7 ms·

Reddit is very clearly not in favour of free speech: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/reddit-bans-thedonald-and-chapotraphouse-among-2000-online-communities-in

Reddit is very clearly not in favour of free speech: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/reddit-bans-thedonald-and-chapotraphouse-among-2000-online-communities-in-huge-purge-2020-06-29 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/reddit-bans-thedonald-and-.... Aaron Swartz was very clearly in favour of free speech: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan. I think the reasons for this are self-evident.

agumonkey 6y ago
This sub being shut has nothing to do with restricting free speech, isn't it ?
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Shutting down platforms for discussion is quite literally restricting free speech. If you want to argue Reddit has a right to do that, sure. But that's not the argument.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    was it discussion ? or more ?
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      If you're asking this question, you don't understand the principles of freedom of speech. Read the Aaron Swartz essay linked above, and while you're at it, watch this, from Noam Chomsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE.
      - agumonkey 6y ago
        I think your opinion is extremely myopic and biased, I don't care much of shutting down subreddits to be honest, especially if you get extremists ready to act all up and angry together. They're still very free to speak have no worry. Also if reddit didn't stop that, they'd be flagged as pro-racist. There was a need for a decision to be made, nothing else.
        sebmellen 6y ago
        Well, I hope we can agree to disagree. I strongly and vehemently disagree with your characterization. I think suppression of speech is something that must be pushed back against or it will be tacitly accepted. Social media is the new public square, and Reddit tried to pretend it is a "platform", while it makes large-scale editorial decisions. /r/chapotraphouse was an extremely far-left, anti-racist subreddit banned in this latest spree. This was not about racism, it was about censorship. I am a free speech absolutist, just like Aaron (stated as such in the linked article), and just like Noam Chomsky. This absolutism is a liberal viewpoint, and lies at the core of Western democratic civilization.
        agumonkey 6y ago
        I have no problem disagreeing and indeed our views are worlds apart. Social media means moot to me, I think internet has reached its limits long ago and better things are done without this. Now that reddit is hypocritical about its motto.. very plausible, and I personally, consider reddit as a toy, not a tool, nothing more. And you stated it yourself, both subs you mentionned became too extreme, this was the sole reason behind the removal. IIUC you're afraid that this is a precedent leading to more and more chatting place shutdowns and a new form of oppression ? Let me say this, we have obese levels of communication channels, the reality lies elsewhere, and if and when people will need to speak for serious matters, they'll have the means. It's nice to be absolutist but don't go blind.
        sebmellen 6y ago
        I am more against this because I believe it is emblematic of a broader societal sway towards the concept that speech can be violence, which is what I disagree with. Reddit is simply one of many high-profile cases of this ideology finding root and with real effect.
        agumonkey 6y ago
        What real effects ? I'm curious
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    TBH the platform itself doesn’t lend particularly well to free speech by penalizing unpopular opinions through karma. Ironically I think HN is worse in this regard by greying out posts once they get to -1, I often find out that sorting by controversial on many topics gives you the most interesting read on reddit. I would actually love if both HN and Reddit allowed you to see a Karma graph for each post.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      Any upvote/downvote concept on online content is flawed because it does not show the historical score of a post over time. Even here on HN I can post something during GMT business hours that gets scored based on the views of HN's readership at that time, but when the US wakes up the score can change dramatically. Essentially, the US west coast can have the 'final say' because of its timezone and probably larger user base. It's really interesting to observe.
      - anticristi 6y ago
        Not sure this is a studied problem, but I feel English-speaking forums/social media/conferences are extremely biased towards the views of US west coast tech. With some issues, the rest of the world has moved on, e.g., by not selling guns / not arming the police. I find myself reading online articles in languages I don't command well, just to get a break from the one-and-only view.
      - dogma1138 6y ago
