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Interesting wording, that reddit "cleaned up the community", and that this caused a decline in the quality of content. I had this worry at the time, and was, un
by marvin 8y ago
Interesting wording, that reddit "cleaned up the community", and that this caused a decline in the quality of content. I had this worry at the time, and was, under doubt, opposing this decision. Could you say a few words about what specifically changed after this?
I don't personally agree, as far as I know, with any of the communities that were banned, apart from the communities for buying and selling stuff, which no one should really have a problem with. And some of the communities that were banned, I vehemently disagree with, and would probably strongly oppose if they formed a political platform. The "involuntary porn" subreddits were probably breaking the law and in some cases causing great emotional distress. This latter case I think clearly crosses the line, but there were plenty that were in a gray area at worst.
There's something to having free speech readily available for criticism and scrutiny that feels very valuable. These people are around whether you want them to or not, and there's value in being able to scrutinize their views. Also, I feel there's a chilling effect when you've seen examples that saying certain things leads to explulsion.
- noir_lord 8y agoYou've pretty much covered my views. What was illegal should already have been banned but the removal of non illegal but objectionable (to many) content stuck at the heart of what Reddit was, of course it's their platform and they can do as they please but I often enjoyed debating with people holding diametrically opposite views. I mean I entirely get why they would do it from a business point of view but it was a stark sea change from what they'd done up to that point. Throw in all the other odds and ends and Reddit just feels different. The constant nagging to install their app, the hilariously bad redesign and handling of the redesign etc it just adds up.
- marvin 8y agoCool. Nice to have this discussion with you. It felt like there was remarkable consensus on reddit while these changes took place, with remarkably few people who took a more principled (in a free speech sense) stance. So I’m glad it’s not just me. I’ve been questioning whether I am in the wrong for not wanting to censor unpopular or heinous opinions.