Reddit Starts One-Sided Censorship

[Toshavo III]

Their first mistake was using Reddit in the first place...

[Purgatio]

Imagine being this apathetic about free speech

Nobody is stopping them from making their own websites. Hell, stormfront still exists.

Free speech isn't only about governmental censorship to the exclusion of actions of private companies. I'm using the J S Mills conception of 'freedom of speech', which goes beyond legal or governmental regulations on speech, but also talks about more subtler social and cultural pressures that place speakers under duress and suppress specific ideas from reaching the marketplace of ideas. That too, is a form of censorship, oftentimes one that is more powerful than the censorship of the law.

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

Their first mistake was using Reddit in the first place...

[United Dependencies]

Nobody is stopping them from making their own websites. Hell, stormfront still exists.

Most of the subreddits that were banned wouldn't exactly be welcome on stormfront.

Then perhaps they should make their own forum?

[Purgatio]

That would functionally make it impossible for corporations to do anything. Which sounds great to me but I suspect is not what you're aiming for.

---

Every time Reddit does something like this someone makes a new "free speech!" website.

Saidit.net has been around for years. When I went to the website its servers couldn't cope with the amount of account requests.

r/GenderCritical actually moved to saidit.net, which is heartwarming. So glad to see that a progressive movement fighting for the fundamental rights and dignity of natal women and girls will live on despite Reddit's authoritarian attempt to suppress their feminist message.

[Gormwood]

Most of the subreddits that were banned wouldn't exactly be welcome on stormfront.

Then perhaps they should make their own forum?

With blackjack, and hookers.

[Gormwood]

Saidit.net has been around for years. When I went to the website its servers couldn't cope with the amount of account requests.

r/GenderCritical actually moved to saidit.net, which is heartwarming. So glad to see that a progressive movement fighting for the fundamental rights and dignity of natal women and girls will live on despite Reddit's attempt to suppress their feminist message.

So they lost the TERF war against Reddit. Nothing of value was lost.

[Purgatio]

r/GenderCritical actually moved to saidit.net, which is heartwarming. So glad to see that a progressive movement fighting for the fundamental rights and dignity of natal women and girls will live on despite Reddit's attempt to suppress their feminist message.

So they lost the TERF war against Reddit. Nothing of value was lost.

Are their ideas so dangerous and threatening that they need to be booted off websites? Rather than debated in the free marketplace of ideas? There are people who disagree with the definition gender-critical feminists use to define "women" as an oppressed class under patriarchy, be it via concrete biological sex, rooted in material reality, or the more amorphous, nebulous concept of 'gender identity' that fluctuates based on subjective psychological identification. This is surely a debate worth having, but you can't have it if you keep censoring the side you disagree with because you're so threatened by what they have to say.

[United Dependencies]

Free speech isn't only about governmental censorship to the exclusion of actions of private companies. I'm using the J S Mills conception of 'freedom of speech', which goes beyond legal or governmental regulations on speech, but also talks about more subtler social and cultural pressures that place speakers under duress and suppress specific ideas from reaching the marketplace of ideas. That too, is a form of censorship, oftentimes one that is more powerful than the censorship of the law.

Except of course that people who didn't like or disagreed with Donald Trump were banned from the donald. Further, they and the other banned subreddits frequently used their subreddits as a place to plan harassment and brigading designed to reduce the speech of others.

I agree in principle that it's better to debate poor ideas than try and suppress them, but, to borrow a phrase, the market place of ideas is not a suicide pact. We don't need to entertain the speech of those who would use the platform to harass and suppress the speech of others.

[Toshavo III]

Their first mistake was using Reddit in the first place...

Ehh, I've been on the site since 2013, there's always been a sort of bias. Just flock to Parler, because in a few short years Reddit will have it's own automated Thought Police. Soon they'll be tracking posts that oppose site-wide policies, then they'll start monitoring your comments for any "hate speech," of course... then more subreddits get taken down, moderation (of views) will increase, and the hive-minded herd sheep will be more, and more concentrated, untill all the undesirables hate groups are eliminated. You know, for the safety of all people.