        Yes, it also on a wide scale leads to silos being formed where you only share content with people you know that will upvote it this is why reddit gets a subreddit on every subject and even then those communities tend to split over and over until they get their perfect echochamber. Heck there are two primary subreddits for the Labour party in the UK - Labour and LabourUK. A year ago someone asked what's the difference between Labour and LabourUK and this was pretty much the answer (I've quoted one comment but the same answer was repeated across that entire post): >r/LabourUK is a Blairite echo chamber for bitter right wingers, and if you dare criticise Israel they'll call you an antisemite and ban you. You can call for the destruction of the left as much as you want over there but don't dare say anything against the Blairites, that's another bannable offense. Not sufficiently sucking up to the mods, also a ban. >r/Labour is mainly frequented by supporters of the Labour Party and not by people who are praying for Labour to lose so they can replace Corbyn.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    > Shutting down platforms for discussion is quite literally restricting free speech In the same way as "anti-maskers" take wearing one as being choked by the neck and are feigning fainting, taking the trash out of your platform, be it T_D or CTH does not make it "restricting free speech"
    - valvar 6y ago
      Do you have an actual argument, or is your view simply that it's not restricting free speech if it's bad speech?
      - raverbashing 6y ago
        They are private platforms, nobody owns anybody a soapbox. Freedom of speech is about legality. Restrictions of freedom of speech: litigation, prison, penalties or worse. Not "my favourite subreddit was deleted" And speech is not 100% free anywhere.
        LiNeXT 6y ago
        > Freedom of speech is about legality It can often be about legality but it is absolutely not limited to that.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - watwut 6y ago
        It is the frequent brigading by the Donald sub that makes free speech argument sound hollow. That sub was not banned for supporting president or discussing politics, it was banned because it became nuisance too people who wanted to discuss their own things.
  - Avamander 6y ago
    There was no discussion in r/thedonald, it was a echo chamber that actively banned dissent.
mard 6y ago
Free speech stands against the financial interests of social media. Reddit is the real estate for ads, and the best value for top global advertisers are safe spaces that are free of controversy. In the end, it's the advertisers that decide what is allowed to be published there.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I have no doubt their investors play a role as well. Though some argue the Tencent investment is good for Reddit [0], I can't help but wonder what the nudging looks like behind the scenes. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/12/tencent-reddit-nononono/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/12/tencent-reddit-nononono/
- dogma1138 6y ago
  Unless you’re willing to pay for it you can’t have social media that isn’t a real estate for ads or at least some sort of commercial interest. Arguably even HN despite being technically a pro-bono side project serves the commercial interest of YC (and possibly others) if it didn’t and especially if it would have a negative impact on them it wouldn’t be around. And HN is a very niche social media (if you can even call it that) with strict rules. Anything with wider appeal has to be monetized. The only monetization we have for the Internet is attention/value extraction from the user base.
  - hdjdbtbgwjsn 6y ago
    HN is a very strictly policed safe space.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      HN is heavily moderated with strict posting rules, as far as "safe space"... Eh as long as you maintain a level of respectful discourse I never found that you can't comment on social or political issues due to fear of Dang or any other mod (I'm not sure how many are there) interfering in the discussion. The community itself is another issue but even that isn't as clear cut as it seems if you look at any of the more political topics that are being posted. In general HN isn't the place you go to discuss politics, social issues or current events some posts are allowed when it's in the public's interest or they are relevant to the wider tech industry but that's about it.
mdonahoe 6y ago
HN isn’t exactly a bastion of free speech either
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sgt 6y ago
  How so ? I can't recall any major free speech issues on HN. Being downvoted and having your comment hidden is not exactly something HN can do much about, seeing that it is up to the users.
  - watwut 6y ago
    HN is heavily moderated and posts that cross lines are quickly removed. It is not even secret and HN does not pretend it is not so. The reddit rules are much more loose. The subs that were banned on reddit would not even had achange to start here.
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      For one there are no subs here.
    - iamben 6y ago
      The quality remains relatively high on HN though. I'm pretty sure it's the only website I've used consistently (ie almost every day) for ten years. I know some political posts (and definitely trash/advertising) get cut and not everything (as defined by "free speech") gets through, but on a personal level for me (and I'm sure many others) I think the moderation works.
      - watwut 6y ago
        I like HN. I am not saying it is heavily moderated to make them stop moderating it. But the fact is, it is what it is precisely because a lot effort goes into moderating it. Acting like HN it's some kind of free speech place is absurd. Claiming that HN is good and then going into outrage because another site applied significantly looser restrictions is dishonest. For that matter, trying to pretend the Donald or incels subs were merely normal subs merely discussing conservative policies is outright lie.
