6 ms·

One of the remarkable things about this is that the campaign orchestrated by Something Awful users caused this happen in less than 4 hours. Even the CNN exposé

by EiZei 15y ago

One of the remarkable things about this is that the campaign orchestrated by Something Awful users caused this happen in less than 4 hours. Even the CNN exposé took days.

ortusdux 15y ago
Link to the catalysis: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3466025 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=346...
ugh 15y ago
On the other hand: What took ’em so long? Jailbait was shut down, what now? A few months ago? The admins must have been aware that the exact same crap was happening in copycat subreddits all over Reddit soon after Jailbait was shut down. Why was another campaign necessary in the first place? I don’t think the Reddit admins can take the moral high ground here. They will only do the right thing when you threaten them with bad PR. (I’m guessing they reacted so fast this time because they know that those kinds of things can escalate quickly and national press attention is not nice to have.)
- zotz 15y ago
  > On the other hand: What took ’em so long? Speaking as an interested outside observer, my opinion is that the personal connections between a few of these subreddit owners and reddit's admins were a stumbling block. Business and PR is now overwhelming those friendships.
  - nikatwork 15y ago
    I didn't get this impression. It seemed to me that while the admins found the content personally distasteful, they did not want to erode freedom of speech. This is why it "took so long"; it was a debate, not a clear-cut decision (in their eyes). It seems like the potential PR/legal fallout has now outweighed any philosophical musings.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
unimpressive 15y ago
Something Awful has a reputation for Internet war campaigns. (They ARE the source of 4chan IIRC.) Anything coming from SA is expected to be so bad that it's not an uncommon occurrence for sites to change (stupid) policy simply on the hype generated by a SA scheme. What I don't understand is how a "Jailbait" thread/subreddit could really be considered "legal" since the term "Jailbait" refers to people who look like they're at the age of consent but aren't. And thus will land anyone who has...intercourse; with them in jail. So the illegality is implied in the title.
- citricsquid 15y ago
  Jailbait refers to people it would be illegal to have sex with, this doesn't make pictures of them (clothed) illegal and it's only child porn when the subject is not clothed and even then they have to be engaging in sexual acts or the focus being their genitals for it to be (in the eyes of the law) child porn. edit: see comments below, I was wrong. No idea how reddit has not been shut down then...
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    Patently false. It doesn't have to be nude to be child porn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_test
  - owenmarshall 15y ago
    It's important to note that nudity is not necessary for an image to be considered child pornography. The EFF has a really good primer on this that I saw linked on more than one occasion today: https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/adult https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/adult "Nudity is not enough for a finding that an image is lascivious, but clothing does not mean a photo is in the clear: 'a photograph of a naked girl might not be lascivious (depending on the balance of the remaining Dost factors), but a photograph of a girl in a highly sexual pose dressed in hose, garters, and a bra would certainly be found to be lascivious.'"
    - ErrantX 15y ago
commandar 15y ago
Wasn't the CNN expose pretty much the culmination of an earlier SA campaign?
timdorr 15y ago
It actually started a few days ago. The account creating the preteen girls subreddit and posting most of its content was 3 days old. It is very suspect and a plausible explanation is that someone from SA was running a smear campaign from the start.
- kmfrk 15y ago
  A smear campaign whereby a person commits an illegal act of posting child pornography?
  - timdorr 15y ago
    The preteen girls subreddit didn't have anything explicitly illegal in it. Just really creepy stuff.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - ugh 15y ago
      Do you really believe those bullshit conspiracy theories? Yeah, right. Some goon posted CP on Reddit, causing outrage among some Reddit users but also flaming (and highly upvoted) defenses of said CP – presumably all by goons. There were numerous jailbait subreddits for years. This is no conspiracy. That doesn’t even pass the sniff test.
- citricsquid 15y ago
  These sort of subreddits have existed for years, although it is most definitely the case that the actions of Something Awful caused them to be shut down, they did not create them. For example r/teen_girls has existed for 6 months.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- Czarnian 15y ago
res0nat0r 15y ago
I think there have been a few high profile posts/submissions over the last couple of days related to child porn on Reddit so it has been a big issue the last 48 hours.

