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(downvote at will, rephrased to make it a bit more polite) As far as I could tell, people were relatively content with Reddit even when it had bad stuff, but pe

(downvote at will, rephrased to make it a bit more polite) As far as I could tell, people were relatively content with Reddit even when it had bad stuff, but people started getting noisy when the censorship started. Comes down to a debate on censorship, which is admittedly quite divided. I don't condone hate speech, but its also sometimes tricky to separate hatred from a rational opinion about something. Ultimately you can't control the voices of people, they will find creative ways to broadcast their message for better or worse (as we saw when reddit shut down FPH). Censorship really only hits the beehive and makes the bad people more visible. As one example of this, I had no idea that FPH existed until Reddit shut it down.

rtpg 11y ago
No it wasn't, it was creating cesspits of hate when left to itself. Considering the amount of good communities on that website, the last thing I would want is for it to be overrun by such negativeness.
- JeremyBanks 11y ago
  My searches on Reddit for entirely unrelated keywords have been increasingly polluted by distracting hateful crap that I do not want to see. Subreddits aren't independent/isolated enough that they can do whatever they want without it having an impact on the site as a whole. Reddit's looking for more growth. I'm sure that many potential users have been turned away from the site by similar experiences. If they manage to clean up the site without killing it, it could really help.
  - gavanwoolery 11y ago
    I can respect that - I never use Reddit's search function so I have been relatively unaware of that. I think the problem is that its almost impossible to police all of reddit - even if you shut down one thing (as we saw) 10 more pop up. Not sure there is a good solution, but the lesser of evils might be to just ignore the antagonists.
    - y2bd 11y ago
      Given that /r/all currently has pretty much zero note of the crapshow from a couple days ago, I would think actually facing it and just bracing for a couple of days pays off a lot more than just ignoring it and letting it build up over time.
      - gavanwoolery 11y ago
        Could very well be the case :)
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > Given that /r/all currently has pretty much zero note of the crapshow from a couple days ago, I would think actually facing it and just bracing for a couple of days pays off a lot more than just ignoring it and letting it build up over time. A controlled burn of the forest if you will.
- gavanwoolery 11y ago
  I agree on the cesspits of hate, but I think the good in people always overwhelms the bad. Or at least, I hope. :)
- nickysielicki 11y ago
  > "it was creating cesspits of hate when left to itself." 'it' is humanity. If you can't handle looking at a true reflection of humanity then you're worse than the bigots, IMHO. If we plug our ears and hum, "la la la" to the uncomfortable opinions held within pockets of society, we remove all possibility of discourse on the topic. No one should ever be so sure that they're right and others are wrong to take that leap. Even with racism, sexism, fat-hate, and so on.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vernie 11y ago
You were already being down-voted when you added that bit. Reddit doesn't exactly have the best record of self-policing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...
codesushi42 11y ago
Freedom of speech does not apply here. Reddit is not a forum owned by the public, it's a business. Reddit is within their rights to remove any content as they see fit. Yeah, people complain once they realize walled gardens like Reddit start censoring whatever they choose only /after/ they get too big to stop. Same goes for closed ecosystems like the App Store and Google Play. Guess you should have read the fine print before giving your unquestioned allegiance to all these closed platforms. I yearn for the days when the Internet was truly open. You can still launch any kind of site you want. But the truth is there is an ever shrinking number of players who now get to decide what content should or shouldn't be seen, and who should get referral traffic. The censorship I see is both ideological and business motivated. A relative few will control all of the information everyone gets to actually see, because no one will bother to look elsewhere. Sad really.
- gavanwoolery 11y ago
  I agree - good points :)
- acveilleux 11y ago
  I've seen 8chan and after that I do not yearn for a fully open Internet.
  - gavanwoolery 11y ago
    haha :)
  - codesushi42 11y ago
    No one is forcing you go to (\d)chan. Hate speech is an easy target. But the censoring and anticompetitive practices have spread further than that. Google, Apple, Facebook, can change their ToS to bring down potential competitors. They can remove your app for any reason, block access to their APIs, and ban you for posting content that leads to your own external page. It's happened plenty, and Reddit is no exception. These guys want you to live in their closed ecosystems where they control who the winners and losers are and what information is seen.

rtpg 11y ago

No it wasn't, it was creating cesspits of hate when left to itself. Considering the amount of good communities on that website, the last thing I would want is for it to be overrun by such negativeness.

JeremyBanks 11y ago
My searches on Reddit for entirely unrelated keywords have been increasingly polluted by distracting hateful crap that I do not want to see. Subreddits aren't independent/isolated enough that they can do whatever they want without it having an impact on the site as a whole. Reddit's looking for more growth. I'm sure that many potential users have been turned away from the site by similar experiences. If they manage to clean up the site without killing it, it could really help.
- gavanwoolery 11y ago
  I can respect that - I never use Reddit's search function so I have been relatively unaware of that. I think the problem is that its almost impossible to police all of reddit - even if you shut down one thing (as we saw) 10 more pop up. Not sure there is a good solution, but the lesser of evils might be to just ignore the antagonists.
  - y2bd 11y ago
    Given that /r/all currently has pretty much zero note of the crapshow from a couple days ago, I would think actually facing it and just bracing for a couple of days pays off a lot more than just ignoring it and letting it build up over time.
    - gavanwoolery 11y ago
      Could very well be the case :)
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > Given that /r/all currently has pretty much zero note of the crapshow from a couple days ago, I would think actually facing it and just bracing for a couple of days pays off a lot more than just ignoring it and letting it build up over time. A controlled burn of the forest if you will.
gavanwoolery 11y ago
I agree on the cesspits of hate, but I think the good in people always overwhelms the bad. Or at least, I hope. :)
nickysielicki 11y ago
> "it was creating cesspits of hate when left to itself." 'it' is humanity. If you can't handle looking at a true reflection of humanity then you're worse than the bigots, IMHO. If we plug our ears and hum, "la la la" to the uncomfortable opinions held within pockets of society, we remove all possibility of discourse on the topic. No one should ever be so sure that they're right and others are wrong to take that leap. Even with racism, sexism, fat-hate, and so on.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

vernie 11y ago

You were already being down-voted when you added that bit. Reddit doesn't exactly have the best record of self-policing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...

codesushi42 11y ago

Freedom of speech does not apply here. Reddit is not a forum owned by the public, it's a business. Reddit is within their rights to remove any content as they see fit. Yeah, people complain once they realize walled gardens like Reddit start censoring whatever they choose only /after/ they get too big to stop. Same goes for closed ecosystems like the App Store and Google Play. Guess you should have read the fine print before giving your unquestioned allegiance to all these closed platforms. I yearn for the days when the Internet was truly open. You can still launch any kind of site you want. But the truth is there is an ever shrinking number of players who now get to decide what content should or shouldn't be seen, and who should get referral traffic. The censorship I see is both ideological and business motivated. A relative few will control all of the information everyone gets to actually see, because no one will bother to look elsewhere. Sad really.

gavanwoolery 11y ago
I agree - good points :)
acveilleux 11y ago
I've seen 8chan and after that I do not yearn for a fully open Internet.
- gavanwoolery 11y ago
  haha :)
- codesushi42 11y ago
  No one is forcing you go to (\d)chan. Hate speech is an easy target. But the censoring and anticompetitive practices have spread further than that. Google, Apple, Facebook, can change their ToS to bring down potential competitors. They can remove your app for any reason, block access to their APIs, and ban you for posting content that leads to your own external page. It's happened plenty, and Reddit is no exception. These guys want you to live in their closed ecosystems where they control who the winners and losers are and what information is seen.