dan-robertson 6y ago
I don’t want to disagree with you but note that those articles are 15 years apart. I think public opinion inside and outside of tech on “free speech” has changed quite a bit over that time. For example I feel like there used to be more of a libertarian bent in tech then as opposed to now. Is this perhaps an unfair comparison to make considering the general change in opinion over that time?
- sebmellen 6y ago
  No. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE Freedom of speech is not a small issue. It lies at the core of our civilization, and is unambiguously one of the few things that made "the West" prosper. Aaron makes a very cogent and clear argument for free speech, and its enduring importance. To arbitrate rights based on public opinion is idiotic and dangerous. This is why we have a constitution. Of course, Reddit has the right to do this, as a private company, but that's not an argument for doing it.
xevrem 6y ago
honestly, i would say the banning of thedonald is clearly a response to The Paradox of Tolerance rather than not supporting free-speech. you cannot be tolerant of the intolerant if you want free speech to survive.
- anticristi 6y ago
  TIL: "The Paradox of Tolerance" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  - fastball 6y ago
    Yep, an interesting idea, and definitely something worth thinking about and discussing. The problem is that people like the GC pretend that this is some sort of Universal Law which has been proved to be true, and therefore use it as a carte blanche to "weed out intolerance". Unfortunately it is not a such. It's just an idea, unproven and untested. Though it's also worth noting that I highly doubt Karl Popper would've agreed (based on his various clarifications) with almost any situation where it has been used to justify silencing "the intolerant" on the internet in the last decade.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  The Paradox of Tolerance refers to the intolerant using violence to physically make it impossible for the tolerant to exist. Unclear to me how banning a subreddit is remotely related.
  - bonzini 6y ago
    The_donald at some point was basically squatting the entire front page and making it unusable.
    - li4ick 6y ago
      because reddit programmers are so bad they couldn't just add an _if_ statement, or a limit?
1k8FJ 6y ago
From the aaronsw.com link: "By laying freedom of speech’s provision on top of our reasonable ability to do so, I suggest that freedom of speech could be taken away if providing it became unreasonable. But I think this is the right choice: if people really, seriously started getting hurt because of freedom of speech, it seems right for people to take the privilege away. But, to be honest, I can’t even imagine how that might be possible." IMHO, this "safety" argument makes up a large part of the argument made by many proponents of modern authoritarianism. This makes me think that Aaron may have supported many of the modern restrictions on free speech, but I certainly don't speak for him. IMHO, many people (particularly in the West) not only "imagine" that it "might" be possible, but actively believe that it is a reality that is already happening. IMHO it is irrelevant whether people get "seriously hurt" because it is a ridiculous metric to optimise for. People get "really, seriously hurt" on a daily basis by: access to sugar, access to alcohol, access to tobacco, the right to bear arms, vehicles. Edit: s/speach/speech/
DavidVoid 6y ago
If you run a forum and a user is constantly making up lies, harassing other users, and spamming misinformation then I don't think banning them is "free speech" issue. t_D should have been banned long before it eventually was imo. It actively spread misinformation and hate and made the website worse for other users. And a question for you: You say that Reddit is not in favor of free speech because it banned subs like t_D, but t_D and similar subs were banned anyone who questioned the narrative that was being pushed by those subreddits' moderators. So is it not fair to say that t_D (and similar subs) were very clearly not in favor of free speech either?
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Perhaps. I know that a number of objectively hateful subreddits were not banned because they were hateful of people "in the majority" (whatever that means). An archived copy of Reddit's "Account and Community Restrictions" from the time of the ban reads as such [0]: > While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate. The question here veers into the territory of whether Reddit is a "publisher" or "platform". Their editorial decision to ban certain kinds of loosely-defined "hate" seems to clearly point to them being an editorializing publisher of content. This, in addition to their editing of user's posts criticizing their core team [1] and other such egregious acts. There's no compelling reason for me to believe Reddit acted in good faith. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20200701001008/https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/account-and-community-restrictions/promoting-hate-based-identity-or https://web.archive.org/web/20200701001008/https://www.reddi... [1]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comments_n_5839cf32e4b000af95ee5b68 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comment...
  - watwut 6y ago
    I assume those not banned subs are still there and you can link them. Because whole ton of subs were banned, not just Donald and not just right wing.

