8 ms·

Changes to our content policy, our board, and where we’re going from here

53 points by ComodoHacker 6y ago

milsorgen 6y ago
Reddit was infinitely more valuable (to the user) when it lead a hands on approach. I understand somethings should and must be removed from the platform but it is undoubtedly an echo chamber, almost unparalleled at this point. It's value to provide viewpoint, insight and discussion is almost nonexistent at this point. This announcement certainly doesn't bode well for anyone hoping to find it a platform that fosters better discussion.
- uniqueid 6y ago
  > it is undoubtedly an echo chamber, almost unparalleled > at this point. What does "unparalleled" mean here? It sounds melodramatic.
  - KineticLensman 6y ago
    English (UK, US and others?) meaning something like "having no parallel; especially : having no equal or match"
  - pensatoio 6y ago
    Hard to find a worse or larger echo chamber than Reddit, no? Seems like a good use of “unparalleled” to me.
    - uniqueid 6y ago
      Do you often debate white nationalists outside of Reddit? I don't (granted I do live in Canada). I would love it if Reddit were closer to an "echo chamber".
- yqx 6y ago
  I assume you mean hands off approach? Can you elaborate on the connection between this announcement and the platform's value as a platform that fosters discussion you perceive? Do you mean content moderation has turned the site into an echo chamber?
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    Reddit still feels like a biker bar to me. I don't know how many important conversations hinge on the ability to use racial slurs. My naive take would be: few, if any. The average age on Reddit is probably 12 anyways, and those tweens upvote factual errors, more readily than correct information. That's on any topic, political or not. The rate of important problem-solving on Reddit is a big fat goose-egg: Reddit is a counterexample to "the wisdom of crowds."
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > I don't know how many important conversations hinge on the ability to use racial slurs. My naive take would be: few. But that wouldn't be content policy, that would be tone policy. You can say incredible racist things without using any slurs. If you want to police the content, you'll outlaw saying racist things (or rather: things you perceive to be racist). If you want to police the tone, you'll outlaw the use of slurs, insults etc, but allow the content. I assume that Reddit has an issue with the content, not its presentation.
    - Darmody 6y ago
      I wish the average age on Reddit was 12. That would explain a lot of things but it's far from true. The biggest group on Reddit are millennials, those between 25 and 35 years approx. And it's pretty sad because they don't want to have a civil conversation with anyone. They only want to hear what they already think/believe. The real value Reddit has it's the small niche subreddits that fly under the radar. Small communities that are not dragged by the hive mentality.
steveeq1 6y ago
And what defines "hate"? Are they going be as consistent with the content of gangsta rappers? I'd wager no. It really is sad to see how hiveminded reddit has become, particularly with the city subreddits. Any person with a dissenting viewpoint either gets banned or gets downvoted to oblivion. And not everyone shares the same viewpoint on who the "bad people" are out there. I, for one, feel that thug brutality is a bigger problem than police brutality, and I have my own reasoning behind it. But an idea like this can never be stated on reddit because it's simply too radical. And the more people that use this platform, the more people are going to mimic whatever the popular narrative is playing at that point in time. (Remember covid?) And it's affected my friends too. It's almost like I'm in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers Movie.
- zo1 6y ago
  We are unable to apply reason and consistency to any of what's happening, including speech, hiring policies, policing, laws, moderation, etc. Same for "gangster" culture that is absolutely degenerate and probably a huge cause of all sorts of societal ills for many groups, and yet it's being given a free-pass due to "reasons". It's quite sad that we're so powerless collectively as a society to criticize things that are capable of, and currently are, ruining entire generations.
  - steveeq1 6y ago
    If you say this on reddit, you'll likely either be banned or downvoted so it can't be read. It's not so much censoring as people not wanting to read it. Edit: wow! HN is doing this too! The parent just got flagged.
    - deadalus 6y ago
      No wonder Gab, 8kun, 4chan and Voat are seeing a healthy level of activity and consistent growth.
- te_chris 6y ago
  Jesus, so many barely concealed dog whistles in one post. “Gangsta rappers”, “thug brutality”, mate just say what you mean.
nicc 6y ago
Yay, more censorship!!
Darmody 6y ago
I blocked Reddit on my computer but I decided to unlock it temporarily to read this. "u/kn0thing has resigned from our board to fill his seat with a Black candidate" Now I regret it. I despise this kind of actions taken based on the colour of the skin/nationality/ethnicity/religion.
- uniqueid 6y ago
  > I despise this kind of actions taken > based on the colour of the skin Are you sure you aren't applying a rule, on this occasion, without thinking it through? Skin-colour is relevant to the job here: it's a guarantee that the board member will have first-hand experience dealing with the issues Alexis thinks Reddit has mishandled.
  - fakename11 6y ago
    Not necessarily guaranteed, not every person with a certain skin color has experienced the same thing... but you can probably find someone that has if that is what you are selecting for.
    - uniqueid 6y ago
      True. I actually considered clarifying that. But if we're being pragmatic, the chances are awfully good that a new "black" board member will understand the issues. Have to say, unless the board member is also a prickly character, there's a high likelihood, even with an understanding, that he or she won't really rock the boat anyways.
    - Dahoon 6y ago
      >not every person with a certain skin color has experienced the same thing True, but try finding an Afro-American that haven't faced racism.
  - kepler1 6y ago
    The notion that only representatives from those who suffer racism or oppression can be the ones to get us out of it, is an attitude that hinders all of us from making progress against it.
KKPMW 6y ago
This whole post is weird. Based on the tone they seem to think they are combating racism. But really the CEO of a company just announced that they are looking for a new candidate. Requirements? - No particular requirements, except having the right skin color.
- underyx 6y ago
  We cannot know what the requirements are other than the one announced here.
- kitsune_ 6y ago
