
Reddit is removing nazi and alt-right groups as part of a new policy - Geekette
https://www.buzzfeed.com/briannasacks/reddit-is-banning-nazi-and-alt-right-groups-as-part-of-a
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flashman
It's really interesting to compare Reddit and Twitter on these matters,
because both were started by people who intended them to be free speech
havens, even if that meant hosting some abhorrent (but legal) content.

As late as 2012 the one of Reddit's founders claimed the site was "a bastion
of free speech",[1] but by 2015 the other founder modified this to "a place
where open and honest discussion can happen."

It will be interesting to do some analysis and see which other subreddits the
users in the banned subreddits migrate to. Often they remain active on the
site but their activity becomes more coded (like how fatpeoplehate users ended
up on holdmyfries).

[1][https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/reddit_cofounder_ut...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/reddit_cofounder_uturn_free_speech/)

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Daishiman
What changed is that the abhorrent but legal content has gone from being
minority, irrelevant and ultimately easily dismissed content to being the
centerpoint of political and social issues of our time.

It's easy to talk about free speech when the worst of it has no impact to you.
When your site begins to be used as a point of validation for abhorrent ideas
where people _actually carry out_ illegal and nefarious acts, things change.

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curtisblaine
> ban material that “encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or
> physical harm against an individual or a group of people.”

But they'll end up banning only nazi and alt right groups, because they're the
current news and becase Trump is president.

Just look at the list of banned subreddits in the article: they're actually
not bannning _all_ material that calls for violence or harm (including extreme
SWJ groups, black supremacists etc); they're banning only right wingers.

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MBCook
What subreddits (specifically) do you think should have been included?

There have always been some pretty obvious white supremacy or ultra-racist
subreddits. I’m not aware of any violence encouraging left wing things, say
eco-terrorists. Perhaps they exist but just aren’t very big.

I don’t like that some are trying to see this through the right/left lens.
Banning discussion of how the holocaust was a _good thing_ is unfair because
those people probably voted for Trump?

I don’t think voting for Trump was the problem with them.

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MBCook
Glad to see they’re finally doing this, I’m pretty amazed it took so long.

I don’t know how they planned to run a large advertising sponsored business
with this kind of content. No one would ever want to be associated with it,
and saying “your ads don’t run on that part of the site“ doesn’t seem like a
viable solution.

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mc32
>we will take action against any content that encourages, glorifies, incites,
or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of
people

That seems problematic. In isolation it reads well, but in practice, this is
not good: for example, let's say you don't like what Slobodan Milosevic did
(or let's say a new Slobodan or Mugabe or Basayev) can you now not hurl
terrible things at them or people who would instantly carry out their crimes
for them?

I don't see this working out well with that language. It's a very
indiscriminate net.

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zardo
>I don't see this working out well with that language. It's a very
indiscriminate net.

I doubt they'll worry too much over the exact wording of the policy. I would
expect a, you know it when you see it, test.

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mc32
So then we have selective enforcement on a pretty basic exercise in speech. I
still don't see this working out well. Someone's friend an be someone else's
foe and determining the "evil" or bad will be very murky in cases.

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chiaro
Still, we shouldn't fall prey to the idea that because a perfect solution is
hard, that an intermediate one should be discounted.

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grawlinson
r/the_donald is _still_ around, so this so called "move" is a bit worthless.

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travmatt
/r/incel as well, who literally glorify a mass murderer expressly for his
homicidal misogyny.