agumonkey 6y ago

This sub being shut has nothing to do with restricting free speech, isn't it ?

sebmellen 6y ago
Shutting down platforms for discussion is quite literally restricting free speech. If you want to argue Reddit has a right to do that, sure. But that's not the argument.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  was it discussion ? or more ?
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    If you're asking this question, you don't understand the principles of freedom of speech. Read the Aaron Swartz essay linked above, and while you're at it, watch this, from Noam Chomsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE.
    - agumonkey 6y ago
      I think your opinion is extremely myopic and biased, I don't care much of shutting down subreddits to be honest, especially if you get extremists ready to act all up and angry together. They're still very free to speak have no worry. Also if reddit didn't stop that, they'd be flagged as pro-racist. There was a need for a decision to be made, nothing else.
      - sebmellen 6y ago
        Well, I hope we can agree to disagree. I strongly and vehemently disagree with your characterization. I think suppression of speech is something that must be pushed back against or it will be tacitly accepted. Social media is the new public square, and Reddit tried to pretend it is a "platform", while it makes large-scale editorial decisions. /r/chapotraphouse was an extremely far-left, anti-racist subreddit banned in this latest spree. This was not about racism, it was about censorship. I am a free speech absolutist, just like Aaron (stated as such in the linked article), and just like Noam Chomsky. This absolutism is a liberal viewpoint, and lies at the core of Western democratic civilization.
        agumonkey 6y ago
        I have no problem disagreeing and indeed our views are worlds apart. Social media means moot to me, I think internet has reached its limits long ago and better things are done without this. Now that reddit is hypocritical about its motto.. very plausible, and I personally, consider reddit as a toy, not a tool, nothing more. And you stated it yourself, both subs you mentionned became too extreme, this was the sole reason behind the removal. IIUC you're afraid that this is a precedent leading to more and more chatting place shutdowns and a new form of oppression ? Let me say this, we have obese levels of communication channels, the reality lies elsewhere, and if and when people will need to speak for serious matters, they'll have the means. It's nice to be absolutist but don't go blind.
        sebmellen 6y ago
        I am more against this because I believe it is emblematic of a broader societal sway towards the concept that speech can be violence, which is what I disagree with. Reddit is simply one of many high-profile cases of this ideology finding root and with real effect.
        agumonkey 6y ago
        What real effects ? I'm curious
- dogma1138 6y ago
  TBH the platform itself doesn’t lend particularly well to free speech by penalizing unpopular opinions through karma. Ironically I think HN is worse in this regard by greying out posts once they get to -1, I often find out that sorting by controversial on many topics gives you the most interesting read on reddit. I would actually love if both HN and Reddit allowed you to see a Karma graph for each post.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Any upvote/downvote concept on online content is flawed because it does not show the historical score of a post over time. Even here on HN I can post something during GMT business hours that gets scored based on the views of HN's readership at that time, but when the US wakes up the score can change dramatically. Essentially, the US west coast can have the 'final say' because of its timezone and probably larger user base. It's really interesting to observe.
    - anticristi 6y ago
      Not sure this is a studied problem, but I feel English-speaking forums/social media/conferences are extremely biased towards the views of US west coast tech. With some issues, the rest of the world has moved on, e.g., by not selling guns / not arming the police. I find myself reading online articles in languages I don't command well, just to get a break from the one-and-only view.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      Yes, it also on a wide scale leads to silos being formed where you only share content with people you know that will upvote it this is why reddit gets a subreddit on every subject and even then those communities tend to split over and over until they get their perfect echochamber. Heck there are two primary subreddits for the Labour party in the UK - Labour and LabourUK. A year ago someone asked what's the difference between Labour and LabourUK and this was pretty much the answer (I've quoted one comment but the same answer was repeated across that entire post): >r/LabourUK is a Blairite echo chamber for bitter right wingers, and if you dare criticise Israel they'll call you an antisemite and ban you. You can call for the destruction of the left as much as you want over there but don't dare say anything against the Blairites, that's another bannable offense. Not sufficiently sucking up to the mods, also a ban. >r/Labour is mainly frequented by supporters of the Labour Party and not by people who are praying for Labour to lose so they can replace Corbyn.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  > Shutting down platforms for discussion is quite literally restricting free speech In the same way as "anti-maskers" take wearing one as being choked by the neck and are feigning fainting, taking the trash out of your platform, be it T_D or CTH does not make it "restricting free speech"
  - valvar 6y ago
    Do you have an actual argument, or is your view simply that it's not restricting free speech if it's bad speech?
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      They are private platforms, nobody owns anybody a soapbox. Freedom of speech is about legality. Restrictions of freedom of speech: litigation, prison, penalties or worse. Not "my favourite subreddit was deleted" And speech is not 100% free anywhere.
      - LiNeXT 6y ago
        > Freedom of speech is about legality It can often be about legality but it is absolutely not limited to that.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - watwut 6y ago
      It is the frequent brigading by the Donald sub that makes free speech argument sound hollow. That sub was not banned for supporting president or discussing politics, it was banned because it became nuisance too people who wanted to discuss their own things.
- Avamander 6y ago
  There was no discussion in r/thedonald, it was a echo chamber that actively banned dissent.