  Your implied reverse-racism argument just doesn't hold. Are you telling me that there are no capable African-Americans who could fill that board position? If not, the what are you arguing? That increasing the representation of historically oppressed minority groups is bad?
  - Udik 6y ago
    Maybe that choosing people based on their ethnicity or skin color is wrong, whatever they might be?
  - john_alan 6y ago
    > Are you telling me that there are no capable African-Americans who could fill that board position? Of fucking course not. > If not, the what are you arguing? That increasing the representation of historically oppressed minority groups is bad? This might be difficult for you to understand but explicitly hiring someone with a particular skin colour is the fucking definition of racism.
    - Traster 6y ago
      >This might be difficult for you to understand but explicitly hiring someone with a particular skin colour is the fucking definition of racism. The only difference between what they're doing now and what they did before is the skin color requirement is explicit instead of implicit. Only hire white guys? Meritocracy! Decide you want to hire 1 black guy? Racist!
throwaway9482 6y ago
I deleted my reddit account after I saw this announcement. That website has been on a downward slide ever since Tencent got some ownership and it’s become very evident Reddit is being used to push some ideologies.
- audessuscest 6y ago
  I deleted my reddit account too. Reddit is becoming an editorialised website where people propose content slowly but surely. Promoting sub they entirely control and moderate heavily. I used to visit reddit daily for more than a decade. Reddit is dead to me.
- Dahoon 6y ago
  Reddit's downward spiral has not changed since Tencent. It has always been like this and has nothing to do with Tencent and everything to do with the administrators/owners/boardmembers and the few moderator friends they let control most of the big subs. Go read what actual moderators (not the admin-friend-mods but everyone else) says about this and it will have nothing to do with China. Could you not have left Reddit on Reddit instead of taking it with you here? There's enough China-hate here already.
  - throwaway9482 6y ago
    The China “hate” is simply a result of the amount the CPC has meddled with American affairs
panpanna 6y ago
About time. It is almost impossible to browse the front page without seeing some hateful content. And I am not talking about the political stuff. You can upload video of a random dude getting beaten to death, make some absurd claims like "the guy is a pedophile caught in the act" and watch the hateful comments roll in. Basically, you can make any claims and the ones that keep people's blood boiling seems very popular way of getting clicks and upvotes.
- PunchTornado 6y ago
  maybe you should unsubscribe from subs you don't like. plenty of people like violent subs, like justicesurved or others.
  - panpanna 6y ago
    Mate I got news for you: they are getting so popular they are all over the front page. I sometimes wonder if Reddit has resulted in a generation completely unable of critical thinking.
    - PunchTornado 6y ago
      I don't understand what you mean by frontpage. it is made only from posts from subs you subscribed to. if you don't like it, unsubscribe. or the thing that bothers you is that other people like it and want to see it
      - zo1 6y ago
        I get /r/politics all the time recommended to me, filled with hateful content. I can't "block" it even though I've looked.
        DuskStar 6y ago
        old.reddit.com is the only way to reddit.
    - 6y ago
namelosw 6y ago
I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Maybe time will tell. One thing popped up in my mind was YouTube demonetized a lot of videos that are not 'family-friendly', and eventually destroyed a lot of great content creators.
high_derivative 6y ago
To me, it seems like a combination of childish-authoritarian beliefs that the world will change for the better once, and only once, you stop anyone from saying anything controversial at all. Once nobody is able to disagree, bad things won't exist any more.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- trianglem 6y ago
  It’s all about doing what you can when you can. Please take this acerbic, hyperbolic attitude somewhere else.
  - high_derivative 6y ago
    I hope the irony is not lost on you when you ask me to leave this platform for disagreeing with you.
    - knolax 6y ago
      I hope you realize the irony of the fact that you're posting on a forum much more heavily moderated than Reddit.
      - freespeechkami 6y ago
        False.
    - flyinglizard 6y ago
      I'm amused to no end.
  - blackhaz 6y ago
    Isn't your own reply but a hyperbole? Reddit can do much better than this. The person suggested it should be a platform for open discussion, including controversial topics, rather than becoming yet another China. The person was saying you cannot stop violence by shutting up people.
audessuscest 6y ago
I deleted my reddit account. Reddit is becoming an editorialised website where people propose content, slowly but surely. Promoting sub they entirely control and moderate heavily. I used to visit reddit daily for more than a decade. Reddit is dead to me.
politelemon 6y ago
Sadly Reddit's announcements have a long history of verbosity, with little to no action taken afterwards. It's a long post but you'll notice very little in the way of actual measurable goals. The comments in that thread are very telling of how Reddit's admins have chosen to wring their hands, or lament over their lack of involvement in the past rather than address issues, policies or tools.
kitsune_ 6y ago
Ellen K. Pao was right all along. Also if the replies in here are representative of Silicon Valley as a whole, damn. It just reminds me of the stereotypical too-smart-for-their-own-good hacker who is prone to making sweeping generalisations and extrapolations in domains that lie outside of their own experience or expertise. I know I'm prone to this and I've met a lot of arrogant smart people who fall into this category. I really think that there is an empathy problem here. Sometimes we just need to shut up and listen instead of looking at the world in binary terms.
- vincentmarle 6y ago
  > Also if the replies in here are representative of Silicon Valley as a whole, damn. Unbelievable indeed. When is HN going to come out with their anti hate policy?
  - manigandham 6y ago
    The HN guidelines are already sufficient: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- concordDance 6y ago
  Isn't the whole point of this upcoming policy change to prevent people being able to hear racist voices?
  - kitsune_ 6y ago
    This is the exact kind of gotcha look-at-me-i-am-smart rethoric that I was talking about, you do not engage with what I wrote. "He said 'listen' without technically qualifying it further so let's reframe this so that listen also covers listening to racist view points, something orthogonal to the essence of his post, gotcha!". We both know what you are doing here, and honestly I expect better from people. I have no idea why you are doing that however, I'm interested in what led you to reply in this manner.
