7 ms·
If Reddit can not handle free speech, Voat will. Once Voat is overrun by the enemies of free expression, someone else will take the helm and continue. Such is
by jjawssd 10y ago
If Reddit can not handle free speech, Voat will.
Once Voat is overrun by the enemies of free expression, someone else will take the helm and continue. Such is the nature of a free Internet.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoI would be perfectly happy if these "free speech lovers" were to decamp en masse for Voat.
- jjawssd 10y agoJust because you disagree with their opinion does not mean you should want to kick them out. They are not acting upon their views in any way that affects you. Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically. I disagree with almost everything they stand for, but their presence is crucial for an open discussion of issues in our global societies.
- chrisrhoden 10y agoReddit is under no obligation to support, nurture, or pay for the resources required to keep this up. They are under no obligation to implicitly condone this content, as they have taken on an editorial role in the past and now anything they don't ban is in contrast to those things they have. As you pointed out, it's the web. There are many web hosts that will refuse you service for hosting pornography. That doesn't prevent anyone from finding one that will allow it.
- mordocai 10y agoTechnically you are 100% correct. They are definitely within their rights, as are twitter and facebook. The problem is that we've got a de facto (as opposed to de jure) "censorship" system going on where people with undesired opinions are being forced (whether they wanted it or not) into echo chambers. "Censorship" just forces people underground to talk amongst other people with the same opinions. While it has some kind of measurable effect on preventing impressionable people from being exposed to their opinions, it also prevents people from discussing alternative views with the ones who were "censored". This is a large part of the reason why everyone was blindsided by Trump, the trump supporters were largely either not speaking up due to social penalties for doing so or only talking on-line in forums where other people agreed with them. If the goal is to "defeat" the alt-right movement, then I don't think it is necessarily obvious that banning them is the right move. As I said though, maybe it is since it does limit exposure to their views which in theory limits their membership. Note: Scare quoted censorship due to it not being government run which is what people usually mean when they say censorship.
- jjawssd 10y ago> the trump supporters were largely either not speaking up due to social penalties for doing so or only talking on-line in forums where other people agreed with them. This is the key takeaway IMO
- kiba 10y agoIf they can't voice their opinion in a respectful manner, I don't see why we have to listen to their garbage. Every site in the world, if they don't want to be a cesspool full of trolls and baiters, will have to moderate.
- mordocai 10y agoOne of the big problems here though is thing like twitter's recent behavior(I'm using twitter as an example but other sites do it too). You can say something hateful, disrespectful, and even threatening to/about a white person(or people) and twitter doesn't care even if you are reported. However if you say the same thing about/to a black person (or people) [literally the same sentence with only those words switched out] then when reported you will be banned. If twitter(and others) would actually apply their rules fairly, a lot of people would be a lot less upset.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- basch 10y agoare mockery and satire respectful? what does that make Stewart, Colbert, Bee, Meyers, and Oliver? how about SRD and SRS? they are assholes too but they deserve their space to mock people they disagree with. should /r/atheism be banned for its disrespect towards religion? /r/atheism has the same fervent hate towards people of belief. you dont have to listen to those subreddits. dont subscribe to them. dont hang out in /r/all if you cant handle seeing things you disagree with. you just called other peoples views a cesspool of garbage, and youre advocating respect.
- 10y ago
- jjawssd 10y agoWhy isn't Spez able to arbitrarily delete subreddits? Why isn't Twitter starting mass deportations? I don't see any reason for them to wait. They can get started right away. It's easy to write a regex that identifies Trump supporters and eliminates their accounts quickly. Why haven't we started yet?
- deadbunny 10y agoAnd reddit has on multiple occasions refused people the right to "totally free expression". Freedom of speech is about the government not shutting you down for airing your views, not a company.
- basch 10y agofreedom of speech is a philosophy. the first amendment is an application of that philosophy codified into law. a company can by choose choose to value the philosophy of free speech, independent of the law. you cannot use the phrases "freedom of speech" and "the first amendment" interchangeably.
- ProAm 10y ago> Just because you disagree with their opinion does not mean you should want to kick them out I don't see why the admins don't just edit the posts? No need to ban things.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoHa ha, good one. Wasn't Reddit CEO's ass on fire recently for doing exactly that?
- trentlord 10y ago> Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically. Free expression of the truth is crucial for the government to uphold, but it's also absolutely crucial for private businesses to have a choice on how its members should behave. Insulting the deceased at a funeral won't physically hurt anyone, but the private organizers have every right to ban those being disrespectful.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago> Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically. Until it elects the sort of people who want to see me deported into positions of power. At which point am I obligated to hand them a free platform again?
