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Actually, that's not quite true. Reddit's first wave of popularity came from a lack of censorship. There was a decryption code posted on a news story on Digg

Actually, that's not quite true. Reddit's first wave of popularity came from a lack of censorship. There was a decryption code posted on a news story on Digg that allowed one to decrypt a bluray. Digg got a cease and desist, took it down, and people started protesting on Digg posting the code everywhere. During this time was the first wave where people started jumping from Digg to Reddit because of the lack of censorship. The lack of censorship was so bad Reddit used to have a lot of child porn on it and Reddit fought the US gov on it stating it shouldn't have to censor content. I suspect The_Donald has been shut down primarily due to a lack of moderators. This causes drama to get escalated outside of the sub and the Reddit admins do not want to deal with it. Reddit is still very much anti censorship.

ryankemper 6y ago
> Reddit is still very much anti censorship. This is just not true. They are very transparently trying to kick off users/communities that they don't "like". For example basically any subreddit associated with the "alt right", except I believe /r/DebateTheAltRight or whatever it's called. It's very simple: (1) Identify community that you don't like, generally due to association with anti-leftist political views (2) Find an instance of a threat of violence, regardless of context (i.e. the threat coming from someone who isn't a "real" community member) (3) Use (2) to have a justified reason for "quarantining" the community, which is just the first step in a long, slow death-squeeze. From my understanding, those at /r/The_Donald saw the obvious writing on the wall and thus migrated to the donald.win quite some time ago.
- andybak 6y ago
  The sense of persecution and victim-hood I hear from the right seems rather at odds with how damn successful they seem to be at the moment. It's like when the silent majority was anything but.
  - Gunax 6y ago
    This is difficult because there are different definitions of 'right' as well as different environments. They can be successful at the ballot box nationally but still be persecuted. Remember that Brendan Eich was forced out of Mozilla for his views. To be a professor in University of California one has to pass a political litmus test. So yea I do think there is persecution.
    - monksy 6y ago
      > Remember that Brendan Eich was forced out of Mozilla for his views. He was forced out due to a 1000$ personal donation to a political group that was Christian/right leaning. Political speak: "Incompatible/Hostile views"
      - andybak 6y ago
        I seem to recall there was slightly more to it than that. I don't have the time or inclination to get drawn into this now but I didn't want an incomplete summary to stand unchallenged.
        scrollaway 6y ago
        That is about it. That, and that given the opportunity to apologise for it, he didn't. He immediately lost the respect and trust of most mozillians and a lot of the public, which itself made him unfit for the role. I don't know if you can really say he was forced out; you don't keep a CEO around when nobody in a company of hundreds of employees trusts them.
        monksy 6y ago
        > That is about it. That, and that given the opportunity to apologise for it, he didn't. It was personal funds right? Why should he apologize? Should you apologize for buying something from a competitor? Who do you apologize to for making a private transaction with your own money? > He immediately lost the respect and trust of most mozillians and a lot of the public, which itself made him unfit for the role. He did? Was he unable to perform his job? They uncovered this after the deed was done. Was that faith lost while they didn't know about it? If you asked Firefox users right now: how many people would even be able to tell you about this situation? > I don't know if you can really say he was forced out; you don't keep a CEO around when nobody in a company of hundreds of employees trusts them. Did the employees get polled on this? (My bet is no)
  - Meekro 6y ago
    I don't think they're especially successful right now. Their President is barely holding on to majority support in Texas and is losing every purple state. He seems powerless to appease his law&order base by stopping the riots and indicting their leaders as he wants to do. Their Supreme Court justices keep ruling against them (another bid to chip away at Roe v Wade knocked down just this morning). Their online presences keep getting canceled (Twitch ban against Trump just this morning). The New York Times has decided that publishing a right-wing essay by a Senator, with which the majority of the party agrees, is a fireable offense. Their right-wing legislature failed to repeal ObamaCare. The right-leaning Supreme Court prevented Trump from canceling DACA. Although the courts didn't explicitly prevent Trump Wall construction, they did the next best thing: allow it to get tangled up in litigation, injunctions, and counter-injunctions for 4 years, thereby preventing substantial progress. Lots of people have lost their jobs for criticizing BLM, whereas criticizing the right is practically obligatory. I see a lot of rhetoric, and very little success.
    - FireBeyond 6y ago
      > Lots of people have lost their jobs for criticizing BLM I think you'd need to cite cases where it was for objective criticism of BLM, and not associated/ tangential calls for violence, and/or hate speech.
      - Meekro 6y ago
        Here are a few dozen examples: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1269314030663012352.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1269314030663012352.html
