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Its pretty clear that they tested out the "remove" option, pushed Ellen Pao out when it got ugly, and are switching to the "Hide" option. Yishan [ "Not our pro

Its pretty clear that they tested out the "remove" option, pushed Ellen Pao out when it got ugly, and are switching to the "Hide" option. Yishan [ "Not our problem" ] -> Pao [ "Remove" ] -> Spez [ "Hide"] That seems to the be evolution at the moment, and honestly, I think "Hide" is the right answer. People have a right to avoid content that offends them. Voat's problem [honestly] is as drama-filled as this transition has been...Voat really isn't offering anything other than "Reddit with more transparency". Assuming Spez doesn't screw this up, I'm not seeing how Voat.co will benefit. As for vagueness, I'm not surprised...its like the legal definition of Obscenity or Pornography, its a community-tested definition based on social norms. You can't really quantify it the way you can numbers on a spreadsheet or "Marijuana is illegal". As long as Spez is transparent, communicates effectively, and doesn't come across as arbitrary I think it'll work out fine.

scrollaway 11y ago
Just for some more context on that, Yishan's comment from yesterday is insightful and very entertaining to be honest: https://pay.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/content_policy_update_ama_thursday_july_16th_1pm/ct3n7hc?context=3 https://pay.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/conte...
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Yishan is pretty clearly biased, but yeah, he is definitely entertaining. I'm pretty sure Pao's "remove" was going to be a tiny fraction of what will end up hidden and she was closer to Yishan's "Do whatever" position than Huffman will be.
angersock 11y ago
People have a right to avoid content that offends them. Do they though? EDIT: Meant that seriously. Do we have a right to avoid all of the people complaining about discrimination in tech, for example?
- malnourish 11y ago
  I agree, if someone is walking down the street and there's a street preacher who offends them, they have the right to turn the corner, turn around, or tell them off. They don't have the right to stuff the person (metaphorically) in a box out of sight. The hazy term is "right". Perhaps it means "People [on reddit] have a right to avoid content that offends them."
  - npizzolato 11y ago
    That's a really good way of putting it. You have the right to walk away or to yell back, but you don't have the right to make them stop talking. That's a really important distinction.
  - interpol_p 11y ago
    There is a case where a person does not have the option to avoid the speech they find offensive. I think that happens a lot on the Internet. For example, on Twitter, users are harassed, but short of leaving the service they don't have an easy way to avoid their mentions being cluttered by hate speech. It devalues the service for them and puts hate speech directly in their face. Blocking tools are improving, but people who want to harass others claim such tools are against free speech. From the sounds of it many subreddits "branched out" onto personal Facebook pages and other places to attack users — to put offensive speech in front of the people who would find it offensive. It complicates the ideal scenario you put forward because while these are public places where anyone can post, there is a malicious intent behind much of the speech. To put that offensive content in front of a person's friends and family in a way that they can't avoid, or have to work to avoid, is very different from reciting that speech in your own private area of the Internet. Yet defence of one is often blurred with defence of the other. How do you stop such hate groups from "branching out" without shutting down the source and being accused of stifling free speech? It's a nice ideal to say that one person is free to speak while another is free not to listen, but one is able to make a physical (or virtual) location distinctly uncomfortable and scary for another person. This sort of harassment is often defended under the guise of "free speech."
    - 11y ago

scrollaway 11y ago

Just for some more context on that, Yishan's comment from yesterday is insightful and very entertaining to be honest: https://pay.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/content_policy_update_ama_thursday_july_16th_1pm/ct3n7hc?context=3 https://pay.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/conte...

fweespeech 11y ago
Yishan is pretty clearly biased, but yeah, he is definitely entertaining. I'm pretty sure Pao's "remove" was going to be a tiny fraction of what will end up hidden and she was closer to Yishan's "Do whatever" position than Huffman will be.

angersock 11y ago

People have a right to avoid content that offends them. Do they though? EDIT: Meant that seriously. Do we have a right to avoid all of the people complaining about discrimination in tech, for example?

malnourish 11y ago
I agree, if someone is walking down the street and there's a street preacher who offends them, they have the right to turn the corner, turn around, or tell them off. They don't have the right to stuff the person (metaphorically) in a box out of sight. The hazy term is "right". Perhaps it means "People [on reddit] have a right to avoid content that offends them."
- npizzolato 11y ago
  That's a really good way of putting it. You have the right to walk away or to yell back, but you don't have the right to make them stop talking. That's a really important distinction.
- interpol_p 11y ago
  There is a case where a person does not have the option to avoid the speech they find offensive. I think that happens a lot on the Internet. For example, on Twitter, users are harassed, but short of leaving the service they don't have an easy way to avoid their mentions being cluttered by hate speech. It devalues the service for them and puts hate speech directly in their face. Blocking tools are improving, but people who want to harass others claim such tools are against free speech. From the sounds of it many subreddits "branched out" onto personal Facebook pages and other places to attack users — to put offensive speech in front of the people who would find it offensive. It complicates the ideal scenario you put forward because while these are public places where anyone can post, there is a malicious intent behind much of the speech. To put that offensive content in front of a person's friends and family in a way that they can't avoid, or have to work to avoid, is very different from reciting that speech in your own private area of the Internet. Yet defence of one is often blurred with defence of the other. How do you stop such hate groups from "branching out" without shutting down the source and being accused of stifling free speech? It's a nice ideal to say that one person is free to speak while another is free not to listen, but one is able to make a physical (or virtual) location distinctly uncomfortable and scary for another person. This sort of harassment is often defended under the guise of "free speech."
  - 11y ago