mard 6y ago

Free speech stands against the financial interests of social media. Reddit is the real estate for ads, and the best value for top global advertisers are safe spaces that are free of controversy. In the end, it's the advertisers that decide what is allowed to be published there.

sebmellen 6y ago
I have no doubt their investors play a role as well. Though some argue the Tencent investment is good for Reddit [0], I can't help but wonder what the nudging looks like behind the scenes. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/12/tencent-reddit-nononono/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/12/tencent-reddit-nononono/
dogma1138 6y ago
Unless you’re willing to pay for it you can’t have social media that isn’t a real estate for ads or at least some sort of commercial interest. Arguably even HN despite being technically a pro-bono side project serves the commercial interest of YC (and possibly others) if it didn’t and especially if it would have a negative impact on them it wouldn’t be around. And HN is a very niche social media (if you can even call it that) with strict rules. Anything with wider appeal has to be monetized. The only monetization we have for the Internet is attention/value extraction from the user base.
- hdjdbtbgwjsn 6y ago
  HN is a very strictly policed safe space.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    HN is heavily moderated with strict posting rules, as far as "safe space"... Eh as long as you maintain a level of respectful discourse I never found that you can't comment on social or political issues due to fear of Dang or any other mod (I'm not sure how many are there) interfering in the discussion. The community itself is another issue but even that isn't as clear cut as it seems if you look at any of the more political topics that are being posted. In general HN isn't the place you go to discuss politics, social issues or current events some posts are allowed when it's in the public's interest or they are relevant to the wider tech industry but that's about it.

mdonahoe 6y ago

HN isn’t exactly a bastion of free speech either

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sgt 6y ago
How so ? I can't recall any major free speech issues on HN. Being downvoted and having your comment hidden is not exactly something HN can do much about, seeing that it is up to the users.
- watwut 6y ago
  HN is heavily moderated and posts that cross lines are quickly removed. It is not even secret and HN does not pretend it is not so. The reddit rules are much more loose. The subs that were banned on reddit would not even had achange to start here.
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    For one there are no subs here.
  - iamben 6y ago
    The quality remains relatively high on HN though. I'm pretty sure it's the only website I've used consistently (ie almost every day) for ten years. I know some political posts (and definitely trash/advertising) get cut and not everything (as defined by "free speech") gets through, but on a personal level for me (and I'm sure many others) I think the moderation works.
    - watwut 6y ago
      I like HN. I am not saying it is heavily moderated to make them stop moderating it. But the fact is, it is what it is precisely because a lot effort goes into moderating it. Acting like HN it's some kind of free speech place is absurd. Claiming that HN is good and then going into outrage because another site applied significantly looser restrictions is dishonest. For that matter, trying to pretend the Donald or incels subs were merely normal subs merely discussing conservative policies is outright lie.