[Purgatio]

Free speech isn't only about governmental censorship to the exclusion of actions of private companies. I'm using the J S Mills conception of 'freedom of speech', which goes beyond legal or governmental regulations on speech, but also talks about more subtler social and cultural pressures that place speakers under duress and suppress specific ideas from reaching the marketplace of ideas. That too, is a form of censorship, oftentimes one that is more powerful than the censorship of the law.

Except of course that people who didn't like or disagreed with Donald Trump were banned from the donald. Further, they and the other banned subreddits frequently used their subreddits as a place to plan harassment and brigading designed to reduce the speech of others.

I agree in principle that it's better to debate poor ideas than try and suppress them, but, to borrow a phrase, the market place of ideas is not a suicide pact. We don't need to entertain the speech of those who would use the platform to harass and suppress the speech of others.

The point of subreddits is to build contrary online communities, with internal moderation. Yes, you might not be able to debate directly on r/The_Donald, same as any other subreddit which tends to have their own internal moderation rules (as they are permitted to do), but other, non-right-wing subreddits are free to have their own posts directly engaging with, rebutting, or debunking arguments raised in r/The_Donald, on their own subreddits. People who scroll through Reddit and follow different political subreddits will expose themselves to a litany of differing political views and opinions on a variety of subjects, and are liberated to make up their own minds and come to their own conclusions on those subjects. Ultimately, the subreddits that churn out better, more convincing ideas and arguments, will triumph in that marketplace.

[Gormwood]

So they lost the TERF war against Reddit. Nothing of value was lost.

Are their ideas so dangerous and threatening that they need to be booted off websites? Rather than debated in the free marketplace of ideas? There are people who disagree with the definition gender-critical feminists use to define "women" as an oppressed class under patriarchy, be it via concrete biological sex, rooted in material reality, or the more amorphous, nebulous concept of 'gender identity' that fluctuates based on subjective psychological identification. This is surely a debate worth having, but you can't have it if you keep censoring the side you disagree with because you're so threatened by what they have to say.

Other than being incubators for anti-trans campaigns and legislation? Naaaaaah...

[-Ocelot-]

Free speech isn't only about governmental censorship to the exclusion of actions of private companies. I'm using the J S Mills conception of 'freedom of speech', which goes beyond legal or governmental regulations on speech, but also talks about more subtler social and cultural pressures that place speakers under duress and suppress specific ideas from reaching the marketplace of ideas. That too, is a form of censorship, oftentimes one that is more powerful than the censorship of the law.

Except of course that people who didn't like or disagreed with Donald Trump were banned from the donald. Further, they and the other banned subreddits frequently used their subreddits as a place to plan harassment and brigading designed to reduce the speech of others.

I agree in principle that it's better to debate poor ideas than try and suppress them, but, to borrow a phrase, the market place of ideas is not a suicide pact. We don't need to entertain the speech of those who would use the platform to harass and suppress the speech of others.

T_D also used bots to promote their posts, filling the entirety of /r/all at some point. They weren't banned for being conservative, they were banned for breaking the rules over and over again.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Except of course that people who didn't like or disagreed with Donald Trump were banned from the donald. Further, they and the other banned subreddits frequently used their subreddits as a place to plan harassment and brigading designed to reduce the speech of others.

I agree in principle that it's better to debate poor ideas than try and suppress them, but, to borrow a phrase, the market place of ideas is not a suicide pact. We don't need to entertain the speech of those who would use the platform to harass and suppress the speech of others.

T_D also used bots to promote their posts, filling the entirety of /r/all at some point. They weren't banned for being conservative, they were banned for breaking the rules over and over again.

They had 1 post in 100 days. I think this was more about reddit sending a message, rather than about them actually combatting hate.

