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Reddit has some fantastic and fascinating communities and really interesting cult-like ones (/r/nofap) However I'd like to point out the admin policy towards h

Reddit has some fantastic and fascinating communities and really interesting cult-like ones (/r/nofap) However I'd like to point out the admin policy towards hate groups and speech on reddit is in my opinion incredibly dangerous and damaging to our society. They will take action against subreddits like FPH (fat people hate) because of "real life" actions, meawhile there are thousands of highly upvoted calls to violence daily. Is this just a reflection of our society? Probably but I'm always interested to see which sites allow what. Here's what Jack Dorsey had to say about it regarding twitters ban on hate speech "Abuse is not part of civil discourse. It shuts down conversation and prevents us from understanding each other. Freedom of expression means little if we allow voices to be silenced because of fear of harassment if they speak up" As a minority I've stopped using reddit and know many others like me, the ones that stay stick around to drop in "As a [insert minority group]...it's totally OK that this racist meme is highly upvoted with racist comments - because its a joke ha ha" posts The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as another poster argued. Is it fair to say it's their responsibility to police society when they just run the platform? Probably not, but I do know there's a big problem here and it's causing immense damage daily, racism and xenophobia are on the rise.

eagletusk 9y ago
I concur r/nofap is an amazing sub-reddit where random people are genuinely offering encouragement to each other. It's great.
Simon321 9y ago
Well said.
DanielBMarkham 9y ago
Violent, hateful, disgusting speech has no place in civil discourse but it's irreplaceable in public discourse. That's kinda the problem. As a species, our entire communications spectrum can't be forced into either bucket. It has to exist in both. The kind of things I wouldn't tolerate at all around my family I'm fine tolerating around my friends. And the kind of things I wouldn't tolerate from a friend I'm fine tolerating as part of the public discourse. In fact, the last thing we want to do is use either minority or majority power to silence what folks consider "intolerable" speech. That way lies dragons. It's a difficult if not impossible spot for social networks to be in.
- ucarion 9y ago
  The commenter you replied to may have a point. Just because vile speech has a place in public discourse, doesn't mean it is good to present that speech in a very public way. Reddit is among the most widely-used websites in the world -- 7th, by Alexa's rankings. Reddit lives up to its motto of being the front page of the internet. Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing stuff from /r/The_Donald on its front page, and had content from various hateful sub-reddits a few pages back. You could argue that this imaginary publication harms society. Of course, Reddit is not the New York Times. So different standards apply. But the argument that Reddit -- and thus its administrators policies -- may be harming society, seems to hold some weight.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    >Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing stuff from /r/The_Donald on its front page, and had content from various hateful sub-reddits a few pages back. You could argue that this imaginary publication harms society. CNN and Infowars have the same number of subscribers on Youtube. Now, I'm no fan of CNN, but Infowars is a unique kind of gross in my opinion. To the extent that subscribing to a youtube channel connotes social value, apparently the world has decided that Infowars is approximately equal in value to CNN.
    - ucarion 9y ago
      YouTube subscribers is not a good measure of the reach, nor the social value, of a publication. YouTube is rife with crazy, conspiratorial, and provocative stuff, so you'd expect fringe outlets like InfoWars to do well there; people who like InfoWars are more likely to be active on YouTube than fans of CNN. Most people view CNN through TV or CNN.com; I suspect a much greater proportion of InfoWars's content is viewed through YouTube.
  - taurath 9y ago
    If 20 people were to stand up on a soapbox with a megaphone in times square screaming about /r/redpill, /r/fatpeoplehate, etc concepts they would be removed if legal, and if not legal a huge countermovement would appear to try to force them out. On Reddit you get both the megaphone and the safe space, but are still just as easily accessible to the public as anywhere. Its "real" freedom of information, without many of the mechanisms that larger society uses to fight back against it. Instead it is just ignored and left to fester and grow until it pops into the public forum at the point where huge efforts are required to fight it. I feel like the internet is a great way to get differing views out, but not a great way to build any cultural agreement.
urahara 9y ago
I came across one of Reddit's hate groups once and just couldn't believe my eyes. It felt like a swarm of psychopaths planning some isis-style chaos without anyone to stop them. This is the reason I don't use Reddit.
gigatexal 9y ago
Yeah the nofap group is insane – calling them a cult is spot on.
hrktb 9y ago
You seem to recognize reddit is mostly a set of somewhat independent community, yet view it as a problematic site for ‘minorities’. Did you face significant hurdles when only participating to subreddits that had decently behaved users ? I think at this point reddit is almost a good representation of the internet, and getting out of reddit because of shitty subs feels like taking distance from internet because of 4chan and YouTube comments.
- bllguo 9y ago
  parent explicitly mentions people making racial jokes and mentioning racial stereotypes. This occurs even in every large subreddit, well-behaved or not. They likely aren't even malicious on the part of the people who say them, but nevertheless, they are damaging comments to make, and I wouldn't blame people for leaving reddit because of them. that said there are plenty of small communities that are pleasant, sure. But some people would rather go elsewhere than take the time and effort to curate their subs, and that's perfectly reasonable.