        collinmanderson 6y ago
        Quoting some of the extreme examples: > 3/ Gordon Klein, a professor at UCLA, has been placed on leave after he refused to cancel a final exam following George Floyd's death > 23/ David Shore, a 28-year-old data scientist, has been fired for tweeting an article by a biracial Princeton African-American studies scholar suggesting that rioting is politically counterproductive. > 32/ Tiffany Riley, the headmistress of a high school in Windsor, Vermont, has been forced to take "administrative leave" after writing a Facebook post in which she said, “Just because I don’t walk around with a BLM sign should not mean I am a racist.” > 37/ Emmanuel Cafferty, a Hispanic truck driver, has been fired after a fellow driver put a picture of his arm hanging out of his truck window on Twitter and claimed it was the white power symbol. A BLM protest was taking place nearby.
- Covzire 6y ago
  I think it'll be a good thing, Reddit and most Silicon Valley companies hostile to free speech are going to decline as competition as alternatives that truly appreciate the constitution of the country they operate in are born. I actually like how Reddit moderates for the most part, they do keep things relatively "clean", but they are also thoroughly corrupt politically, horrendously biased in favor of anything left wing and beyond reform. Outside of a few minor subs, I don't "browse" reddit anymore at all. Everyone fair and honest who visits /r/politics or /r/worldnews knows by now they're being lied to, constantly and without relent, so only one type of reader still goes there willingly.
- newacct583 6y ago
  > Find an instance of a threat of violence, regardless of context Doesn't the fact that finding instances of violent rhetoric among alt-right posters, regardless of context, sorta make the case that maybe this is an endemic problem and not a purely political suppression? There are a lot of really hateful people among that group, in ways that just aren't true for other politically aligned communities. I mean, the Dirtbag Left folks have their assholes too (note that the Chapo sub was banned too), but they're comparatively rare, notable in isolation, generally have names associated with them, and (really importantly) tend to be shamed and controlled from within their own communities. The alt right is a bunch of assholes, plus a bunch of people who make a habit of tolerating assholes. That's a toxic combination if you're Reddit.
  - xienze 6y ago
    > Doesn't the fact that finding instances of violent rhetoric among alt-right posters, regardless of context, sorta make the case that maybe this is an endemic problem and not a purely political suppression? No? Because in an anonymous online forum anyone can just hop in and drop a “... kill em all!” message and whoops, there goes your forum. It’s impossible to prevent, at best you can only react to it. You are completely at the mercy of admins as to whether or not they believe such content is “inherent” to your community, and surprise surprise, they do.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      Except, again, this doesn't happen on other large left-leaning forums at Reddit. When was the last time /r/twoxchromosomes brigaded the voting at /r/news to attack an inconvenient story? When was the last time a mod on /r/relationships was banned for hate speech?
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      If someone dropped a message like that they'd get banned. What happens when a large chunk of the community is like that and moderators are not keeping harassment down?
  - zackees 6y ago
- stale2002 6y ago
  > They are very transparently trying to kick off users/communities that they don't "like". They are now. But what we are saying is that reddit didn't used to be like this. Reddit used to be much less moderated, and much more in favor of free speech, almost to a ridiculous degree. They used to allow a subreddit called jailbait, for gods sake. Things are very different now, obviously.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  Reddit has banned left leaning subs too, so there is probably something more there than first meets the eyes.
AgentME 6y ago
I think it's not super useful to generalize things down to being about censorship in the abstract. It can be true without contradiction that many people are against censorship in defense of DRM, and are for censorship targeted at keeping droves of hateful comments out.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
> Reddit is still very much anti censorship. // That doesn't appear to be true. Something like r/watchpeopledie, they don't have to censor, and it seems contained. I wouldn't want to visit it, not more than once, it may not be healthy in general, but taking it down seems to be "just" censorship? Other than pornography they seem to have markedly cleaned up and taken a much more advertising friendly focus; seems much less to have the dingy back alleys it once did (but maybe that's a biased view). Haven't they closed subreddits to quash some radical conservative talk? Are you part of the Reddit administration? Rightly or wrongly there appears to have been a lot of censorship over the last couple of years.
- Drip33 6y ago
  >Something like r/watchpeopledie, they don't have to censor, and it seems contained. I wouldn't want to visit it, not more than once, it may not be healthy in general, but taking it down seems to be "just" censorship? I can say for me personally after spending some time on that subreddit that I am far more cautious and safe in everything I do. I always look out for falling objects, wear helmets and safety gear when appropriate, drive even more defensively etc. The sub opened my eyes to the dangers of planet Earth, all the ways it tries to kill us, and I don't think I'm alone on this.