[Toshavo III]

Are their ideas so dangerous and threatening that they need to be booted off websites? Rather than debated in the free marketplace of ideas? There are people who disagree with the definition gender-critical feminists use to define "women" as an oppressed class under patriarchy, be it via concrete biological sex, rooted in material reality, or the more amorphous, nebulous concept of 'gender identity' that fluctuates based on subjective psychological identification. This is surely a debate worth having, but you can't have it if you keep censoring the side you disagree with because you're so threatened by what they have to say.

Other than being incubators for anti-trans campaigns and legislation? Naaaaaah...

Being anti-trans isn't criminal. Call me homophobic, sure, but being anti-anything should not be dangerous.

[Ifreann]

So they lost the TERF war against Reddit. Nothing of value was lost.

Are their ideas so dangerous and threatening that they need to be booted off websites? Rather than debated in the free marketplace of ideas? There are people who disagree with the definition gender-critical feminists use to define "women" as an oppressed class under patriarchy, be it via concrete biological sex, rooted in material reality, or the more amorphous, nebulous concept of 'gender identity' that fluctuates based on subjective psychological identification. This is surely a debate worth having, but you can't have it if you keep censoring the side you disagree with because you're so threatened by what they have to say.

Sorry, the free marketplace of actual money has decided that there isn't enough money to be made from the free marketplace of ideas.

[New Hudazendkia]

They also banned chapotraphouse, a very much leftist sub, and also shadowbanned some guy's comment linking an article about reddit's CEO dodging taxes. Divide and conquer: Keep the left and the right fighting while reaping the benefits.

[Atlexil]

Huh, so the r/The_Donald got the boot? Nothing of value was lost whatsoever and it's nice r/Gendercritical got the boot too from Reddit. Though I wouldn't say its onesided because a lot of subreddits that would either fall under the dirtbag left moniker (like r/Chapotraphouse and its splinters) or far-left label got kicked off of the site too.

[United Dependencies]

The point of subreddits is to build contrary online communities, with internal moderation. Yes, you might not be able to debate directly on r/The_Donald, same as any other subreddit which tends to have their own internal moderation rules (as they are permitted to do), but other, non-right-wing subreddits are free to have their own posts directly engaging with, rebutting, or debunking arguments raised in r/The_Donald, on their own subreddits. People who scroll through Reddit and follow different political subreddits will expose themselves to a litany of differing political views and opinions on a variety of subjects, and are liberated to make up their own minds and come to their own conclusions on those subjects. Ultimately, the subreddits that churn out better, more convincing ideas and arguments, will triumph in that marketplace.

Perhaps in an ideal world ( if we set aside the question of whether it's appropriate to debate someone else's gender).

What was actually happening was that TD, CTH, and others were travelling to other communities to downvote posts they disagreed with and upvote posts they agreed with. Further, they frequently would spam individual inboxes with harassing messages. This isn't a civil discussion about the merits of various Trump administration policies, it's people and bots spamming and brigading to suppress the speech of others. The reddit community is right to not tolerate that behavior and take steps to block the people responsible.

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

Ehh, I've been on the site since 2013, there's always been a sort of bias. Just flock to Parler, because in a few short years Reddit will have it's own automated Thought Police. Soon they'll be tracking posts that oppose site-wide policies, then they'll start monitoring your comments for any "hate speech," of course... then more subreddits get taken down, moderation (of views) will increase, and the hive-minded herd sheep will be more, and more concentrated, untill all the undesirables hate groups are eliminated. You know, for the safety of all people.

I don’t like it, I’ve been in the presence of a real life redditor to know it isn’t my thing. The homepage itself is extremely left just by titles and thumbnails. I’ll pass, stick to basket weaving sites.

I do believe there was an instance where the Europe reddit mods were banning RT sources and doing nothing about American funded news groups and channels. Whole site is just an example of external funding, like the rest of the media.

[United Dependencies]

Being anti-trans isn't criminal. Call me homophobic, sure, but being anti-anything should not be dangerous.

Nobody has been punished as criminals.