  - nonamechicken 9y ago
    Indian user here. I avoid majority of Reddit's default sub because of this reason. Just yesterday, I accidentally came across on comment in /r/askreddit where they openly called Indian men as vulgar and rapey. When another Indian user questioned it, he was downvoted heavily. Honestly, 12 hours later, I am still angry. I think I will leave Reddit for good this time.
    - lsmarigo 9y ago
      I can relate man. It's soul crushing and hard to accept you just have to not participate to protect your sanity.
    - bllguo 9y ago
      right, exactly! this kind of casual discrimination that people pass off as a joke. Obviously not a reddit-exclusive phenomenon; it's commonplace IRL, but it's especially noticeable in large subs where people are encouraged to make pandering, low-effort comments that appeal to the lowest common denominator
jimmaswell 9y ago
It's often said that the admins simply only shut down a subreddit once its negative publicity is enough to start hurting the website's brand or ad revenue in some way.
- scottmf 9y ago
  Yep. They turn a blind eye to all of it because they profit from it. If I weren't so politically burnt out right now I'd call for a Reddit boycott. Either way this thread has reminded me to block it and delete my account because I'm done with that site after 10+ years.
  - lsmarigo 9y ago
    100%. They're not the only ones either, it's become the industry status quo for platforms to allow these groups to operate openly - Discord has the same policy and houses some of the largest organized hate groups online. You can make the case that this way at least they can keep tabs on them and give any relevant information to authorities when crimes are committed. To be clear I'm not trying to rail on the founders of these orgs, I can't say for sure that I'd do much better in their position, it's a business first after all.
- Grangar 9y ago
  That's what happened with FPH. They started calling out Imgur staff, that's what got them banned.
smokeyj 9y ago
Honest question. Why do you care what people post online? The great thing about reddit is that you get to choose which communities you subscribe to. Your mentality is the equivalent of "I can't go to bed. Someone on the internet is wrong". I think your basic premise is wrong - that "racism and xenophobia" are on the rise. You can't measure the number of people who aren't racist because you don't hear them. And before you argue that "not saying anything is being complicit" it's just not true. As a "minority" I just don't care what someone on the internet posts. It doesn't have power over me.
- SippinLean 9y ago
  Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well. Hatred and bigotry used to be contained in places like /the_donald and /WhiteRights but those users eventually browse /popular and leave their vitriol there as well. Having been on reddit for a decade it's sad to see it go from a tech/intellectual community to what it is now. I want real discussion, not arguing with racists. Seems reddit offers less and less of the former each day.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    > Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well. Is this really an issue? Are they going to /r/programming and dominating the conversation? Because I'm just not seeing it. I think that the quality of a community is inversely related to the size, which explains why reddit "used to be cool". But the reason I still use reddit is because you can subscribe to communities you want - and there are still many good ones. That said, there is room for improvement on the moderation side. I think a "peer-moderated" community would be awesome. Say for example, when a comment is flagged - a random but deterministic set of peers will make a judgement call. A "deterministic peer-jury" could be a useful mechanism for communities to grant voting/commenting/moderation rights. The bigger issue in my opinion is controlling the discussion via sock puppets and underhanded moderation.
    - SippinLean 9y ago
      Yes, it's a HUGE issue. Maybe not in /programming yet, but pretty much any thread dealing with a controversial topic (say, the killings of African-american citizens by police in the US) will be plastered with overt bigotry and hatred. It simply didn't used to be this way. The discussion used to be what I'd go to reddit for, now it's the part I avoid.
vkou 9y ago
> meawhile there are thousands of highly upvoted calls to violence daily. Is this just a reflection of our society? Probably but I'm always interested to see which sites allow what. Unfortunately, yes. Look at the comments for any news story about a protest. Half the commenters are shouting that the protest should be non-violent, while the other half are shouting that the police should beat and cripple the protestors. There is also intersection between these two groups. Or the people posting copy-pasta about how violent the Religion of Peace is, all the while advocating for glassing the countries it is prevalent in. Generally, calls to violence are taken quite seriously, but calls to the worst form of violence - war - are considered political.
Mz 9y ago
I created a Reddit account a few years ago. My initial attempts to engage Reddit went really badly and I walked away for a long time. I resumed using Reddit a few months ago and I am very selective in how I am interacting with it. I have health problems. Every single health "support group" (email list or forum) I have ever participated in has been a shit show. A recent attempt to post to a health Reddit reminded me of that. So, I started my own health related Reddit. I participate very little. I am trying to figure out how to create things that I want to have for myself, basically. I realize this is hard. I have been thrown out of a few different forums over the years and have simply walked away from others because of bullshit. But I am trying to find a path forward and not just throw in the towel and let the assholes have the internet because it is the path of least resistance. It may be the path of least resistance, but it impoverishes my life and I suspect it impoverishes the lives of a lot of other people as well.
NOSHSHNACKERS 9y ago
the ignore button works wonders.. I see so little crap now. I would pay for a curated ignore list