flyinglizard 6y ago
This week the NYT apologized[0] for publishing an op-ed[1] from a Republican senator which stated something (using the military to restore civil order) which has broad - if not majority - support among Americans[2]. Some columnists apologetically said that giving Sen. Tom Cotton a stage could be justified on the basis of giving that to other enemies of the US in the past, such as Iran and the Taliban[3]. It seems like in the USA circa 2020 there's a pretty narrow legitimate range of opinions, stepping out of which immediately earns you *cist expletives. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/business/new-york-times-op-ed-cotton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/business/new-york-times-o... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-of-voters-support-using-military-to-help-police-control-protests-poll-finds/#76593f332417 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-o... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/tom-cotton-op-ed-new-york-times.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/tom-cotton-op-ed-...
- MindTooth 6y ago
  Seems that a new thing these days is that we need to be lectured on what the content mean. And that we are incapable of understanding ourselves. When did we get so dum that some individuals/groups gets to do the explaining. What makes us sure that these actually have the right answer. IMHO, I’m not sure.
- Traster 6y ago
  Why are you mis-representing what the NYT did? Are you just hoping people don't read your citations. From your citation > For example, the published piece presents as facts assertions about the role of “cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa”; in fact, those allegations have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Editors should have sought further corroboration of those assertions, or removed them from the piece. The assertion that police officers “bore the brunt” of the violence is an overstatement that should have been challenged. The essay also includes a reference to a “constitutional duty” that was intended as a paraphrase; it should not have been rendered as a quotation. The NYT didn't apologize for publishing an Op-Ed from a Senator. It apologized for doing it's job badly and publishing materially false statements as fact. It's worth noting that Senator Cotton went on to publicly call for the extra judicial killing of protestors. Which, if we're really so concerned about legitimate opinions, I would suggest murdering protestors would have more of a chilling effect than choosing not to publish their op-eds.
_thrwaway_0 6y ago
So many people here in HN are so scared that they cant be pushing onto the racism boundary. They are the snowflakes!!!! OHHHH THE HURT! WHY CANT I BE RACIST ANYMORE!!! WHERE IS MY FREEDOM TO OFFEND?!!!?!?!?
aus4blanch 6y ago
I do not believe that there is strength in racial diversity when every instance of multiracial proximity in history and today results in dysfunction and violence. I believe that threatening my (predominantly White) nation with millions of foreigners is extremely hostile and hateful. I wish nothing more for than my children and their children to grow up in a place of peace, harmony, belonging, unity, joy and fulfilment. I want them to love themselves, know their history, respect their ancestors. I want them to extoll the virtues of our people and to enjoy the many fruits of European culture. I want for them a place where they may pursue their potential, free of the countless difficulties and dangers that the multiracial option, free of the daily hysteria and thinly-veiled anti-White hatred that my generation has experienced all our lives as the West demonstrates the unending division and tension that is inevitable with multiracialism. I am motivated by nothing but love for my people, my family, and myself. I do not hate Africans or Jews. Or Chinese or Muslims. I do not wish for their children to grow up in awful conditions, I only wish for my children not to. I owe strangers in foreign places nothing; I owe my family everything. Is this view 'hate'? It certainly doesn't seem like it to me. Am I to understand that wanting a homeland for my people to exist in peace and prosperity is hateful, while the non-Whites openly celebrating violence against Whites, our dispossession, depression, and extinction, somehow act outside the definition of 'hate'? 'Hate' is not an objective term. It means nothing unless you also define what you hate. All-too-often, that thing is White people.
merricksb 6y ago
Big discussion earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23430575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23430575
_thrwaway_0 6y ago
Just seen my other comment was downvoted to hell. Just shows the position of many users of this forum. Why can we not have an area where more people are represented and know fine well they wont be targetted with abuse? If this means banning racist or fascist outlets / users then so be it.
concordDance 6y ago
Unfortunate. Looks like there will soon be a crackdown on any HBD discussion.
- s9w 6y ago
  What's HBD in this context? Urban Dictionary failed me I think.
  - Steko 6y ago
    Human biodiversity, a PC term to rebrand racism. Brought to you by the snowflakes that rebranded nazis and neoconfederates as the "alt-right". Some discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/BadSocialScience/comments/3cdz2z/rcoontowns_human_biodiversity_resource/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BadSocialScience/comments/3cdz2z/rc... Yep, that HBD-loving subreddit was actually called /r/coontown and was actually worse than you might guess, if possible. Other commenters in this thread seem to miss it. Says more about them than about reddit, which is much better than it used to be. If anyone misses the coontown crowd they can easily catch up with them at "free speech" havens like voat and gab, which are both worse than most people would guess.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      Is HBD verboten because it's factually wrong, or because even if it's right it's repugnant to talk about such things? If you believe it's factually wrong, is that belief falsifiable? Is there some sort of study or experiment that could convince you otherwise? I'm not talking "plausible" or "morally correct" experiment here - if it would take blinding a few hundred infants of different races and raising them without non-automated human contact and comparing outcomes, that's fine - but it would be nice to know what level of evidence you'd be looking for. But hey, I'm just some guy who's looking forward to Embryo Selection [0], which kind of depends on some part of intelligence variance being genetic, and who thinks Blank Slate/Tabula Rasa is pretty dead [1]. Maybe I'm wrong, but from that perspective your BadSocialScience link is pretty questionable. 0: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture
freespeechkami 6y ago
The comments in this thread are evidence of HN's shared, yet latent, trajectory with Reddit. It's been a fun 10 years, idiots.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
IronWolve 6y ago
The threads comments are made up of users in popularity of biggest political subs in order. /r/Politics, r/ChapoTrapHouse, r/TopMindsofReddit, last are a few of /r/The_Donald. The first 3 would love all conservatives gone. ChapoTrapHouse embraces communism and doesn't care either left or right (Except Sanders). TopMinds is sub dedicated to attacking conservatives. And why is Steve calling out Conservatives aka, r/The_Donald. He considers all conservatives hateful now just for looking at problems differently? Wow, rude. Lets look at how stupid this Hate argument is for different political views. All Live Matters vs Black Lives Matter, Its a right vs left argument. The right thinks All Lives isn't racist, because it includes every race. Black Lives Matter thinks Black lives are being targeted more, and needs dedicated attention. Both sides are for the same issue, stop police abuses, but Reddit Admins think the right are hate filled because they look at the problem differently than the left. BLM is now throwing Antifa towards the cops, Antifa is actually causing violence. Antifa hangs out in ChapoTrapHouse, and CTH has been called out and punished by reddit admins a few times, but CTH is still allowed, The_Donald isn't. Topminds actively brigades and attacks conservative subs, and the Reddit Admins ignore it. If you Want to stop hate, first realize most people on the right and left want mostly the same things, (excluding the far left and far right). Concentrate on the issues, not the people. Almost all the hate on Reddit is either towards groups of people on the forums of the opposite part they dont like. You know who you can hate on reddit and not get banned? White men, White women (Karens) and Christians. /r/All routinely has comedy, art, memes that are targeting conservatives, /r/News and /r/Politics has been banning conservatives for even participating. Lets not pretend that Reddit cares about Hate, Steve allows hate, as long as its towards conservatives...
- senectus1 6y ago
  which antifa is this? The antifa that is "Anti Fascist" meaning PRO Democracy? or the antifa that is the invisible boogieman tag that the far right extremists use to group anyone that's not them and attach violent acts to them?
- freespeechkami 6y ago
  Not sure which claim you made here downvoters disagree with. Or perhaps they agree with the claims you made and, disturbingly, believe their entailments are justified and virtuous. I will say your use of the terms left, right, conservatism, antifa are imprecise.
usui 6y ago
Not exact duplicate of earlier post, since this one points to the reddit discussion involving u/spez Many comments bring up the fact that administrators punished a subreddit called r/waterniggas, which featured posts with the running gag of people taking water extremely seriously, to the point of humor. Here's an example of the kind of content there: https://ia802908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21/items/waterniggas_subreddit/waterniggas-redditvideos.zip&file=videos%2F0p4x1hho8rk21.mp4 https://ia802908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21... In retrospect, naming the subreddit r/waterniggas was a poor choice, but many agree that it was harmless and that there was no hate speech propogated by it. This supports the notion that the administration does not actually care about hate speech, but rather the optics and superficiality of caring about it, winning "brownie points" to the general public. This is so that Reddit as a business can make it seem like a safer platform for advertisers and earn more dollars because the advertisers feel like it is a safe place to park their brand. Furthermore, any time the administration makes public posts like these, they tend to come at very convenient times. This kind of post has happened before and no actual change ever occurred as a result of it. It is clear that the recent George Floyd protests encouraged them to make this post decrying hate speech, but again, if they were really concerned about hate speech, they would have acted on r/The_Donald faster than r/waterniggas. The first two sentences of the post begin with this. "TL;DR: We’re working with mods to change our content policy to explicitly address hate. u/kn0thing has resigned from our board to fill his seat with a Black candidate, a request we will honor." Oh my lord, there are so many things wrong with this that I want to claw my eyes out. Congratulations, once we hire you to the board, know that the main reason we decided to hire you is that it's because you're black! If they were going to take this road, they could have at least lied about how they care about inclusivity and that they would hire someone who was equipped and experienced to deal with sensitive racial issues, and then hired someone who happened to be black. I did not expect them to just outright say that they would motivate their hiring process with racist intentions!! "We believe that hiring a black person is going to make a big difference in how racist we are!" To me, this really screams out how superficial the administration's concerns are, how surface-level those concerns reach, and how they could not care less deep down, despite protestors and police officers dying. All of this just so they could generate more ad revenue. I am highly concerned with the way social media is going. While I understand that it is 100% in the right of private companies to police their platform, we were brought up with notion that we were participating in more-or-less, "public" forums, and that we would enjoy the benefit of having varied discussions on them. I did not particularly like r/The_Donald, but I liked that if you did like that content, you could go there. It's not like anyone was forced to go to r/The_Donald. I really do not want a future where Facebook or the Reddit echo chamber decides on what kind of opinion I should have. I would rather be on a platform where the only things I cannot post is illegal content or spam. I want to be on a platform where everything else should be permissible. If not, then I want the administration to explicitly tell me that they want to be thought policing, so that I don't feel deceived and I can go somewhere else. Reddit articles, posts, and comments have drained in quality so much that I barely visit it nowadays. All of the stupid meme parent comments and lowest common denominator banter chain "jokes" (haha 69420, haha <insert tireless joke that isn't funny>) make me roll my eyes so hard that I immediately give up on trying to look for an insightful comment on the article's topic and close my browser. Also, I want to slip in how much I hate how slow the mobile interface has gotten. No, I do not want to install the Reddit mobile app, leave me alone!

