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I was actually very disappointed when Reddit banned r/WatchPeopleDie. Sure, there were some idiots there - there always are, insensitive comments sometimes, and

by sho 7y ago

I was actually very disappointed when Reddit banned r/WatchPeopleDie. Sure, there were some idiots there - there always are, insensitive comments sometimes, and a lot of gallows humour - sometimes literally. But there were thoughtful comments as well, and the content itself could be... well, educational, in a brutal kind of way. I visited occasionally as a kind of memento mori, and I feel like gained a lot of appreciation for the fragility of life from that sub - as well as a very healthy respect for safety around industrial machinery, and a resolve to never again ride a motor scooter in South East Asia. Sweeping it away - sure, they likely made their lives easier. But what's the real outcome? The real freaks who get off on that stuff will go off to some horrible other site to ferment and radicalize away from the normalising influence of the more well-adjusted participants there, and regular people, who just might have been curious, have been deprived of whatever insights they might have found. I think it's a real shame. And for what it's worth, I don't think The_Donald should be banned either. People have a right to speak, and we can ignore them if we want - or we can at least try to engage. I don't buy the "private company, they can do what they want!" argument. The age of the internet has introduced powerful network effects into where we can conduct our public discourse with any efficacy - Reddit is huge and there's no real competitor. It's basically a monopoly, in its niche. "Deplatforming" whole groups because of their political views, however nutty, is a very slippery slope. Unless you also support speech you don't like - you don't really support free speech!