eagletusk 9y ago

I concur r/nofap is an amazing sub-reddit where random people are genuinely offering encouragement to each other. It's great.

Simon321 9y ago

Well said.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago

Violent, hateful, disgusting speech has no place in civil discourse but it's irreplaceable in public discourse. That's kinda the problem. As a species, our entire communications spectrum can't be forced into either bucket. It has to exist in both. The kind of things I wouldn't tolerate at all around my family I'm fine tolerating around my friends. And the kind of things I wouldn't tolerate from a friend I'm fine tolerating as part of the public discourse. In fact, the last thing we want to do is use either minority or majority power to silence what folks consider "intolerable" speech. That way lies dragons. It's a difficult if not impossible spot for social networks to be in.

ucarion 9y ago
The commenter you replied to may have a point. Just because vile speech has a place in public discourse, doesn't mean it is good to present that speech in a very public way. Reddit is among the most widely-used websites in the world -- 7th, by Alexa's rankings. Reddit lives up to its motto of being the front page of the internet. Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing stuff from /r/The_Donald on its front page, and had content from various hateful sub-reddits a few pages back. You could argue that this imaginary publication harms society. Of course, Reddit is not the New York Times. So different standards apply. But the argument that Reddit -- and thus its administrators policies -- may be harming society, seems to hold some weight.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  >Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing stuff from /r/The_Donald on its front page, and had content from various hateful sub-reddits a few pages back. You could argue that this imaginary publication harms society. CNN and Infowars have the same number of subscribers on Youtube. Now, I'm no fan of CNN, but Infowars is a unique kind of gross in my opinion. To the extent that subscribing to a youtube channel connotes social value, apparently the world has decided that Infowars is approximately equal in value to CNN.
  - ucarion 9y ago
    YouTube subscribers is not a good measure of the reach, nor the social value, of a publication. YouTube is rife with crazy, conspiratorial, and provocative stuff, so you'd expect fringe outlets like InfoWars to do well there; people who like InfoWars are more likely to be active on YouTube than fans of CNN. Most people view CNN through TV or CNN.com; I suspect a much greater proportion of InfoWars's content is viewed through YouTube.
- taurath 9y ago
  If 20 people were to stand up on a soapbox with a megaphone in times square screaming about /r/redpill, /r/fatpeoplehate, etc concepts they would be removed if legal, and if not legal a huge countermovement would appear to try to force them out. On Reddit you get both the megaphone and the safe space, but are still just as easily accessible to the public as anywhere. Its "real" freedom of information, without many of the mechanisms that larger society uses to fight back against it. Instead it is just ignored and left to fester and grow until it pops into the public forum at the point where huge efforts are required to fight it. I feel like the internet is a great way to get differing views out, but not a great way to build any cultural agreement.

urahara 9y ago

I came across one of Reddit's hate groups once and just couldn't believe my eyes. It felt like a swarm of psychopaths planning some isis-style chaos without anyone to stop them. This is the reason I don't use Reddit.

gigatexal 9y ago

Yeah the nofap group is insane – calling them a cult is spot on.

hrktb 9y ago

You seem to recognize reddit is mostly a set of somewhat independent community, yet view it as a problematic site for ‘minorities’. Did you face significant hurdles when only participating to subreddits that had decently behaved users ? I think at this point reddit is almost a good representation of the internet, and getting out of reddit because of shitty subs feels like taking distance from internet because of 4chan and YouTube comments.

bllguo 9y ago
parent explicitly mentions people making racial jokes and mentioning racial stereotypes. This occurs even in every large subreddit, well-behaved or not. They likely aren't even malicious on the part of the people who say them, but nevertheless, they are damaging comments to make, and I wouldn't blame people for leaving reddit because of them. that said there are plenty of small communities that are pleasant, sure. But some people would rather go elsewhere than take the time and effort to curate their subs, and that's perfectly reasonable.
- nonamechicken 9y ago
  Indian user here. I avoid majority of Reddit's default sub because of this reason. Just yesterday, I accidentally came across on comment in /r/askreddit where they openly called Indian men as vulgar and rapey. When another Indian user questioned it, he was downvoted heavily. Honestly, 12 hours later, I am still angry. I think I will leave Reddit for good this time.
  - lsmarigo 9y ago
    I can relate man. It's soul crushing and hard to accept you just have to not participate to protect your sanity.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    right, exactly! this kind of casual discrimination that people pass off as a joke. Obviously not a reddit-exclusive phenomenon; it's commonplace IRL, but it's especially noticeable in large subs where people are encouraged to make pandering, low-effort comments that appeal to the lowest common denominator

jimmaswell 9y ago

It's often said that the admins simply only shut down a subreddit once its negative publicity is enough to start hurting the website's brand or ad revenue in some way.

