or another, are slurred as tribe-hating traitors. The main contribution these 20 make to tribal society is, at best, to grab the mic at every opportunity so it takes 10x longer to resolve an issue than it otherwise would, and at worst to pit everyone against everyone else and cause brand new problems that weren't there before. Is there ever a point where the tribe is justified in exiling these 20 people? Now, I know that tribal politics do not scale exactly to national politics, but do you think there is a point where we can say that some group of people have had their say, and then some and it's time for them to shut the fuck up so we can carry on with our god damn business?
    - snerbles 10y ago
      At what point have they have had their say? When does it go from merely saying that the minority has said too much, toward actively crushing their ability to say things that annoy the majority?
      - deciplex 10y ago
        I suppose it goes from one to the other around the time that the minority has actually successfully dominated the discussion well out of proportion to their numbers. I think the far-right in America has been successful at this via movement conservatism for the past few decades, and definitely falls in scope. Again, when is enough, enough? Is there any point at which you are comfortable - again at a societal level not as an act of Congress or something - with informing these people that their positions are unpopular and hated, and they need to, and if they refuse will be made to (e.g. r/news reaction here), quit hogging the public discourse in favor of some other people with fresher ideas? I mean, it's not like "gays shouldn't be married, Muslims should be banned, taxation is theft, Obama isn't eligible for office, Hillary left people to die in Benghazi for no reason at all, black people are fools for the Democratic party, Mexicans are both lazy moochers and taking all our jobs, and on and on and on and on and on" hasn't gotten a fair hearing. Not according to my Facebook feed, anyway. So, again, at what point is it okay to tell these overbearing loudmouths to shut the fuck up and give the 80 other people in the room a chance to speak? Is it ever okay? Should we doom ourselves to rule by the loud and obstinate?
  - abritinthebay 10y ago
    I assume you're not a hypocrite and believe down voting is bad as well? As would any moderation? If so... carry on. I can respect that. It's a completely impractical idea but at least it's consistent.
    - nailer 10y ago
      Downvoting dissenting opinion at least doesn't remove any record of the dissent.
    - JPKab 10y ago
      Technically, downvoting is supposed to be used in a community on comments which don't add anything to the conversation, but of course this is abused to simply squash differing opinions. The key difference is downvotes don't come from a central authority, they come from the crowd. Not good or ideal, but different.
- Sorry_Rum_Ham 10y ago
  It doesn't surprise you that comments simply pointing out where to go donate blood for the victims of the mass shooting were removed without explanation? Is donating blood to victims of a mass shooting an alt-right, Islamophobic thing?
- nailer 10y ago
  Reddit admins half apologizing for the /r/news fiasco (including deleting BBC links as hate speech, mods telling users to kill themselves) and avoiding questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4ny59k/lets_talk_about_orlando/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4ny59k/lets_...

23 points by arprocter 10y ago

The way the entire thing was handled was deplorable. I got shadowbanned for posting a link to a BBC article on the shooting, which I only did because I thought it was weird as shit that it seemed like no one had done so yet.

abritinthebay 10y ago

Given the cess-pit of right-wing hate that erupts on /r/news (helped in no small part by users from The_Donald)... this is not a surprise. Heavy handed? Sure, agreed. But not a surprise. Telling level of dog whistles in all those comments too - talking about how white people are oppressed/discriminated against. Just another day in alt-right shit-posting ppl, nothing to see here.

JPKab 10y ago
As a left-wing dude who voted for (and campaigned for) Obama in 2008 and 2012, I strongly disagree with your premise. Censorship is censorship, and the Reddit users do a fine job of downvoting the speech they view as not contributing to the conversation. I think a term that is often used by conservatives (as well as folks like Bill Maher) is getting sadly accurate: the regressive left. The first step of the regressive left in silencing opinions they don't agree with, instead of simply countering those opinions with their own, is to label that speech and/or the person using it as some form of hate speech. Once the speech and/or the person is labelled (subjectively) as such, they are sufficiently dehumanized to make them unworthy of being heard and/or argued with. It hurts us when we do this. The people in the middle who might actually be swayed in an argument see the silencing of dissent, and it makes them hate us.
- deciplex 10y ago
  Just a quick thought experiment out of curiosity: Say you've got a tribe of 100 people, and 80 of them basically agree on most things, and amicably sort out their disagreements when they don't, and are able to work together most of the time. Then, you've got the other 20 people, who scream and bitch about every fucking thing, and constantly insist that some small number of people among the 80 are "out to get them" and "destroy the tribe" and demonize them, and it's always some slightly different subset of the 80 every time such that most people, at one point or another, are slurred as tribe-hating traitors. The main contribution these 20 make to tribal society is, at best, to grab the mic at every opportunity so it takes 10x longer to resolve an issue than it otherwise would, and at worst to pit everyone against everyone else and cause brand new problems that weren't there before. Is there ever a point where the tribe is justified in exiling these 20 people? Now, I know that tribal politics do not scale exactly to national politics, but do you think there is a point where we can say that some group of people have had their say, and then some and it's time for them to shut the fuck up so we can carry on with our god damn business?
  - snerbles 10y ago
    At what point have they have had their say? When does it go from merely saying that the minority has said too much, toward actively crushing their ability to say things that annoy the majority?
    - deciplex 10y ago
      I suppose it goes from one to the other around the time that the minority has actually successfully dominated the discussion well out of proportion to their numbers. I think the far-right in America has been successful at this via movement conservatism for the past few decades, and definitely falls in scope. Again, when is enough, enough? Is there any point at which you are comfortable - again at a societal level not as an act of Congress or something - with informing these people that their positions are unpopular and hated, and they need to, and if they refuse will be made to (e.g. r/news reaction here), quit hogging the public discourse in favor of some other people with fresher ideas? I mean, it's not like "gays shouldn't be married, Muslims should be banned, taxation is theft, Obama isn't eligible for office, Hillary left people to die in Benghazi for no reason at all, black people are fools for the Democratic party, Mexicans are both lazy moochers and taking all our jobs, and on and on and on and on and on" hasn't gotten a fair hearing. Not according to my Facebook feed, anyway. So, again, at what point is it okay to tell these overbearing loudmouths to shut the fuck up and give the 80 other people in the room a chance to speak? Is it ever okay? Should we doom ourselves to rule by the loud and obstinate?
- abritinthebay 10y ago
  I assume you're not a hypocrite and believe down voting is bad as well? As would any moderation? If so... carry on. I can respect that. It's a completely impractical idea but at least it's consistent.
  - nailer 10y ago
    Downvoting dissenting opinion at least doesn't remove any record of the dissent.
  - JPKab 10y ago
    Technically, downvoting is supposed to be used in a community on comments which don't add anything to the conversation, but of course this is abused to simply squash differing opinions. The key difference is downvotes don't come from a central authority, they come from the crowd. Not good or ideal, but different.
Sorry_Rum_Ham 10y ago
It doesn't surprise you that comments simply pointing out where to go donate blood for the victims of the mass shooting were removed without explanation? Is donating blood to victims of a mass shooting an alt-right, Islamophobic thing?
nailer 10y ago
Reddit admins half apologizing for the /r/news fiasco (including deleting BBC links as hate speech, mods telling users to kill themselves) and avoiding questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4ny59k/lets_talk_about_orlando/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4ny59k/lets_...