Daishiman 7y ago
> Reddit is huge and there's no real competitor. It's basically a monopoly, in its niche. "Deplatforming" whole groups because of their political views, however nutty, is a very slippery slope. Unless you also support speech you don't like - you don't really support free speech! Unlike Facebook and Google, which exert truly horrendous amounts of power over very significant aspects of people's lives, Reddit is, fundamentally, just another forum. It even has its older versions open-sourced. In fact, There are reddit clones where these things are perfectly allowed. And those clones are cesspits of schizophrenics, fascists, and deeply disturbed people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- noobermin 7y ago
  To be honest, you could say HN is just another forum (although it's more like a news & comment site with less self-posts by character) but Reddit's place in the social media landscape gives it a lot more power in addition to the loss of a community when it is banned from there.
  - asdff 7y ago
    This is one of the most moderated sites on the web
- hiram112 7y ago
  > cesspits of schizophrenics... As someone who has dealt with close family members struggling with this horrible affliction, my first thought was to contact Dang and demand your lynching. Instead I’ll take a breath, live and let live.
- adultSwim 7y ago
  Don't throw those of us with health problems under the bus. We are not nazis.
  - Daishiman 7y ago
    Fair enough; I shouldn't be broadly generalizing and indeed most people with schizophrenia are far from this. I don't really know of a term to describe the deranged violent lunacy that manifests in those sites though.
    - hi5eyes 7y ago
      90% of it is just shitposting the rest is filled with people accelerating the mentally unstable try treating internet users like human beings first, maybe?
- 7y ago
jgrowl 7y ago
I always maintained that r/MorbidReality served a much better purpose than r/WatchPeopleDie and it still exists today. What I can't understand is how the r/HoldMyFeedingTube shows up frequently for me on the front page. At least with the other two I had to specifically go there to see that kind of content. It is rather messed up to just be looking at the front page not knowing what that subreddit is and clicking on a silly video only to find out you're watching someone sustain serious bodily injury. I agree with others that this ban on r/T_D only has to do with the recent media attention.
jdm2212 7y ago
Another problem with banning WPD is that that stuff now shows up in previously harmless SFW subs like catastrophicfailure. Edit: another commenter mentions HoldMyFeedingTube, which is basically all WPD material and regularly makes the front page
mirashii 7y ago
> And for what it's worth, I don't think The_Donald should be banned either. People have a right to speak, and we can ignore them if we want - or we can at least try to engage. The thing is, with The_Donald, I don't think anyone could reasonably actually try to engage. Their subreddit has and had some of the most heavy-handed moderation. Read their rules on "concern trolling" [1] to get a hint of what kind of things they regularly removed. If you read their full rules, you quickly realize that not being a Trump supporter is a top level rule as well. They were a self proclaimed endless rally, and anything that doesn't fit their narrative was removed. In my opinion, how notoriously heavy handed their moderation was probably amplified how upset the admins were that they had to regularly step in and clean up content. Anti-trump comments are almost always removed within minutes, and so the idea that they were incapable of moderating away things which violated the site guidelines is easily busted. > "Deplatforming" whole groups because of their political views But it's not because of their political views, it was because of how they ran their community. There's a huge difference here. There are plenty of conservative communities that remain on Reddit today. The difference is that those communities have chosen to cultivate and moderate a different environment. T_D cultivated a community that produced problematic content on the regular. They amplified the visibility of that problematic content by hiding downvote buttons and making it more difficult to report. They prevented any sort of self-policing in the community with heavy handed moderation that removed any dissenting opinions on almost any topic. For all the cries about censorship, censorship was at the heart of how T_D was run. Any hopes that you had of interaction with better adjusted individuals providing a counterbalance to the predominant content were removed. In short, T_D is quarantined because they have intentionally developed a toxic echochamber that amplified content that the reddit administrators view as objectively bad enough to ban site-wide. It's not a matter of political views, it's a matter of views on how to run a healthy community, and a true community T_D is not. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5asj7o/announcement_you_know_we_are_winning_because_ctr/ https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5asj7o/announce...
- tallon 7y ago
  Right, and r/politics, which is the left leaning version of T_D, doesn’t have any reprimands despite having frequent calls of violence against cops. It’s a double standard.
bananamerica 7y ago
People in America seem to think free speech is an absolute right, but in a democracy no right is absolute. It must be weighed against all the other rights. If I wrongfully accuse "John" of sexual assault, while I know that John is innocent, my freedom of speech should absolutely be restricted. That is just one example.
normalizer 7y ago
The real freaks who get off on that stuff will go off to some horrible other site to ferment and radicalize away from the normalising influence of the more well-adjusted participants there. You don't actually believe the internet works that way, do you? If the internet truly shaped thought in the way that remark suggests, or nevermind the internet... If it were possible for people to influence one another in that way, by expressing opinions, all opinions would eventually homogenize into a placid average. What really happens is people stick to their guns and never back down, but sometimes they lose, go quiet, and bottle up their controversy and stew in it until better opportunities come along. The difference the internet makes is that a wider diversity of opportunities are made available to jump into. The people don't change. They find comfortable places where no one tells them to stop or shut up, even if there's no "censoring" (banning, moderating, deleting or otherwise silencing) of the riff raff. Here and there, the subsequent outcome to that, is that as birds of a feather flock together, some flocks reach a critical mass. Their noise and biomass becomes big enough that it ruffles the feathers of rivals, and you get collisions. The gang violence then spills out into the open, and the revolting conflict of contrasted polar extremes disgusts all of the outsiders. But really, these different sorts of people were always running around, it's just that they never joined forces. They never wrote letters, had phone calls, visited, ate lunch together. They were all two towns apart, and total strangers, unknown to their subculture and often unaware of a potential for subculture.
dwild 7y ago
> we can at least try to engage How? I've been banned from their subreddit by trying to engage with them (ironic isn't it?). If anything, this is great, now they have a huge warning on their subreddit that tell pretty clearly that violence is unacceptable. If this is the only way to engage with them, then so be it. They aren't being deplatformed, the subreddit is still there, they still can post on it (while I still can't ;) ). There's plenty of conservative subreddit not quarantine too if that's really something they consider an issue. I'm pretty sure too that if they can show that violent speech is now under control, that they'll remove the quarantine.
JaimeThompson 7y ago
Engaging them isn't possible as they ban anyone who doesn't agree with the current Trump position on something. It is a real world example of 1984 the way they change "acceptable" thinking on a near day to day basis.
vr46 7y ago
You can say whatever you like, provided you don't infringe on others' rights. No one has to give you a megaphone, or a stage, or a TV show.
kall1sto 7y ago
Of course people have a right to speak about what they want, but reddit is not a country. It's a company that can decide whether they tolerate certain ideologies and behaviours on their platform.
SkyBelow 7y ago
>I was actually very disappointed when Reddit banned r/WatchPeopleDie. Perhaps I can get a serious answer here since I have yet had anyone explain to me the difference when I ask elsewhere (and rarely is it relevant to bring up here). Why do we treat videos of murders different than videos of more prurient crimes? Why is it acceptable to host/download/share/watch a video of a murder as long as no sex crime takes place during it? Even videos devoid of any crime except being videotaped can be far more illegal and socially unacceptable than a video of a murder made by the murderer. And I don't mean those watching it for political/reporting/policing/etc. reasons, but the ones who do so for entertainment.
- barbecue_sauce 7y ago
  I've never been to r/WatchPeopleDie (nor would I want to, as I'm fairly squeamish), but I was under the impression it was videos of people being killed in situ (think Darwin awards), not people actually being murdered.
  - MastrChefRocks 7y ago
    It was both
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    My understanding, as the other comment said, is that both were included. Even still, I think the question can be applied to either type, though I think the applicability to purposefully recorded videos of murder is stronger.