53 points by ComodoHacker 6y ago

Reddit was infinitely more valuable (to the user) when it lead a hands on approach. I understand somethings should and must be removed from the platform but it is undoubtedly an echo chamber, almost unparalleled at this point. It's value to provide viewpoint, insight and discussion is almost nonexistent at this point. This announcement certainly doesn't bode well for anyone hoping to find it a platform that fosters better discussion.

uniqueid 6y ago
> it is undoubtedly an echo chamber, almost unparalleled > at this point. What does "unparalleled" mean here? It sounds melodramatic.
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  English (UK, US and others?) meaning something like "having no parallel; especially : having no equal or match"
- pensatoio 6y ago
  Hard to find a worse or larger echo chamber than Reddit, no? Seems like a good use of “unparalleled” to me.
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    Do you often debate white nationalists outside of Reddit? I don't (granted I do live in Canada). I would love it if Reddit were closer to an "echo chamber".
yqx 6y ago
I assume you mean hands off approach? Can you elaborate on the connection between this announcement and the platform's value as a platform that fosters discussion you perceive? Do you mean content moderation has turned the site into an echo chamber?
- uniqueid 6y ago
  Reddit still feels like a biker bar to me. I don't know how many important conversations hinge on the ability to use racial slurs. My naive take would be: few, if any. The average age on Reddit is probably 12 anyways, and those tweens upvote factual errors, more readily than correct information. That's on any topic, political or not. The rate of important problem-solving on Reddit is a big fat goose-egg: Reddit is a counterexample to "the wisdom of crowds."
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > I don't know how many important conversations hinge on the ability to use racial slurs. My naive take would be: few. But that wouldn't be content policy, that would be tone policy. You can say incredible racist things without using any slurs. If you want to police the content, you'll outlaw saying racist things (or rather: things you perceive to be racist). If you want to police the tone, you'll outlaw the use of slurs, insults etc, but allow the content. I assume that Reddit has an issue with the content, not its presentation.
  - Darmody 6y ago
    I wish the average age on Reddit was 12. That would explain a lot of things but it's far from true. The biggest group on Reddit are millennials, those between 25 and 35 years approx. And it's pretty sad because they don't want to have a civil conversation with anyone. They only want to hear what they already think/believe. The real value Reddit has it's the small niche subreddits that fly under the radar. Small communities that are not dragged by the hive mentality.

steveeq1 6y ago

And what defines "hate"? Are they going be as consistent with the content of gangsta rappers? I'd wager no. It really is sad to see how hiveminded reddit has become, particularly with the city subreddits. Any person with a dissenting viewpoint either gets banned or gets downvoted to oblivion. And not everyone shares the same viewpoint on who the "bad people" are out there. I, for one, feel that thug brutality is a bigger problem than police brutality, and I have my own reasoning behind it. But an idea like this can never be stated on reddit because it's simply too radical. And the more people that use this platform, the more people are going to mimic whatever the popular narrative is playing at that point in time. (Remember covid?) And it's affected my friends too. It's almost like I'm in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers Movie.

zo1 6y ago
We are unable to apply reason and consistency to any of what's happening, including speech, hiring policies, policing, laws, moderation, etc. Same for "gangster" culture that is absolutely degenerate and probably a huge cause of all sorts of societal ills for many groups, and yet it's being given a free-pass due to "reasons". It's quite sad that we're so powerless collectively as a society to criticize things that are capable of, and currently are, ruining entire generations.
- steveeq1 6y ago
  If you say this on reddit, you'll likely either be banned or downvoted so it can't be read. It's not so much censoring as people not wanting to read it. Edit: wow! HN is doing this too! The parent just got flagged.
  - deadalus 6y ago
    No wonder Gab, 8kun, 4chan and Voat are seeing a healthy level of activity and consistent growth.
te_chris 6y ago
Jesus, so many barely concealed dog whistles in one post. “Gangsta rappers”, “thug brutality”, mate just say what you mean.

nicc 6y ago

Yay, more censorship!!

Darmody 6y ago

I blocked Reddit on my computer but I decided to unlock it temporarily to read this. "u/kn0thing has resigned from our board to fill his seat with a Black candidate" Now I regret it. I despise this kind of actions taken based on the colour of the skin/nationality/ethnicity/religion.

uniqueid 6y ago
> I despise this kind of actions taken > based on the colour of the skin Are you sure you aren't applying a rule, on this occasion, without thinking it through? Skin-colour is relevant to the job here: it's a guarantee that the board member will have first-hand experience dealing with the issues Alexis thinks Reddit has mishandled.
- fakename11 6y ago
  Not necessarily guaranteed, not every person with a certain skin color has experienced the same thing... but you can probably find someone that has if that is what you are selecting for.
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    True. I actually considered clarifying that. But if we're being pragmatic, the chances are awfully good that a new "black" board member will understand the issues. Have to say, unless the board member is also a prickly character, there's a high likelihood, even with an understanding, that he or she won't really rock the boat anyways.
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    >not every person with a certain skin color has experienced the same thing True, but try finding an Afro-American that haven't faced racism.
- kepler1 6y ago
  The notion that only representatives from those who suffer racism or oppression can be the ones to get us out of it, is an attitude that hinders all of us from making progress against it.

