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Freedom of speech != freedom to force anyone to listen to you. As long as you are free to create your own community where you can say whatever you want, there

by jarfil 11y ago

Freedom of speech != freedom to force anyone to listen to you. As long as you are free to create your own community where you can say whatever you want, there is no need for any other community to listen to you.

nindalf 11y ago
Nor was anyone forced to listen. I find the default subs pretty low quality, so I stopped subscribing to them years ago. So the only things I read about were the books, video games and programming languages I like. If you had a different experience, then I sympathise with you, but don't go reading a thread filled with utter crap and then claim that someone forced you to listen.
mirimir 11y ago
As I've said in another subthread, Reddit is not a single community, but rather numerous communities. All users are free to listen to what they like, and to not listen (or even block) what they don't like. It's rather like Usenet, with a Reddit account being equivalent to a news server account.
Natsu 11y ago
As I understand it, the founding fathers cast it more as "freedom to listen" rather than freedom of speech. And it's certainly understandable that Reddit has no wish to be associated with certain speech, but that comes with troubling implications as well. For example, do they not then appear to support whatever they do not ban if we know that whatever sufficiently offends them gets the ban hammer? For another example, take Google removing Confederate flags. I personally hate that damned flag and would be perfectly happy to join others in burning one to express my feelings about it, but I'm loathe to go around removing them. Please understand that I'm perfectly happy if a few get taken down where they appear that some governmental branch was endorsing it. But at the same time, that's not quite the same as when Google goes about removing them. Sure, they are free to do as they wish, I have to wonder why Google doesn't do the same for Nazi symbols? Surely they don't support Nazis, but it's hard to make a case for not giving the Nazis the same treatment. They're at least as evil, right? So what explanations are left to us for the disparity? That Nazis don't offend googlers as much? That doesn't seem like a likely reason, but just what's left? And in the end, where does that leave us? The problem is, I don't think that train of thought has an end, and that's what makes me uneasy. After we remove everything offensive, what's left? It's not like we'll have things that don't offend anybody, so at some point it becomes a matter of choosing which people are okay to offend and which people are not okay to offend. In the end, I just want to get along with everyone. I don't like the thought of living in a society where everything becomes a matter of whether you are one of Us or one of Them and that's where we appear to be heading.
- lmartel 11y ago
  Didn't Google just remove the confederate flag from Shopping Express and ads, not from search results? They don't sell Nazi flags in their store or (afaik) let people advertise using them, so this doesn't seem as inconsistent to me as you make it sound.
  - Natsu 11y ago
    Yes, and Google is happy to sell you all manner of Nazi items: https://www.google.com/search?q=nazi+swastica&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls={moz:distributionID}:{moz:locale}:{moz:official}&client=firefox#tbm=shop&q=swastika https://www.google.com/search?q=nazi+swastica&ie=utf-8&oe=ut... Not to mention copies of the Mein Kampf, etc. Thankfully, the various non-Nazi uses of the swastika appear to be the most popular, but you can find plenty of Nazi items. I dislike the meaning of both symbols, so I have a hard time imagining any logic where it's okay to sell one of them but not the other.
    - SixSigma 11y ago
      9front, a fork of plan9, includes Mein Kampf in the distribution as a kind of trolling canary. We only burn the bad books, right?
    - tomjen3 11y ago
      They probably also sell the soviet flag, copies of Das Capital etc. Equally horrible but for the other side. Also side note: reading Mein Kampf doesn't make you a nazi, indeed if more people had read it back in the day somebody might have stooped that little corporal.
    - lmartel 11y ago
      Oh, then you're right, this is definitely less okay. I was under the impression that they just stopped delivering them from Walmart (or wherever) via Shopping Express, rather than special-casing the search results. I guess the argument one could make is that the confederate flag is more dangerous and relevant today, but I don't really buy that. Occam's razor suggests this is just an easy PR grab. They get a few headlines in mainstream tech press for free, and very minor backlash from "free speech nutjubs" as the only downside.
maxlybbert 11y ago
Reddit is legally allowed to censor all they want. Some people, especially people younger than me, like a version of the world where somebody smoothes off the rough edges and hides unsightly things. I think it feels too much like Disneyland. Reddit spent years building a freewheeling culture. Pao decided to impose standards on that, and her guiding principles weren't well articulated. In the end, it was a really bad copy of Disneyland, and the fact that the effort failed was no surprise. I'm not sure the company really knows what happened, given that they think they've given their users what they asked for, but they're also telling their users that they're spoiled kids.
- jeo1234 11y ago
  > Pao decided to impose standards on that, and her guiding principles weren't well articulated. I think you nailed it there. I'm not a Reddit user, but from what I have read there never seemed to be clear set of guidelines that were evenly enforced by the Reddit staff.