by sho 7y ago

Daishiman 7y ago

> Reddit is huge and there's no real competitor. It's basically a monopoly, in its niche. "Deplatforming" whole groups because of their political views, however nutty, is a very slippery slope. Unless you also support speech you don't like - you don't really support free speech! Unlike Facebook and Google, which exert truly horrendous amounts of power over very significant aspects of people's lives, Reddit is, fundamentally, just another forum. It even has its older versions open-sourced. In fact, There are reddit clones where these things are perfectly allowed. And those clones are cesspits of schizophrenics, fascists, and deeply disturbed people.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
noobermin 7y ago
To be honest, you could say HN is just another forum (although it's more like a news & comment site with less self-posts by character) but Reddit's place in the social media landscape gives it a lot more power in addition to the loss of a community when it is banned from there.
- asdff 7y ago
  This is one of the most moderated sites on the web
hiram112 7y ago
> cesspits of schizophrenics... As someone who has dealt with close family members struggling with this horrible affliction, my first thought was to contact Dang and demand your lynching. Instead I’ll take a breath, live and let live.
adultSwim 7y ago
Don't throw those of us with health problems under the bus. We are not nazis.
- Daishiman 7y ago
  Fair enough; I shouldn't be broadly generalizing and indeed most people with schizophrenia are far from this. I don't really know of a term to describe the deranged violent lunacy that manifests in those sites though.
  - hi5eyes 7y ago
    90% of it is just shitposting the rest is filled with people accelerating the mentally unstable try treating internet users like human beings first, maybe?
7y ago

jgrowl 7y ago

I always maintained that r/MorbidReality served a much better purpose than r/WatchPeopleDie and it still exists today. What I can't understand is how the r/HoldMyFeedingTube shows up frequently for me on the front page. At least with the other two I had to specifically go there to see that kind of content. It is rather messed up to just be looking at the front page not knowing what that subreddit is and clicking on a silly video only to find out you're watching someone sustain serious bodily injury. I agree with others that this ban on r/T_D only has to do with the recent media attention.

jdm2212 7y ago

Another problem with banning WPD is that that stuff now shows up in previously harmless SFW subs like catastrophicfailure. Edit: another commenter mentions HoldMyFeedingTube, which is basically all WPD material and regularly makes the front page

mirashii 7y ago

> And for what it's worth, I don't think The_Donald should be banned either. People have a right to speak, and we can ignore them if we want - or we can at least try to engage. The thing is, with The_Donald, I don't think anyone could reasonably actually try to engage. Their subreddit has and had some of the most heavy-handed moderation. Read their rules on "concern trolling" [1] to get a hint of what kind of things they regularly removed. If you read their full rules, you quickly realize that not being a Trump supporter is a top level rule as well. They were a self proclaimed endless rally, and anything that doesn't fit their narrative was removed. In my opinion, how notoriously heavy handed their moderation was probably amplified how upset the admins were that they had to regularly step in and clean up content. Anti-trump comments are almost always removed within minutes, and so the idea that they were incapable of moderating away things which violated the site guidelines is easily busted. > "Deplatforming" whole groups because of their political views But it's not because of their political views, it was because of how they ran their community. There's a huge difference here. There are plenty of conservative communities that remain on Reddit today. The difference is that those communities have chosen to cultivate and moderate a different environment. T_D cultivated a community that produced problematic content on the regular. They amplified the visibility of that problematic content by hiding downvote buttons and making it more difficult to report. They prevented any sort of self-policing in the community with heavy handed moderation that removed any dissenting opinions on almost any topic. For all the cries about censorship, censorship was at the heart of how T_D was run. Any hopes that you had of interaction with better adjusted individuals providing a counterbalance to the predominant content were removed. In short, T_D is quarantined because they have intentionally developed a toxic echochamber that amplified content that the reddit administrators view as objectively bad enough to ban site-wide. It's not a matter of political views, it's a matter of views on how to run a healthy community, and a true community T_D is not. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5asj7o/announcement_you_know_we_are_winning_because_ctr/ https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5asj7o/announce...