dan-robertson 6y ago

I don’t want to disagree with you but note that those articles are 15 years apart. I think public opinion inside and outside of tech on “free speech” has changed quite a bit over that time. For example I feel like there used to be more of a libertarian bent in tech then as opposed to now. Is this perhaps an unfair comparison to make considering the general change in opinion over that time?

sebmellen 6y ago
No. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-oV42OMQoE Freedom of speech is not a small issue. It lies at the core of our civilization, and is unambiguously one of the few things that made "the West" prosper. Aaron makes a very cogent and clear argument for free speech, and its enduring importance. To arbitrate rights based on public opinion is idiotic and dangerous. This is why we have a constitution. Of course, Reddit has the right to do this, as a private company, but that's not an argument for doing it.

xevrem 6y ago

honestly, i would say the banning of thedonald is clearly a response to The Paradox of Tolerance rather than not supporting free-speech. you cannot be tolerant of the intolerant if you want free speech to survive.

anticristi 6y ago
TIL: "The Paradox of Tolerance" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- fastball 6y ago
  Yep, an interesting idea, and definitely something worth thinking about and discussing. The problem is that people like the GC pretend that this is some sort of Universal Law which has been proved to be true, and therefore use it as a carte blanche to "weed out intolerance". Unfortunately it is not a such. It's just an idea, unproven and untested. Though it's also worth noting that I highly doubt Karl Popper would've agreed (based on his various clarifications) with almost any situation where it has been used to justify silencing "the intolerant" on the internet in the last decade.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
The Paradox of Tolerance refers to the intolerant using violence to physically make it impossible for the tolerant to exist. Unclear to me how banning a subreddit is remotely related.
- bonzini 6y ago
  The_donald at some point was basically squatting the entire front page and making it unusable.
  - li4ick 6y ago
    because reddit programmers are so bad they couldn't just add an _if_ statement, or a limit?

1k8FJ 6y ago

From the aaronsw.com link: "By laying freedom of speech’s provision on top of our reasonable ability to do so, I suggest that freedom of speech could be taken away if providing it became unreasonable. But I think this is the right choice: if people really, seriously started getting hurt because of freedom of speech, it seems right for people to take the privilege away. But, to be honest, I can’t even imagine how that might be possible." IMHO, this "safety" argument makes up a large part of the argument made by many proponents of modern authoritarianism. This makes me think that Aaron may have supported many of the modern restrictions on free speech, but I certainly don't speak for him. IMHO, many people (particularly in the West) not only "imagine" that it "might" be possible, but actively believe that it is a reality that is already happening. IMHO it is irrelevant whether people get "seriously hurt" because it is a ridiculous metric to optimise for. People get "really, seriously hurt" on a daily basis by: access to sugar, access to alcohol, access to tobacco, the right to bear arms, vehicles. Edit: s/speach/speech/

DavidVoid 6y ago

If you run a forum and a user is constantly making up lies, harassing other users, and spamming misinformation then I don't think banning them is "free speech" issue. t_D should have been banned long before it eventually was imo. It actively spread misinformation and hate and made the website worse for other users. And a question for you: You say that Reddit is not in favor of free speech because it banned subs like t_D, but t_D and similar subs were banned anyone who questioned the narrative that was being pushed by those subreddits' moderators. So is it not fair to say that t_D (and similar subs) were very clearly not in favor of free speech either?

sebmellen 6y ago
Perhaps. I know that a number of objectively hateful subreddits were not banned because they were hateful of people "in the majority" (whatever that means). An archived copy of Reddit's "Account and Community Restrictions" from the time of the ban reads as such [0]: > While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate. The question here veers into the territory of whether Reddit is a "publisher" or "platform". Their editorial decision to ban certain kinds of loosely-defined "hate" seems to clearly point to them being an editorializing publisher of content. This, in addition to their editing of user's posts criticizing their core team [1] and other such egregious acts. There's no compelling reason for me to believe Reddit acted in good faith. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20200701001008/https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/account-and-community-restrictions/promoting-hate-based-identity-or https://web.archive.org/web/20200701001008/https://www.reddi... [1]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comments_n_5839cf32e4b000af95ee5b68 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comment...
- watwut 6y ago
  I assume those not banned subs are still there and you can link them. Because whole ton of subs were banned, not just Donald and not just right wing.