6 ms·

Some subreddits were banned because other disliked the content. Like watchpeopledie. While the sub was disgusting banning it was for me the last nail in the cof

Some subreddits were banned because other disliked the content. Like watchpeopledie. While the sub was disgusting banning it was for me the last nail in the coffin of social networks which decide what is the best for me. While I still use Reddit I'm looking for an alternative without the built-in censorship.

TheMightyLlama 6y ago
This is a really good point. Today most (if not all) social media platforms seem to be relying on a central or centralised moderation system. Meaning that the limits of the Overton window are defined by a small set of people rather than the community itself. Here, I purposefully state 'the community' rather than 'representatives of the community' as these are two very different things. Reddit for example is moderated by 'members of the community'. If we're to take reddit as an example moderation happens by individuals rather than all members of the community. And as such it is open to abuse whether it happens or not. I thought about this for a long time and decided to write up what I would consider to be an acceptable framework for any given social media platform which would: 1. Help define the Overton window in a more organic fashion 2. Allow the platform to function within different jurisdictions. 3. Remove the overhead of central administration and opinion checking. If it helps, I wrote it up here: https://gist.github.com/TheMightyLlama/bb77a05d3dde4da2511426e34279e7d6 https://gist.github.com/TheMightyLlama/bb77a05d3dde4da251142...
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Meaning that the limits of the Overton window are defined by a small set of people rather than the community itself. I wonder if that's even the case, or if the range of allowed opinions is rather set by advertisers and investors. If Reddit had a very large, very lucrative Pro-Life community that essentially "kept the lights on" by providing high ad revenue, I doubt that they wouldn't cater to that community's wishes. They lean strongly to the left, because their audience does, and they want their audience to be happy so they stay and watch ads on their site.
  - kangaroozach 6y ago
    This is not true. It’s because they and their employees are ideological and believe in their own moral superiority. The media in general is not leaning strongly to the left as a business decision. They are run by people that are intolerant ideologues who morally can’t allow counter arguments and opinions to be heard or seen.
FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
If you feel restricted by rules preventing you from being hurtful towards others, the problem is you, not the rules.
- nexuist 6y ago
  If you can't speak out or express thoughts against the rules, you are ceding your own ability to ever change the rules. Allowing a small subset of people to control the rules for the masses has never, will never, and could not ever work in a free society. The small groups of Twitter and Reddit moderators are far too small to ever represent the diversity of human thought. You may think the rules prevent harm today, but what happens if and when they encourage harm tomorrow? What if the rules turned against you? Wouldn't you want to be able to speak out? This just feels like a rehash of the "think about the children" argument. We should not base human communication on the idea that some grown adult somehow somewhere could have such an adverse reaction to your content that they suffer serious mental or physical harm. Especially when said communication is hidden behind NSFW spoilers and other appropriate trigger warnings. Nobody could have possibly stumbled upon r/watchpeopledie and thought it was anything other than what it said it was.
  - prox 6y ago
    I think there is a dichotomy here, one is rules, the other is ethics, both are different discussions. For instance, can an ethical case be made for watching people die? Is there any benefit to be gained from this beyond the first novelty factor. (A rhetorical question, just to note that the ethical debate precedes rule making)
    - nexuist 6y ago
      Ideally an ethical debate would precede rule making. But last I checked nobody who didn't already work at Reddit was involved in making those rules; there was no site-wide referendum, no discussion with users, no warning that these decisions were being made. Every other social media giant operates the same way. To my knowledge no mainstream social network has ever polled its users for changes to its community policing model. Which is crazy, because in actual society we all have the right to vote, but online we are beholden to nameless moderators and provided no representation whatsoever. It's entirely up to chance whether your case gets seen by someone who would be sympathetic to you (assuming it even gets seen by a person instead of some glorified regex matcher posing as 'AI'). I know in tech we like to outsource lots of hard problems, but nobody should accept outsourcing their moral framework to Twitter, Inc. or Condé Nast.

TheMightyLlama 6y ago

This is a really good point. Today most (if not all) social media platforms seem to be relying on a central or centralised moderation system. Meaning that the limits of the Overton window are defined by a small set of people rather than the community itself. Here, I purposefully state 'the community' rather than 'representatives of the community' as these are two very different things. Reddit for example is moderated by 'members of the community'. If we're to take reddit as an example moderation happens by individuals rather than all members of the community. And as such it is open to abuse whether it happens or not. I thought about this for a long time and decided to write up what I would consider to be an acceptable framework for any given social media platform which would: 1. Help define the Overton window in a more organic fashion 2. Allow the platform to function within different jurisdictions. 3. Remove the overhead of central administration and opinion checking. If it helps, I wrote it up here: https://gist.github.com/TheMightyLlama/bb77a05d3dde4da2511426e34279e7d6 https://gist.github.com/TheMightyLlama/bb77a05d3dde4da251142...

luckylion 6y ago
> Meaning that the limits of the Overton window are defined by a small set of people rather than the community itself. I wonder if that's even the case, or if the range of allowed opinions is rather set by advertisers and investors. If Reddit had a very large, very lucrative Pro-Life community that essentially "kept the lights on" by providing high ad revenue, I doubt that they wouldn't cater to that community's wishes. They lean strongly to the left, because their audience does, and they want their audience to be happy so they stay and watch ads on their site.
- kangaroozach 6y ago
  This is not true. It’s because they and their employees are ideological and believe in their own moral superiority. The media in general is not leaning strongly to the left as a business decision. They are run by people that are intolerant ideologues who morally can’t allow counter arguments and opinions to be heard or seen.

FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago

If you feel restricted by rules preventing you from being hurtful towards others, the problem is you, not the rules.

nexuist 6y ago
If you can't speak out or express thoughts against the rules, you are ceding your own ability to ever change the rules. Allowing a small subset of people to control the rules for the masses has never, will never, and could not ever work in a free society. The small groups of Twitter and Reddit moderators are far too small to ever represent the diversity of human thought. You may think the rules prevent harm today, but what happens if and when they encourage harm tomorrow? What if the rules turned against you? Wouldn't you want to be able to speak out? This just feels like a rehash of the "think about the children" argument. We should not base human communication on the idea that some grown adult somehow somewhere could have such an adverse reaction to your content that they suffer serious mental or physical harm. Especially when said communication is hidden behind NSFW spoilers and other appropriate trigger warnings. Nobody could have possibly stumbled upon r/watchpeopledie and thought it was anything other than what it said it was.
- prox 6y ago
  I think there is a dichotomy here, one is rules, the other is ethics, both are different discussions. For instance, can an ethical case be made for watching people die? Is there any benefit to be gained from this beyond the first novelty factor. (A rhetorical question, just to note that the ethical debate precedes rule making)
  - nexuist 6y ago
    Ideally an ethical debate would precede rule making. But last I checked nobody who didn't already work at Reddit was involved in making those rules; there was no site-wide referendum, no discussion with users, no warning that these decisions were being made. Every other social media giant operates the same way. To my knowledge no mainstream social network has ever polled its users for changes to its community policing model. Which is crazy, because in actual society we all have the right to vote, but online we are beholden to nameless moderators and provided no representation whatsoever. It's entirely up to chance whether your case gets seen by someone who would be sympathetic to you (assuming it even gets seen by a person instead of some glorified regex matcher posing as 'AI'). I know in tech we like to outsource lots of hard problems, but nobody should accept outsourcing their moral framework to Twitter, Inc. or Condé Nast.