- jjawssd 10y agoWhen you return legally
- joesmo 10y agoHow can you have an intelligent discussion without a lot of racism and hate thrown in? It's impossible.
- kiba 10y agoHacker News is already overran by "freedom haters". I don't see anyone fleeing for greener pasture.
- mordocai 10y agoHow would you see that? It isn't the real world where you could see less people around or something.
- MK999 10y agoJust a modern day book burning by the tolerant Left. Where's all those people around here that quote (the illogical expression) "I don't agree with you but I'll die for your right to say it" I guess that's just an bad faith argument to be used when convenient.
- jjawssd 10y agoWhat's wrong with that? You aren't entitled to freedom of expression on any particular platform run by a private entity. Freedom of expression only applies to the government.
- Senji 10y agoFreedom of expression is an ideal my dim friend.
- mordocai 10y agoWhat if all the major places of discourse ban your speech? Isn't that basically the same as the government doing so? Sure, it doesn't violate the constitution but it still is a serious issue.
- MK999 10y agoIf you really start saying things they don't like you will lose your ability to get snail-mail (in Canada). I can just hear it now... what's the big deal the Canada Post is under no obligation to do business with you.
- ideonexus 10y agoIronic that you've made this comment on HackerNews, a site, it can be argued, whose appeal comes from its pretty substantial moderation. I can't tell you how many links I've seen flagged and banished from HN that I thought were important, but... once I cooled down my outrage, I realized the conversations occurring on them were pretty toxic. I come to HN because of the focus and constructive dialogue. I stay away from Reddit (and long ago abandoned /.) because of the toxicity. Yes. The alt-right and the_donald reddit community members can move to a less-popular platform, but that doesn't necessarily mean that platform has just become more popular. It means the loudest, most-obnoxious people have just lost their Reddit audience. When 1% of commenters are making 90% of the posts, that's no longer a dialogue and that drives away readers. Encouraging polite dialogue and policing abusive behaviors are smart business moves for Reddit and Twitter.
- mozumder 10y agoTwitter's become absolutely toxic as well. It's gone insane. They really need to get rid of the Trumpian right-wingers from that platform or it'll end up being harmful to their business. No advertiser is interested in putting out their message right where a random guy can immediately reply with "LIAR!" for everyone to see.
- inimino 10y agoThe trouble with Twitter is there are no downvotes.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- basch 10y agoI frequent hackernews and /r/askhistorians because of strong moderation. I support free speech. Communities being moderated are different than platforms being exclusive to certain communities. (I consider hackernews to be a community not a platform due to its strict focus.) I can choose which communities to ignore, lurk in and participate with. I dont support extinguishing communities I choose to ignore. You get what you get when you choose to congregate at the firehose nozzles of twitter and /r/all
- laurent123456 10y agoIt's not really a free speech issue to be honest. As far as I can tell some of these sub-reddits, like the_donald in particular, are well organised and know how to push their posts to the front page (the rare time I open /r/all, their posts are almost always among the top ones, despite being very low quality content). So it's no about censoring free speech, it's about making the idiot shouting his opinions with a megaphone on the street to do it somewhere else, or at the very least to drop the megaphone.
- jjawssd 10y agoSpez has already weighted that subreddit so it rarely shows up on the front page. Why hasn't he outright deleted the subreddit?
- basch 10y ago/r/all is not the front page. t_d is not a front page default subreddit. people should not visit /r/all if they dislike seeing the firehose. or get gold and use filters and strengthen your filter bubble walls.
- nilkn 10y agoThis is what confuses me the most. t_d never shows up on my front page because I'm not subscribed there. If there's a significant amount of content you don't want to see, why are so many people choosing to look at /r/all?
- basch 10y agoPeople want /r/all to be a community of stuff they like, without stuff they disagree with. Those people seem to disagree with the idea of a content agnostic platform. How would those people feel if gmail stopped delivering ultra left liberal emails.
- Dylan16807 10y agoWeighted? No, they changed it against single subreddits dominating in general.
- d_e_solomon 10y agoYes, everyone leaves for Voat, Voat crashes, and then everyone goes back to Reddit. Most people go to Reddit for their cat memes, not to hate on people.
- jjawssd 10y agoCorrect. And those people which are easily offended should not stray outside of their cat meme subreddits. And all will be well.
- maxerickson 10y agoIt would be even more well if all the porcupines that are so proud of their prickly needles would grow into pretty badgers.
- trentlord 10y agoThey could always go to Stormfront...
- DanBC 10y agoVoat won't get taken over by the enemies of free expression. That's not how it'll fail. Voat will fail because there's a lack of people to harass on voat, and you're not allowed to use voat to brigade other services.