3 ms·

Reddit, YouTube, and Twitch are taking major steps to crack down on hate speech

1 points by throwawaysea 6y ago

throwawaysea 6y ago
I was very surprised yesterday to see that Reddit, YouTube, and Twitch all took major actions to censor "hate speech" all on the same day. I am personally against censorship from big tech companies, in large part because they control so much of societal discourse that such actions have the same negative impact in stifling expression as a government censoring speech. I also believe that the term "hate speech" is vague and has ever-expanding definitions, and it really just disallows dissent. It seems like in 2020 these companies have all shifted from being more hands off to being very hands on. It's also apparent that the bans mostly impact one political side, which I think is proof of how vulnerable free speech is when big platforms are located in cities with strong political biases. To illustrate how far this has gone, consider that Reddit's new policy actually allows "hate speech" against majority groups (https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-hate-speech-majority-groups/ https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-hate-speech-majority-groups...). Does anyone have more information about this sudden transition to heavy censorship from big tech? It doesn't seem like a coincidence that all three would implement a large number of noteworthy bans at once. Are these tech companies in coordination with each other in terms of which content they will ban and how they will time it? Is the strategy that media cannot possibly cover a large number of simultaneous acts of censorship?
- Miner49er 6y ago
  It's all about the money. There's major pressure on large cooperations to boycott Facebook at the moment due to their position on hate speech, and many companies have joined the boycott. Companies have been taking looks at their advertising and it seems like major ad buyers have decided they don't want to have their ads shown on websites that allow this type of content. I would guess the timing was the same, because a major ad buyer sent them the same message on the same day or they were all thinking about it and once one pulled the trigger they all felt like they had to/could follow suite. I'm not sure I buy the argument that it targets one political side. Reddit's main ban yesterday was its most active leftist subreddit. The bottom line is these bans will target anything that hurts these companies' ad revenue.

1 points by throwawaysea 6y ago

I was very surprised yesterday to see that Reddit, YouTube, and Twitch all took major actions to censor "hate speech" all on the same day. I am personally against censorship from big tech companies, in large part because they control so much of societal discourse that such actions have the same negative impact in stifling expression as a government censoring speech. I also believe that the term "hate speech" is vague and has ever-expanding definitions, and it really just disallows dissent. It seems like in 2020 these companies have all shifted from being more hands off to being very hands on. It's also apparent that the bans mostly impact one political side, which I think is proof of how vulnerable free speech is when big platforms are located in cities with strong political biases. To illustrate how far this has gone, consider that Reddit's new policy actually allows "hate speech" against majority groups (https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-hate-speech-majority-groups/ https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-hate-speech-majority-groups...). Does anyone have more information about this sudden transition to heavy censorship from big tech? It doesn't seem like a coincidence that all three would implement a large number of noteworthy bans at once. Are these tech companies in coordination with each other in terms of which content they will ban and how they will time it? Is the strategy that media cannot possibly cover a large number of simultaneous acts of censorship?

Miner49er 6y ago
It's all about the money. There's major pressure on large cooperations to boycott Facebook at the moment due to their position on hate speech, and many companies have joined the boycott. Companies have been taking looks at their advertising and it seems like major ad buyers have decided they don't want to have their ads shown on websites that allow this type of content. I would guess the timing was the same, because a major ad buyer sent them the same message on the same day or they were all thinking about it and once one pulled the trigger they all felt like they had to/could follow suite. I'm not sure I buy the argument that it targets one political side. Reddit's main ban yesterday was its most active leftist subreddit. The bottom line is these bans will target anything that hurts these companies' ad revenue.