scottmf 9y ago
Yep. They turn a blind eye to all of it because they profit from it. If I weren't so politically burnt out right now I'd call for a Reddit boycott. Either way this thread has reminded me to block it and delete my account because I'm done with that site after 10+ years.
- lsmarigo 9y ago
  100%. They're not the only ones either, it's become the industry status quo for platforms to allow these groups to operate openly - Discord has the same policy and houses some of the largest organized hate groups online. You can make the case that this way at least they can keep tabs on them and give any relevant information to authorities when crimes are committed. To be clear I'm not trying to rail on the founders of these orgs, I can't say for sure that I'd do much better in their position, it's a business first after all.
Grangar 9y ago
That's what happened with FPH. They started calling out Imgur staff, that's what got them banned.

smokeyj 9y ago

Honest question. Why do you care what people post online? The great thing about reddit is that you get to choose which communities you subscribe to. Your mentality is the equivalent of "I can't go to bed. Someone on the internet is wrong". I think your basic premise is wrong - that "racism and xenophobia" are on the rise. You can't measure the number of people who aren't racist because you don't hear them. And before you argue that "not saying anything is being complicit" it's just not true. As a "minority" I just don't care what someone on the internet posts. It doesn't have power over me.

SippinLean 9y ago
Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well. Hatred and bigotry used to be contained in places like /the_donald and /WhiteRights but those users eventually browse /popular and leave their vitriol there as well. Having been on reddit for a decade it's sad to see it go from a tech/intellectual community to what it is now. I want real discussion, not arguing with racists. Seems reddit offers less and less of the former each day.
- smokeyj 9y ago
  > Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well. Is this really an issue? Are they going to /r/programming and dominating the conversation? Because I'm just not seeing it. I think that the quality of a community is inversely related to the size, which explains why reddit "used to be cool". But the reason I still use reddit is because you can subscribe to communities you want - and there are still many good ones. That said, there is room for improvement on the moderation side. I think a "peer-moderated" community would be awesome. Say for example, when a comment is flagged - a random but deterministic set of peers will make a judgement call. A "deterministic peer-jury" could be a useful mechanism for communities to grant voting/commenting/moderation rights. The bigger issue in my opinion is controlling the discussion via sock puppets and underhanded moderation.
  - SippinLean 9y ago
    Yes, it's a HUGE issue. Maybe not in /programming yet, but pretty much any thread dealing with a controversial topic (say, the killings of African-american citizens by police in the US) will be plastered with overt bigotry and hatred. It simply didn't used to be this way. The discussion used to be what I'd go to reddit for, now it's the part I avoid.

vkou 9y ago

> meawhile there are thousands of highly upvoted calls to violence daily. Is this just a reflection of our society? Probably but I'm always interested to see which sites allow what. Unfortunately, yes. Look at the comments for any news story about a protest. Half the commenters are shouting that the protest should be non-violent, while the other half are shouting that the police should beat and cripple the protestors. There is also intersection between these two groups. Or the people posting copy-pasta about how violent the Religion of Peace is, all the while advocating for glassing the countries it is prevalent in. Generally, calls to violence are taken quite seriously, but calls to the worst form of violence - war - are considered political.

Mz 9y ago

I created a Reddit account a few years ago. My initial attempts to engage Reddit went really badly and I walked away for a long time. I resumed using Reddit a few months ago and I am very selective in how I am interacting with it. I have health problems. Every single health "support group" (email list or forum) I have ever participated in has been a shit show. A recent attempt to post to a health Reddit reminded me of that. So, I started my own health related Reddit. I participate very little. I am trying to figure out how to create things that I want to have for myself, basically. I realize this is hard. I have been thrown out of a few different forums over the years and have simply walked away from others because of bullshit. But I am trying to find a path forward and not just throw in the towel and let the assholes have the internet because it is the path of least resistance. It may be the path of least resistance, but it impoverishes my life and I suspect it impoverishes the lives of a lot of other people as well.

NOSHSHNACKERS 9y ago

the ignore button works wonders.. I see so little crap now. I would pay for a curated ignore list