ryankemper 6y ago

> Reddit is still very much anti censorship. This is just not true. They are very transparently trying to kick off users/communities that they don't "like". For example basically any subreddit associated with the "alt right", except I believe /r/DebateTheAltRight or whatever it's called. It's very simple: (1) Identify community that you don't like, generally due to association with anti-leftist political views (2) Find an instance of a threat of violence, regardless of context (i.e. the threat coming from someone who isn't a "real" community member) (3) Use (2) to have a justified reason for "quarantining" the community, which is just the first step in a long, slow death-squeeze. From my understanding, those at /r/The_Donald saw the obvious writing on the wall and thus migrated to the donald.win quite some time ago.

andybak 6y ago
The sense of persecution and victim-hood I hear from the right seems rather at odds with how damn successful they seem to be at the moment. It's like when the silent majority was anything but.
- Gunax 6y ago
  This is difficult because there are different definitions of 'right' as well as different environments. They can be successful at the ballot box nationally but still be persecuted. Remember that Brendan Eich was forced out of Mozilla for his views. To be a professor in University of California one has to pass a political litmus test. So yea I do think there is persecution.
  - monksy 6y ago
    > Remember that Brendan Eich was forced out of Mozilla for his views. He was forced out due to a 1000$ personal donation to a political group that was Christian/right leaning. Political speak: "Incompatible/Hostile views"
    - andybak 6y ago
      I seem to recall there was slightly more to it than that. I don't have the time or inclination to get drawn into this now but I didn't want an incomplete summary to stand unchallenged.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        That is about it. That, and that given the opportunity to apologise for it, he didn't. He immediately lost the respect and trust of most mozillians and a lot of the public, which itself made him unfit for the role. I don't know if you can really say he was forced out; you don't keep a CEO around when nobody in a company of hundreds of employees trusts them.
        monksy 6y ago
        > That is about it. That, and that given the opportunity to apologise for it, he didn't. It was personal funds right? Why should he apologize? Should you apologize for buying something from a competitor? Who do you apologize to for making a private transaction with your own money? > He immediately lost the respect and trust of most mozillians and a lot of the public, which itself made him unfit for the role. He did? Was he unable to perform his job? They uncovered this after the deed was done. Was that faith lost while they didn't know about it? If you asked Firefox users right now: how many people would even be able to tell you about this situation? > I don't know if you can really say he was forced out; you don't keep a CEO around when nobody in a company of hundreds of employees trusts them. Did the employees get polled on this? (My bet is no)
- Meekro 6y ago
  I don't think they're especially successful right now. Their President is barely holding on to majority support in Texas and is losing every purple state. He seems powerless to appease his law&order base by stopping the riots and indicting their leaders as he wants to do. Their Supreme Court justices keep ruling against them (another bid to chip away at Roe v Wade knocked down just this morning). Their online presences keep getting canceled (Twitch ban against Trump just this morning). The New York Times has decided that publishing a right-wing essay by a Senator, with which the majority of the party agrees, is a fireable offense. Their right-wing legislature failed to repeal ObamaCare. The right-leaning Supreme Court prevented Trump from canceling DACA. Although the courts didn't explicitly prevent Trump Wall construction, they did the next best thing: allow it to get tangled up in litigation, injunctions, and counter-injunctions for 4 years, thereby preventing substantial progress. Lots of people have lost their jobs for criticizing BLM, whereas criticizing the right is practically obligatory. I see a lot of rhetoric, and very little success.
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    > Lots of people have lost their jobs for criticizing BLM I think you'd need to cite cases where it was for objective criticism of BLM, and not associated/ tangential calls for violence, and/or hate speech.
    - Meekro 6y ago
      Here are a few dozen examples: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1269314030663012352.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1269314030663012352.html
      - collinmanderson 6y ago
        Quoting some of the extreme examples: > 3/ Gordon Klein, a professor at UCLA, has been placed on leave after he refused to cancel a final exam following George Floyd's death > 23/ David Shore, a 28-year-old data scientist, has been fired for tweeting an article by a biracial Princeton African-American studies scholar suggesting that rioting is politically counterproductive. > 32/ Tiffany Riley, the headmistress of a high school in Windsor, Vermont, has been forced to take "administrative leave" after writing a Facebook post in which she said, “Just because I don’t walk around with a BLM sign should not mean I am a racist.” > 37/ Emmanuel Cafferty, a Hispanic truck driver, has been fired after a fellow driver put a picture of his arm hanging out of his truck window on Twitter and claimed it was the white power symbol. A BLM protest was taking place nearby.
Covzire 6y ago
I think it'll be a good thing, Reddit and most Silicon Valley companies hostile to free speech are going to decline as competition as alternatives that truly appreciate the constitution of the country they operate in are born. I actually like how Reddit moderates for the most part, they do keep things relatively "clean", but they are also thoroughly corrupt politically, horrendously biased in favor of anything left wing and beyond reform. Outside of a few minor subs, I don't "browse" reddit anymore at all. Everyone fair and honest who visits /r/politics or /r/worldnews knows by now they're being lied to, constantly and without relent, so only one type of reader still goes there willingly.
newacct583 6y ago
> Find an instance of a threat of violence, regardless of context Doesn't the fact that finding instances of violent rhetoric among alt-right posters, regardless of context, sorta make the case that maybe this is an endemic problem and not a purely political suppression? There are a lot of really hateful people among that group, in ways that just aren't true for other politically aligned communities. I mean, the Dirtbag Left folks have their assholes too (note that the Chapo sub was banned too), but they're comparatively rare, notable in isolation, generally have names associated with them, and (really importantly) tend to be shamed and controlled from within their own communities. The alt right is a bunch of assholes, plus a bunch of people who make a habit of tolerating assholes. That's a toxic combination if you're Reddit.
- xienze 6y ago
  > Doesn't the fact that finding instances of violent rhetoric among alt-right posters, regardless of context, sorta make the case that maybe this is an endemic problem and not a purely political suppression? No? Because in an anonymous online forum anyone can just hop in and drop a “... kill em all!” message and whoops, there goes your forum. It’s impossible to prevent, at best you can only react to it. You are completely at the mercy of admins as to whether or not they believe such content is “inherent” to your community, and surprise surprise, they do.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    Except, again, this doesn't happen on other large left-leaning forums at Reddit. When was the last time /r/twoxchromosomes brigaded the voting at /r/news to attack an inconvenient story? When was the last time a mod on /r/relationships was banned for hate speech?
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    If someone dropped a message like that they'd get banned. What happens when a large chunk of the community is like that and moderators are not keeping harassment down?
- zackees 6y ago
stale2002 6y ago
> They are very transparently trying to kick off users/communities that they don't "like". They are now. But what we are saying is that reddit didn't used to be like this. Reddit used to be much less moderated, and much more in favor of free speech, almost to a ridiculous degree. They used to allow a subreddit called jailbait, for gods sake. Things are very different now, obviously.
proverbialbunny 6y ago
Reddit has banned left leaning subs too, so there is probably something more there than first meets the eyes.