by EiZei 15y ago

One of the remarkable things about this is that the campaign orchestrated by Something Awful users caused this happen in less than 4 hours. Even the CNN exposé took days.

ortusdux 15y ago

Link to the catalysis: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3466025 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=346...

ugh 15y ago

On the other hand: What took ’em so long? Jailbait was shut down, what now? A few months ago? The admins must have been aware that the exact same crap was happening in copycat subreddits all over Reddit soon after Jailbait was shut down. Why was another campaign necessary in the first place? I don’t think the Reddit admins can take the moral high ground here. They will only do the right thing when you threaten them with bad PR. (I’m guessing they reacted so fast this time because they know that those kinds of things can escalate quickly and national press attention is not nice to have.)

zotz 15y ago
> On the other hand: What took ’em so long? Speaking as an interested outside observer, my opinion is that the personal connections between a few of these subreddit owners and reddit's admins were a stumbling block. Business and PR is now overwhelming those friendships.
- nikatwork 15y ago
  I didn't get this impression. It seemed to me that while the admins found the content personally distasteful, they did not want to erode freedom of speech. This is why it "took so long"; it was a debate, not a clear-cut decision (in their eyes). It seems like the potential PR/legal fallout has now outweighed any philosophical musings.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

unimpressive 15y ago

Something Awful has a reputation for Internet war campaigns. (They ARE the source of 4chan IIRC.) Anything coming from SA is expected to be so bad that it's not an uncommon occurrence for sites to change (stupid) policy simply on the hype generated by a SA scheme. What I don't understand is how a "Jailbait" thread/subreddit could really be considered "legal" since the term "Jailbait" refers to people who look like they're at the age of consent but aren't. And thus will land anyone who has...intercourse; with them in jail. So the illegality is implied in the title.

citricsquid 15y ago
Jailbait refers to people it would be illegal to have sex with, this doesn't make pictures of them (clothed) illegal and it's only child porn when the subject is not clothed and even then they have to be engaging in sexual acts or the focus being their genitals for it to be (in the eyes of the law) child porn. edit: see comments below, I was wrong. No idea how reddit has not been shut down then...
- potatolicious 15y ago
  Patently false. It doesn't have to be nude to be child porn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_test
- owenmarshall 15y ago
  It's important to note that nudity is not necessary for an image to be considered child pornography. The EFF has a really good primer on this that I saw linked on more than one occasion today: https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/adult https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/adult "Nudity is not enough for a finding that an image is lascivious, but clothing does not mean a photo is in the clear: 'a photograph of a naked girl might not be lascivious (depending on the balance of the remaining Dost factors), but a photograph of a girl in a highly sexual pose dressed in hose, garters, and a bra would certainly be found to be lascivious.'"
  - ErrantX 15y ago

commandar 15y ago

Wasn't the CNN expose pretty much the culmination of an earlier SA campaign?

timdorr 15y ago

It actually started a few days ago. The account creating the preteen girls subreddit and posting most of its content was 3 days old. It is very suspect and a plausible explanation is that someone from SA was running a smear campaign from the start.

kmfrk 15y ago
A smear campaign whereby a person commits an illegal act of posting child pornography?
- timdorr 15y ago
  The preteen girls subreddit didn't have anything explicitly illegal in it. Just really creepy stuff.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ugh 15y ago
    Do you really believe those bullshit conspiracy theories? Yeah, right. Some goon posted CP on Reddit, causing outrage among some Reddit users but also flaming (and highly upvoted) defenses of said CP – presumably all by goons. There were numerous jailbait subreddits for years. This is no conspiracy. That doesn’t even pass the sniff test.
citricsquid 15y ago
These sort of subreddits have existed for years, although it is most definitely the case that the actions of Something Awful caused them to be shut down, they did not create them. For example r/teen_girls has existed for 6 months.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
Czarnian 15y ago

res0nat0r 15y ago

I think there have been a few high profile posts/submissions over the last couple of days related to child porn on Reddit so it has been a big issue the last 48 hours.