6 ms·

QAnon subreddit has been banned

11 points by donohoe 8y ago

m-p-3 8y ago
I'm out of the loop here, what's the news?
- MartianSquirrel 8y ago
  Multiple conspiracy theories subreddits have been suspended for "inciting violence, harassment, and the dissemination of personal information".
  - equalunique 8y ago
    It was a concerted effort initiated by r/Banout2018, via mods who infiltrated said groups
  - tinus_hn 8y ago
    With the conspiracies at the level of ‘pizzagate’. Truly absurd.
mindslight 8y ago
As cheerleading censorship seems to be in vogue (eg that image macro of the top response), let me put forth a suggestion to ban anybody who wasn't on the Internet by say 2005. I think it would be extremely effective at solving most of the problems we're facing today.
- zeroname 8y ago
  2005? Try 1995.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  Reddit is not the government. Kicking someone off Reddit isn't censorship: it's exercising a property right and also, by negation, the right to free speech.
  - mindslight 8y ago
    It isn't government censorship, but it most certainly is censorship. Go look it up. (I'm not saying he's the only source of the confusion, but XKCD really did a grave disservice with that particular post.)
    - jacques_chester 8y ago
      > Go look it up. I did. I found definitions that agree and disagree with both readings. So let me put it another way. People use "censorship" because they see a subversion of a moral duty by someone to tolerate speech they would rather not tolerate. But when you do that, you infringe their rights to not listen and to reject speech by negating it. I don't have to tolerate someone in my home saying words I disagree with. I have a right to eject them. Is that censorship? And if, by ejecting them, I have stated a political opinion, isn't preventing my expression also censorship? The counterargument is: oh, but reddit is somehow a public thing, they have some sort of social obligation. Your private home is different. Why? According to whom? Under what legal, constitutional or moral authority? In many countries the government is constrained or prevented from regulating some or all speech because, in the final analysis, there is nowhere else a citizen can go. But private speech is about private property. If reddit exercise their right to eject people they don't want on their property, the ejected folks are within their rights to do anything they want with their property.
      - mindslight 8y ago
        It's fallacious to equate an individual making a personal judgment with a company imposing a decision on a large scale. While this fallacy runs deep in US culture (cf Steinbeck's quote about "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"), it is still a grave mistake. In general, it's nonsensical to treat rights as axiomatic primitives that can be unquestioningly layered upon. For example, if we assert that the owner of private property has an unrestrained right to force someone residing on that property to enter into a contract (or GTFO), then we can describe even North Korea as a perfect libertopia where Dear Leader holds title to all real estate. Clearly, the overarching qualitative situation is what's important. A mechanical conduit bears very little burden for tolerating speech. Which is why we expect ISPs to pass packets without policing their content. Reddit set itself up as a similar general conduit (with subreddit administrators controlling communities), and so yes we should expect the same. But really, the problem is that an environment of censorship will just not end well. Back to your example - rather than kicking someone out of your home, maybe you should try talking to them. I guarantee that kicking them out won't change their mind. Wonder why we're seeing such extreme polarization these days? It starts with this idea of giving people the social death penalty for having views we disagree with.

11 points by donohoe 8y ago

m-p-3 8y ago

I'm out of the loop here, what's the news?

MartianSquirrel 8y ago
Multiple conspiracy theories subreddits have been suspended for "inciting violence, harassment, and the dissemination of personal information".
- equalunique 8y ago
  It was a concerted effort initiated by r/Banout2018, via mods who infiltrated said groups
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  With the conspiracies at the level of ‘pizzagate’. Truly absurd.

mindslight 8y ago

As cheerleading censorship seems to be in vogue (eg that image macro of the top response), let me put forth a suggestion to ban anybody who wasn't on the Internet by say 2005. I think it would be extremely effective at solving most of the problems we're facing today.

zeroname 8y ago
2005? Try 1995.
jacques_chester 8y ago
Reddit is not the government. Kicking someone off Reddit isn't censorship: it's exercising a property right and also, by negation, the right to free speech.
- mindslight 8y ago
  It isn't government censorship, but it most certainly is censorship. Go look it up. (I'm not saying he's the only source of the confusion, but XKCD really did a grave disservice with that particular post.)
  - jacques_chester 8y ago
    > Go look it up. I did. I found definitions that agree and disagree with both readings. So let me put it another way. People use "censorship" because they see a subversion of a moral duty by someone to tolerate speech they would rather not tolerate. But when you do that, you infringe their rights to not listen and to reject speech by negating it. I don't have to tolerate someone in my home saying words I disagree with. I have a right to eject them. Is that censorship? And if, by ejecting them, I have stated a political opinion, isn't preventing my expression also censorship? The counterargument is: oh, but reddit is somehow a public thing, they have some sort of social obligation. Your private home is different. Why? According to whom? Under what legal, constitutional or moral authority? In many countries the government is constrained or prevented from regulating some or all speech because, in the final analysis, there is nowhere else a citizen can go. But private speech is about private property. If reddit exercise their right to eject people they don't want on their property, the ejected folks are within their rights to do anything they want with their property.
    - mindslight 8y ago
      It's fallacious to equate an individual making a personal judgment with a company imposing a decision on a large scale. While this fallacy runs deep in US culture (cf Steinbeck's quote about "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"), it is still a grave mistake. In general, it's nonsensical to treat rights as axiomatic primitives that can be unquestioningly layered upon. For example, if we assert that the owner of private property has an unrestrained right to force someone residing on that property to enter into a contract (or GTFO), then we can describe even North Korea as a perfect libertopia where Dear Leader holds title to all real estate. Clearly, the overarching qualitative situation is what's important. A mechanical conduit bears very little burden for tolerating speech. Which is why we expect ISPs to pass packets without policing their content. Reddit set itself up as a similar general conduit (with subreddit administrators controlling communities), and so yes we should expect the same. But really, the problem is that an environment of censorship will just not end well. Back to your example - rather than kicking someone out of your home, maybe you should try talking to them. I guarantee that kicking them out won't change their mind. Wonder why we're seeing such extreme polarization these days? It starts with this idea of giving people the social death penalty for having views we disagree with.