[Purgatio]

Are their ideas so dangerous and threatening that they need to be booted off websites? Rather than debated in the free marketplace of ideas? There are people who disagree with the definition gender-critical feminists use to define "women" as an oppressed class under patriarchy, be it via concrete biological sex, rooted in material reality, or the more amorphous, nebulous concept of 'gender identity' that fluctuates based on subjective psychological identification. This is surely a debate worth having, but you can't have it if you keep censoring the side you disagree with because you're so threatened by what they have to say.

Other than being incubators for anti-trans campaigns and legislation? Naaaaaah...

This is you just being narrow-minded. If you disagree with how gender-critical feminists define the concept of "women" as an oppressed class, based on biological sex, then debate that, debunk that, rebut that, rather than close-mindedly and parochially censoring them and suppressing their views. That's a rather petty and authoritarian approach to the people you disagree with.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

The point of subreddits is to build contrary online communities, with internal moderation. Yes, you might not be able to debate directly on r/The_Donald, same as any other subreddit which tends to have their own internal moderation rules (as they are permitted to do), but other, non-right-wing subreddits are free to have their own posts directly engaging with, rebutting, or debunking arguments raised in r/The_Donald, on their own subreddits. People who scroll through Reddit and follow different political subreddits will expose themselves to a litany of differing political views and opinions on a variety of subjects, and are liberated to make up their own minds and come to their own conclusions on those subjects. Ultimately, the subreddits that churn out better, more convincing ideas and arguments, will triumph in that marketplace.

Perhaps in an ideal world ( if we set aside the question of whether it's appropriate to debate someone else's gender).

What was actually happening was that TD, CTH, and others were travelling to other communities to downvote posts they disagreed with and upvote posts they agreed with. Further, they frequently would spam individual inboxes with harassing messages. This isn't a civil discussion about the merits of various Trump administration policies, it's people and bots spamming and brigading to suppress the speech of others. The reddit community is right to not tolerate that behavior and take steps to block the people responsible.

Surely then the answer, as you say, is to block the people responsible? You know, rather than ban the group where those people and others post.

[-Ocelot-]

T_D also used bots to promote their posts, filling the entirety of /r/all at some point. They weren't banned for being conservative, they were banned for breaking the rules over and over again.

They had 1 post in 100 days. I think this was more about reddit sending a message, rather than about them actually combatting hate.

When T_D was still a young sub (around 4 years ago), there were days where /r/all was almost entirely filled with Trump spam made up of posts with ridiculous amounts of upvotes. This led Reddit to change their algorithm and create a new sub-category (/r/popular), just so it could avoid banning T_D. When spez was asked why T_D was still around, his response was something along the lines of "we must let the other side have a voice, too". Over time, T_D members were observed brigading other subs or witch hunting people.

Many of the subs banned were actually promoting hate, including left-wing subs like chapotraphouse.

[Farnhamia]

Another horseshoe, I see. People will never get tired of this, will they? Now, Reddit moderation is indeed shit, but it's happening to leftists as well. Also, the reason hate speech is not free speech is because it agitates violence against an innocent group of people, whether directly or indirectly. But the libtards have taken this notion and turned it into a reason to censor people to keep a good image of themselves. There's nothing leftist about this. If anything, this is the result of pink capitalism, like most other media platforms have become in the last few years.

You might ask, "well, isn't ACAB also hate speech, then?". To which I can only say, "nice horseshoe." What it means is that the current system of policing is structured in such a way that requires all cops to be bastards, whether they like it or not. But saying that blacks are "scientifically inferior" is another thing in itself, because it attacks individuals, not unjust organizations (punching a dude neither makes an organization or unjust violence, however) or ideas. Vulnerable individuals, I may add.

"Libtards," is it? I was going to let you off with an Ominous Loom (TM), seeing as how you have fewer than 100 posts, but lo and behold, you got warned for "conservatards" just a couple of months ago.

*** Warned for trolling ***