KKPMW 6y ago

This whole post is weird. Based on the tone they seem to think they are combating racism. But really the CEO of a company just announced that they are looking for a new candidate. Requirements? - No particular requirements, except having the right skin color.

underyx 6y ago
We cannot know what the requirements are other than the one announced here.
kitsune_ 6y ago
Your implied reverse-racism argument just doesn't hold. Are you telling me that there are no capable African-Americans who could fill that board position? If not, the what are you arguing? That increasing the representation of historically oppressed minority groups is bad?
- Udik 6y ago
  Maybe that choosing people based on their ethnicity or skin color is wrong, whatever they might be?
- john_alan 6y ago
  > Are you telling me that there are no capable African-Americans who could fill that board position? Of fucking course not. > If not, the what are you arguing? That increasing the representation of historically oppressed minority groups is bad? This might be difficult for you to understand but explicitly hiring someone with a particular skin colour is the fucking definition of racism.
  - Traster 6y ago
    >This might be difficult for you to understand but explicitly hiring someone with a particular skin colour is the fucking definition of racism. The only difference between what they're doing now and what they did before is the skin color requirement is explicit instead of implicit. Only hire white guys? Meritocracy! Decide you want to hire 1 black guy? Racist!

throwaway9482 6y ago

I deleted my reddit account after I saw this announcement. That website has been on a downward slide ever since Tencent got some ownership and it’s become very evident Reddit is being used to push some ideologies.

audessuscest 6y ago
I deleted my reddit account too. Reddit is becoming an editorialised website where people propose content slowly but surely. Promoting sub they entirely control and moderate heavily. I used to visit reddit daily for more than a decade. Reddit is dead to me.
Dahoon 6y ago
Reddit's downward spiral has not changed since Tencent. It has always been like this and has nothing to do with Tencent and everything to do with the administrators/owners/boardmembers and the few moderator friends they let control most of the big subs. Go read what actual moderators (not the admin-friend-mods but everyone else) says about this and it will have nothing to do with China. Could you not have left Reddit on Reddit instead of taking it with you here? There's enough China-hate here already.
- throwaway9482 6y ago
  The China “hate” is simply a result of the amount the CPC has meddled with American affairs

panpanna 6y ago

About time. It is almost impossible to browse the front page without seeing some hateful content. And I am not talking about the political stuff. You can upload video of a random dude getting beaten to death, make some absurd claims like "the guy is a pedophile caught in the act" and watch the hateful comments roll in. Basically, you can make any claims and the ones that keep people's blood boiling seems very popular way of getting clicks and upvotes.

PunchTornado 6y ago
maybe you should unsubscribe from subs you don't like. plenty of people like violent subs, like justicesurved or others.
- panpanna 6y ago
  Mate I got news for you: they are getting so popular they are all over the front page. I sometimes wonder if Reddit has resulted in a generation completely unable of critical thinking.
  - PunchTornado 6y ago
    I don't understand what you mean by frontpage. it is made only from posts from subs you subscribed to. if you don't like it, unsubscribe. or the thing that bothers you is that other people like it and want to see it
    - zo1 6y ago
      I get /r/politics all the time recommended to me, filled with hateful content. I can't "block" it even though I've looked.
      - DuskStar 6y ago
        old.reddit.com is the only way to reddit.
  - 6y ago

namelosw 6y ago

I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Maybe time will tell. One thing popped up in my mind was YouTube demonetized a lot of videos that are not 'family-friendly', and eventually destroyed a lot of great content creators.

high_derivative 6y ago

To me, it seems like a combination of childish-authoritarian beliefs that the world will change for the better once, and only once, you stop anyone from saying anything controversial at all. Once nobody is able to disagree, bad things won't exist any more.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
trianglem 6y ago
It’s all about doing what you can when you can. Please take this acerbic, hyperbolic attitude somewhere else.
- high_derivative 6y ago
  I hope the irony is not lost on you when you ask me to leave this platform for disagreeing with you.
  - knolax 6y ago
    I hope you realize the irony of the fact that you're posting on a forum much more heavily moderated than Reddit.
    - freespeechkami 6y ago
      False.
  - flyinglizard 6y ago
    I'm amused to no end.
- blackhaz 6y ago
  Isn't your own reply but a hyperbole? Reddit can do much better than this. The person suggested it should be a platform for open discussion, including controversial topics, rather than becoming yet another China. The person was saying you cannot stop violence by shutting up people.

audessuscest 6y ago

I deleted my reddit account. Reddit is becoming an editorialised website where people propose content, slowly but surely. Promoting sub they entirely control and moderate heavily. I used to visit reddit daily for more than a decade. Reddit is dead to me.

politelemon 6y ago

Sadly Reddit's announcements have a long history of verbosity, with little to no action taken afterwards. It's a long post but you'll notice very little in the way of actual measurable goals. The comments in that thread are very telling of how Reddit's admins have chosen to wring their hands, or lament over their lack of involvement in the past rather than address issues, policies or tools.

kitsune_ 6y ago

Ellen K. Pao was right all along. Also if the replies in here are representative of Silicon Valley as a whole, damn. It just reminds me of the stereotypical too-smart-for-their-own-good hacker who is prone to making sweeping generalisations and extrapolations in domains that lie outside of their own experience or expertise. I know I'm prone to this and I've met a lot of arrogant smart people who fall into this category. I really think that there is an empathy problem here. Sometimes we just need to shut up and listen instead of looking at the world in binary terms.

vincentmarle 6y ago
> Also if the replies in here are representative of Silicon Valley as a whole, damn. Unbelievable indeed. When is HN going to come out with their anti hate policy?
- manigandham 6y ago
  The HN guidelines are already sufficient: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
concordDance 6y ago
Isn't the whole point of this upcoming policy change to prevent people being able to hear racist voices?
- kitsune_ 6y ago
  This is the exact kind of gotcha look-at-me-i-am-smart rethoric that I was talking about, you do not engage with what I wrote. "He said 'listen' without technically qualifying it further so let's reframe this so that listen also covers listening to racist view points, something orthogonal to the essence of his post, gotcha!". We both know what you are doing here, and honestly I expect better from people. I have no idea why you are doing that however, I'm interested in what led you to reply in this manner.