tallon 7y ago
Right, and r/politics, which is the left leaning version of T_D, doesn’t have any reprimands despite having frequent calls of violence against cops. It’s a double standard.

bananamerica 7y ago

People in America seem to think free speech is an absolute right, but in a democracy no right is absolute. It must be weighed against all the other rights. If I wrongfully accuse "John" of sexual assault, while I know that John is innocent, my freedom of speech should absolutely be restricted. That is just one example.

normalizer 7y ago

The real freaks who get off on that stuff will go off to some horrible other site to ferment and radicalize away from the normalising influence of the more well-adjusted participants there. You don't actually believe the internet works that way, do you? If the internet truly shaped thought in the way that remark suggests, or nevermind the internet... If it were possible for people to influence one another in that way, by expressing opinions, all opinions would eventually homogenize into a placid average. What really happens is people stick to their guns and never back down, but sometimes they lose, go quiet, and bottle up their controversy and stew in it until better opportunities come along. The difference the internet makes is that a wider diversity of opportunities are made available to jump into. The people don't change. They find comfortable places where no one tells them to stop or shut up, even if there's no "censoring" (banning, moderating, deleting or otherwise silencing) of the riff raff. Here and there, the subsequent outcome to that, is that as birds of a feather flock together, some flocks reach a critical mass. Their noise and biomass becomes big enough that it ruffles the feathers of rivals, and you get collisions. The gang violence then spills out into the open, and the revolting conflict of contrasted polar extremes disgusts all of the outsiders. But really, these different sorts of people were always running around, it's just that they never joined forces. They never wrote letters, had phone calls, visited, ate lunch together. They were all two towns apart, and total strangers, unknown to their subculture and often unaware of a potential for subculture.

dwild 7y ago

> we can at least try to engage How? I've been banned from their subreddit by trying to engage with them (ironic isn't it?). If anything, this is great, now they have a huge warning on their subreddit that tell pretty clearly that violence is unacceptable. If this is the only way to engage with them, then so be it. They aren't being deplatformed, the subreddit is still there, they still can post on it (while I still can't ;) ). There's plenty of conservative subreddit not quarantine too if that's really something they consider an issue. I'm pretty sure too that if they can show that violent speech is now under control, that they'll remove the quarantine.

JaimeThompson 7y ago

Engaging them isn't possible as they ban anyone who doesn't agree with the current Trump position on something. It is a real world example of 1984 the way they change "acceptable" thinking on a near day to day basis.

vr46 7y ago

You can say whatever you like, provided you don't infringe on others' rights. No one has to give you a megaphone, or a stage, or a TV show.

kall1sto 7y ago

Of course people have a right to speak about what they want, but reddit is not a country. It's a company that can decide whether they tolerate certain ideologies and behaviours on their platform.

SkyBelow 7y ago

>I was actually very disappointed when Reddit banned r/WatchPeopleDie. Perhaps I can get a serious answer here since I have yet had anyone explain to me the difference when I ask elsewhere (and rarely is it relevant to bring up here). Why do we treat videos of murders different than videos of more prurient crimes? Why is it acceptable to host/download/share/watch a video of a murder as long as no sex crime takes place during it? Even videos devoid of any crime except being videotaped can be far more illegal and socially unacceptable than a video of a murder made by the murderer. And I don't mean those watching it for political/reporting/policing/etc. reasons, but the ones who do so for entertainment.

barbecue_sauce 7y ago
I've never been to r/WatchPeopleDie (nor would I want to, as I'm fairly squeamish), but I was under the impression it was videos of people being killed in situ (think Darwin awards), not people actually being murdered.
- MastrChefRocks 7y ago
  It was both
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  My understanding, as the other comment said, is that both were included. Even still, I think the question can be applied to either type, though I think the applicability to purposefully recorded videos of murder is stronger.