by jarfil 11y ago

nindalf 11y ago

Nor was anyone forced to listen. I find the default subs pretty low quality, so I stopped subscribing to them years ago. So the only things I read about were the books, video games and programming languages I like. If you had a different experience, then I sympathise with you, but don't go reading a thread filled with utter crap and then claim that someone forced you to listen.

mirimir 11y ago

As I've said in another subthread, Reddit is not a single community, but rather numerous communities. All users are free to listen to what they like, and to not listen (or even block) what they don't like. It's rather like Usenet, with a Reddit account being equivalent to a news server account.

Natsu 11y ago

As I understand it, the founding fathers cast it more as "freedom to listen" rather than freedom of speech. And it's certainly understandable that Reddit has no wish to be associated with certain speech, but that comes with troubling implications as well. For example, do they not then appear to support whatever they do not ban if we know that whatever sufficiently offends them gets the ban hammer? For another example, take Google removing Confederate flags. I personally hate that damned flag and would be perfectly happy to join others in burning one to express my feelings about it, but I'm loathe to go around removing them. Please understand that I'm perfectly happy if a few get taken down where they appear that some governmental branch was endorsing it. But at the same time, that's not quite the same as when Google goes about removing them. Sure, they are free to do as they wish, I have to wonder why Google doesn't do the same for Nazi symbols? Surely they don't support Nazis, but it's hard to make a case for not giving the Nazis the same treatment. They're at least as evil, right? So what explanations are left to us for the disparity? That Nazis don't offend googlers as much? That doesn't seem like a likely reason, but just what's left? And in the end, where does that leave us? The problem is, I don't think that train of thought has an end, and that's what makes me uneasy. After we remove everything offensive, what's left? It's not like we'll have things that don't offend anybody, so at some point it becomes a matter of choosing which people are okay to offend and which people are not okay to offend. In the end, I just want to get along with everyone. I don't like the thought of living in a society where everything becomes a matter of whether you are one of Us or one of Them and that's where we appear to be heading.

lmartel 11y ago
Didn't Google just remove the confederate flag from Shopping Express and ads, not from search results? They don't sell Nazi flags in their store or (afaik) let people advertise using them, so this doesn't seem as inconsistent to me as you make it sound.
- Natsu 11y ago
  Yes, and Google is happy to sell you all manner of Nazi items: https://www.google.com/search?q=nazi+swastica&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls={moz:distributionID}:{moz:locale}:{moz:official}&client=firefox#tbm=shop&q=swastika https://www.google.com/search?q=nazi+swastica&ie=utf-8&oe=ut... Not to mention copies of the Mein Kampf, etc. Thankfully, the various non-Nazi uses of the swastika appear to be the most popular, but you can find plenty of Nazi items. I dislike the meaning of both symbols, so I have a hard time imagining any logic where it's okay to sell one of them but not the other.
  - SixSigma 11y ago
    9front, a fork of plan9, includes Mein Kampf in the distribution as a kind of trolling canary. We only burn the bad books, right?
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    They probably also sell the soviet flag, copies of Das Capital etc. Equally horrible but for the other side. Also side note: reading Mein Kampf doesn't make you a nazi, indeed if more people had read it back in the day somebody might have stooped that little corporal.
  - lmartel 11y ago
    Oh, then you're right, this is definitely less okay. I was under the impression that they just stopped delivering them from Walmart (or wherever) via Shopping Express, rather than special-casing the search results. I guess the argument one could make is that the confederate flag is more dangerous and relevant today, but I don't really buy that. Occam's razor suggests this is just an easy PR grab. They get a few headlines in mainstream tech press for free, and very minor backlash from "free speech nutjubs" as the only downside.

maxlybbert 11y ago

Reddit is legally allowed to censor all they want. Some people, especially people younger than me, like a version of the world where somebody smoothes off the rough edges and hides unsightly things. I think it feels too much like Disneyland. Reddit spent years building a freewheeling culture. Pao decided to impose standards on that, and her guiding principles weren't well articulated. In the end, it was a really bad copy of Disneyland, and the fact that the effort failed was no surprise. I'm not sure the company really knows what happened, given that they think they've given their users what they asked for, but they're also telling their users that they're spoiled kids.

jeo1234 11y ago
> Pao decided to impose standards on that, and her guiding principles weren't well articulated. I think you nailed it there. I'm not a Reddit user, but from what I have read there never seemed to be clear set of guidelines that were evenly enforced by the Reddit staff.