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They lump porn (presumably also artistic nudity) along with hate speech, racism and so on as banned discourse. You're not even allowed to have a sexual alias.

They lump porn (presumably also artistic nudity) along with hate speech, racism and so on as banned discourse. You're not even allowed to have a sexual alias. This is not necessarily a bad thing for users - I often wish for a place similar to hacker news but with a wider range of topics - however, it almost certainly means they will never reach Reddit levels of popularity. I do think that Reddit fills an important niche - a place where any topic is open for discussion, including porn and other forbidden topics like drugs. It's just unfortunate that the company currently ruling this niche is so morally bereft that they can't tell the difference between open discussion and fueling hate speech.

hutzlibu 6y ago
"difference between open discussion and fueling hate speech" Do you have a crystal clear definition then, on where is exactly the difference? I doubt there exists one.
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  Yes, real world problems are hard. I'm not sure what point you're trying to convey though? We can't just say, "The boundaries of hate speech are unclear, so we'll do nothing and have uncensored speech." This experiment has been tried over and over again, with uniformly bad results.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    My point was, that it is hard and the lines are blurry. But actually I do believe in the concept of unrestricted speech. But I really don't know when was the last time, that was tried. There were times, when certain topics were ok to speak freely about, like racism, yes, but at those times other topics were restricted, so what exactly are you talking about?
    - thinkloop 6y ago
      > I do believe in the concept of unrestricted speech. Including illegal things?
      - hutzlibu 6y ago
        What do you mean by that? In Saudia Arabia it is illegal to say, God does not exist. (and in germany under special circumstances, too - meaning, if enough people would get angry at you saying that, it would be illegal for you to say so)
    - ves 6y ago
      Do you know anywhere with truly unrestricted speech? The US has the freest speech that I know of (granted it’s also the only model that I’m so familiar with), and even it has plenty of restrictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
      - bhupy 6y ago
        The restrictions on speech in the US are confined to “imminent lawless action”, per Brandenburg v Ohio. I think the commenter to whom you are replying might be entirely fine with Reddit’s speech policy following that precedent. And no, shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater is not illegal and is protected by the First Amendment.
        patmorgan23 6y ago
        But you can't shout fire in crowed theater with the intent to cause chaos. You can shout fire in a crowded theater, if there is an actual fire.
        bhupy 6y ago
        Yes you can! That argument was made in a SCOTUS argument that has since been unanimously overturned. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
        simplify 6y ago
        Great read, thanks for posting. I had mistakenly thought this for a while too.
        tripzilch 6y ago
        Wow. So the argument was first successfully used to jail peaceful socialists and anti-war activists, but was later overturned for benefit of the KKK.
    - patmorgan23 6y ago
      There's a difference between largely unrestricted speech legally (being free from gov censorship) and having an unmoderated online community. Moderation is a good thong when done correctly, it raises the quality of the conversion by keeping bad actors and off-topic/toxic comments /post out. There's value in both tightly moderated and loosely moderated communities/spaces.
  - imperfect_blue 6y ago
    Early Reddit isn't what what most would call a "bad result". Ditto for early 4chan and for a lot of smaller communities that have very little restrictions on content beyond civility and anti-spamming. The problem is that having uncensored speech doesn't scale, because eventually you'll become big enough to attract media scrutiny, which inevitably cherry-picks the worst parts of the user base. This cause 1) advertisers to pull out and 2) starts attracting more of the wrong type of users.
Kudos 6y ago
Once federation works, porn-related instances can do what they want and you can federate with them if you want.
xfitm3 6y ago
> I do think that Reddit fills an important niche - a place where any topic is open for discussion This used to be the case years ago but Reddit is anything but open now. It's a giant echo chamber and if you harbor unpopular beliefs or opinions you are not welcome.
retpirato 6y ago
they did just remove r/theDonald so obviously not just any topic is open for discussion. Basically you can talk about any color as long as it's blue.

hutzlibu 6y ago

"difference between open discussion and fueling hate speech" Do you have a crystal clear definition then, on where is exactly the difference? I doubt there exists one.

TomSwirly 6y ago
Yes, real world problems are hard. I'm not sure what point you're trying to convey though? We can't just say, "The boundaries of hate speech are unclear, so we'll do nothing and have uncensored speech." This experiment has been tried over and over again, with uniformly bad results.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  My point was, that it is hard and the lines are blurry. But actually I do believe in the concept of unrestricted speech. But I really don't know when was the last time, that was tried. There were times, when certain topics were ok to speak freely about, like racism, yes, but at those times other topics were restricted, so what exactly are you talking about?
  - thinkloop 6y ago
    > I do believe in the concept of unrestricted speech. Including illegal things?
    - hutzlibu 6y ago
      What do you mean by that? In Saudia Arabia it is illegal to say, God does not exist. (and in germany under special circumstances, too - meaning, if enough people would get angry at you saying that, it would be illegal for you to say so)
  - ves 6y ago
    Do you know anywhere with truly unrestricted speech? The US has the freest speech that I know of (granted it’s also the only model that I’m so familiar with), and even it has plenty of restrictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
    - bhupy 6y ago
      The restrictions on speech in the US are confined to “imminent lawless action”, per Brandenburg v Ohio. I think the commenter to whom you are replying might be entirely fine with Reddit’s speech policy following that precedent. And no, shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater is not illegal and is protected by the First Amendment.
      - patmorgan23 6y ago
        But you can't shout fire in crowed theater with the intent to cause chaos. You can shout fire in a crowded theater, if there is an actual fire.
        bhupy 6y ago
        Yes you can! That argument was made in a SCOTUS argument that has since been unanimously overturned. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
        simplify 6y ago
        Great read, thanks for posting. I had mistakenly thought this for a while too.
        tripzilch 6y ago
        Wow. So the argument was first successfully used to jail peaceful socialists and anti-war activists, but was later overturned for benefit of the KKK.
  - patmorgan23 6y ago
    There's a difference between largely unrestricted speech legally (being free from gov censorship) and having an unmoderated online community. Moderation is a good thong when done correctly, it raises the quality of the conversion by keeping bad actors and off-topic/toxic comments /post out. There's value in both tightly moderated and loosely moderated communities/spaces.
- imperfect_blue 6y ago
  Early Reddit isn't what what most would call a "bad result". Ditto for early 4chan and for a lot of smaller communities that have very little restrictions on content beyond civility and anti-spamming. The problem is that having uncensored speech doesn't scale, because eventually you'll become big enough to attract media scrutiny, which inevitably cherry-picks the worst parts of the user base. This cause 1) advertisers to pull out and 2) starts attracting more of the wrong type of users.

Kudos 6y ago

Once federation works, porn-related instances can do what they want and you can federate with them if you want.

xfitm3 6y ago

> I do think that Reddit fills an important niche - a place where any topic is open for discussion This used to be the case years ago but Reddit is anything but open now. It's a giant echo chamber and if you harbor unpopular beliefs or opinions you are not welcome.

retpirato 6y ago

they did just remove r/theDonald so obviously not just any topic is open for discussion. Basically you can talk about any color as long as it's blue.