flyinglizard 6y ago

This week the NYT apologized[0] for publishing an op-ed[1] from a Republican senator which stated something (using the military to restore civil order) which has broad - if not majority - support among Americans[2]. Some columnists apologetically said that giving Sen. Tom Cotton a stage could be justified on the basis of giving that to other enemies of the US in the past, such as Iran and the Taliban[3]. It seems like in the USA circa 2020 there's a pretty narrow legitimate range of opinions, stepping out of which immediately earns you *cist expletives. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/business/new-york-times-op-ed-cotton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/business/new-york-times-o... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-of-voters-support-using-military-to-help-police-control-protests-poll-finds/#76593f332417 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-o... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/tom-cotton-op-ed-new-york-times.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/tom-cotton-op-ed-...

MindTooth 6y ago
Seems that a new thing these days is that we need to be lectured on what the content mean. And that we are incapable of understanding ourselves. When did we get so dum that some individuals/groups gets to do the explaining. What makes us sure that these actually have the right answer. IMHO, I’m not sure.
Traster 6y ago
Why are you mis-representing what the NYT did? Are you just hoping people don't read your citations. From your citation > For example, the published piece presents as facts assertions about the role of “cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa”; in fact, those allegations have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Editors should have sought further corroboration of those assertions, or removed them from the piece. The assertion that police officers “bore the brunt” of the violence is an overstatement that should have been challenged. The essay also includes a reference to a “constitutional duty” that was intended as a paraphrase; it should not have been rendered as a quotation. The NYT didn't apologize for publishing an Op-Ed from a Senator. It apologized for doing it's job badly and publishing materially false statements as fact. It's worth noting that Senator Cotton went on to publicly call for the extra judicial killing of protestors. Which, if we're really so concerned about legitimate opinions, I would suggest murdering protestors would have more of a chilling effect than choosing not to publish their op-eds.

_thrwaway_0 6y ago

So many people here in HN are so scared that they cant be pushing onto the racism boundary. They are the snowflakes!!!! OHHHH THE HURT! WHY CANT I BE RACIST ANYMORE!!! WHERE IS MY FREEDOM TO OFFEND?!!!?!?!?

aus4blanch 6y ago

I do not believe that there is strength in racial diversity when every instance of multiracial proximity in history and today results in dysfunction and violence. I believe that threatening my (predominantly White) nation with millions of foreigners is extremely hostile and hateful. I wish nothing more for than my children and their children to grow up in a place of peace, harmony, belonging, unity, joy and fulfilment. I want them to love themselves, know their history, respect their ancestors. I want them to extoll the virtues of our people and to enjoy the many fruits of European culture. I want for them a place where they may pursue their potential, free of the countless difficulties and dangers that the multiracial option, free of the daily hysteria and thinly-veiled anti-White hatred that my generation has experienced all our lives as the West demonstrates the unending division and tension that is inevitable with multiracialism. I am motivated by nothing but love for my people, my family, and myself. I do not hate Africans or Jews. Or Chinese or Muslims. I do not wish for their children to grow up in awful conditions, I only wish for my children not to. I owe strangers in foreign places nothing; I owe my family everything. Is this view 'hate'? It certainly doesn't seem like it to me. Am I to understand that wanting a homeland for my people to exist in peace and prosperity is hateful, while the non-Whites openly celebrating violence against Whites, our dispossession, depression, and extinction, somehow act outside the definition of 'hate'? 'Hate' is not an objective term. It means nothing unless you also define what you hate. All-too-often, that thing is White people.

merricksb 6y ago

Big discussion earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23430575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23430575

_thrwaway_0 6y ago

Just seen my other comment was downvoted to hell. Just shows the position of many users of this forum. Why can we not have an area where more people are represented and know fine well they wont be targetted with abuse? If this means banning racist or fascist outlets / users then so be it.

concordDance 6y ago

Unfortunate. Looks like there will soon be a crackdown on any HBD discussion.

s9w 6y ago
What's HBD in this context? Urban Dictionary failed me I think.
- Steko 6y ago
  Human biodiversity, a PC term to rebrand racism. Brought to you by the snowflakes that rebranded nazis and neoconfederates as the "alt-right". Some discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/BadSocialScience/comments/3cdz2z/rcoontowns_human_biodiversity_resource/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BadSocialScience/comments/3cdz2z/rc... Yep, that HBD-loving subreddit was actually called /r/coontown and was actually worse than you might guess, if possible. Other commenters in this thread seem to miss it. Says more about them than about reddit, which is much better than it used to be. If anyone misses the coontown crowd they can easily catch up with them at "free speech" havens like voat and gab, which are both worse than most people would guess.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    Is HBD verboten because it's factually wrong, or because even if it's right it's repugnant to talk about such things? If you believe it's factually wrong, is that belief falsifiable? Is there some sort of study or experiment that could convince you otherwise? I'm not talking "plausible" or "morally correct" experiment here - if it would take blinding a few hundred infants of different races and raising them without non-automated human contact and comparing outcomes, that's fine - but it would be nice to know what level of evidence you'd be looking for. But hey, I'm just some guy who's looking forward to Embryo Selection [0], which kind of depends on some part of intelligence variance being genetic, and who thinks Blank Slate/Tabula Rasa is pretty dead [1]. Maybe I'm wrong, but from that perspective your BadSocialScience link is pretty questionable. 0: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture

freespeechkami 6y ago

The comments in this thread are evidence of HN's shared, yet latent, trajectory with Reddit. It's been a fun 10 years, idiots.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