AgentME 6y ago

I think it's not super useful to generalize things down to being about censorship in the abstract. It can be true without contradiction that many people are against censorship in defense of DRM, and are for censorship targeted at keeping droves of hateful comments out.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

> Reddit is still very much anti censorship. // That doesn't appear to be true. Something like r/watchpeopledie, they don't have to censor, and it seems contained. I wouldn't want to visit it, not more than once, it may not be healthy in general, but taking it down seems to be "just" censorship? Other than pornography they seem to have markedly cleaned up and taken a much more advertising friendly focus; seems much less to have the dingy back alleys it once did (but maybe that's a biased view). Haven't they closed subreddits to quash some radical conservative talk? Are you part of the Reddit administration? Rightly or wrongly there appears to have been a lot of censorship over the last couple of years.

Drip33 6y ago
>Something like r/watchpeopledie, they don't have to censor, and it seems contained. I wouldn't want to visit it, not more than once, it may not be healthy in general, but taking it down seems to be "just" censorship? I can say for me personally after spending some time on that subreddit that I am far more cautious and safe in everything I do. I always look out for falling objects, wear helmets and safety gear when appropriate, drive even more defensively etc. The sub opened my eyes to the dangers of planet Earth, all the ways it tries to kill us, and I don't think I'm alone on this.