IronWolve 6y ago

The threads comments are made up of users in popularity of biggest political subs in order. /r/Politics, r/ChapoTrapHouse, r/TopMindsofReddit, last are a few of /r/The_Donald. The first 3 would love all conservatives gone. ChapoTrapHouse embraces communism and doesn't care either left or right (Except Sanders). TopMinds is sub dedicated to attacking conservatives. And why is Steve calling out Conservatives aka, r/The_Donald. He considers all conservatives hateful now just for looking at problems differently? Wow, rude. Lets look at how stupid this Hate argument is for different political views. All Live Matters vs Black Lives Matter, Its a right vs left argument. The right thinks All Lives isn't racist, because it includes every race. Black Lives Matter thinks Black lives are being targeted more, and needs dedicated attention. Both sides are for the same issue, stop police abuses, but Reddit Admins think the right are hate filled because they look at the problem differently than the left. BLM is now throwing Antifa towards the cops, Antifa is actually causing violence. Antifa hangs out in ChapoTrapHouse, and CTH has been called out and punished by reddit admins a few times, but CTH is still allowed, The_Donald isn't. Topminds actively brigades and attacks conservative subs, and the Reddit Admins ignore it. If you Want to stop hate, first realize most people on the right and left want mostly the same things, (excluding the far left and far right). Concentrate on the issues, not the people. Almost all the hate on Reddit is either towards groups of people on the forums of the opposite part they dont like. You know who you can hate on reddit and not get banned? White men, White women (Karens) and Christians. /r/All routinely has comedy, art, memes that are targeting conservatives, /r/News and /r/Politics has been banning conservatives for even participating. Lets not pretend that Reddit cares about Hate, Steve allows hate, as long as its towards conservatives...

senectus1 6y ago
which antifa is this? The antifa that is "Anti Fascist" meaning PRO Democracy? or the antifa that is the invisible boogieman tag that the far right extremists use to group anyone that's not them and attach violent acts to them?
freespeechkami 6y ago
Not sure which claim you made here downvoters disagree with. Or perhaps they agree with the claims you made and, disturbingly, believe their entailments are justified and virtuous. I will say your use of the terms left, right, conservatism, antifa are imprecise.

usui 6y ago

Not exact duplicate of earlier post, since this one points to the reddit discussion involving u/spez Many comments bring up the fact that administrators punished a subreddit called r/waterniggas, which featured posts with the running gag of people taking water extremely seriously, to the point of humor. Here's an example of the kind of content there: https://ia802908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21/items/waterniggas_subreddit/waterniggas-redditvideos.zip&file=videos%2F0p4x1hho8rk21.mp4 https://ia802908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21... In retrospect, naming the subreddit r/waterniggas was a poor choice, but many agree that it was harmless and that there was no hate speech propogated by it. This supports the notion that the administration does not actually care about hate speech, but rather the optics and superficiality of caring about it, winning "brownie points" to the general public. This is so that Reddit as a business can make it seem like a safer platform for advertisers and earn more dollars because the advertisers feel like it is a safe place to park their brand. Furthermore, any time the administration makes public posts like these, they tend to come at very convenient times. This kind of post has happened before and no actual change ever occurred as a result of it. It is clear that the recent George Floyd protests encouraged them to make this post decrying hate speech, but again, if they were really concerned about hate speech, they would have acted on r/The_Donald faster than r/waterniggas. The first two sentences of the post begin with this. "TL;DR: We’re working with mods to change our content policy to explicitly address hate. u/kn0thing has resigned from our board to fill his seat with a Black candidate, a request we will honor." Oh my lord, there are so many things wrong with this that I want to claw my eyes out. Congratulations, once we hire you to the board, know that the main reason we decided to hire you is that it's because you're black! If they were going to take this road, they could have at least lied about how they care about inclusivity and that they would hire someone who was equipped and experienced to deal with sensitive racial issues, and then hired someone who happened to be black. I did not expect them to just outright say that they would motivate their hiring process with racist intentions!! "We believe that hiring a black person is going to make a big difference in how racist we are!" To me, this really screams out how superficial the administration's concerns are, how surface-level those concerns reach, and how they could not care less deep down, despite protestors and police officers dying. All of this just so they could generate more ad revenue. I am highly concerned with the way social media is going. While I understand that it is 100% in the right of private companies to police their platform, we were brought up with notion that we were participating in more-or-less, "public" forums, and that we would enjoy the benefit of having varied discussions on them. I did not particularly like r/The_Donald, but I liked that if you did like that content, you could go there. It's not like anyone was forced to go to r/The_Donald. I really do not want a future where Facebook or the Reddit echo chamber decides on what kind of opinion I should have. I would rather be on a platform where the only things I cannot post is illegal content or spam. I want to be on a platform where everything else should be permissible. If not, then I want the administration to explicitly tell me that they want to be thought policing, so that I don't feel deceived and I can go somewhere else. Reddit articles, posts, and comments have drained in quality so much that I barely visit it nowadays. All of the stupid meme parent comments and lowest common denominator banter chain "jokes" (haha 69420, haha <insert tireless joke that isn't funny>) make me roll my eyes so hard that I immediately give up on trying to look for an insightful comment on the article's topic and close my browser. Also, I want to slip in how much I hate how slow the mobile interface has gotten. No, I do not want to install the Reddit mobile app, leave me alone!