
Reddit: a necessary change in policy - citricsquid
http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/pmj7f/a_necessary_change_in_policy/
======
kmfrk
Here is the original thread that started it all, since the admins at reddit
don't want to link to it:
[http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=346...](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3466025).

And the reddit response:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/duplicates/pmbyc/somethin...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/duplicates/pmbyc/somethingawfulcom_starts_campaign_to_label_reddit/).

~~~
muyuu
There is a subreddit called "LegalTeens" that they find offensive??

~~~
icebraining
How do you effectively determine if a teen in a picture is 18+ or not? Porn
companies get legal documentation to prove it, but there's no such thing in a
random jpeg.

Reddit is covering their legal asses, and I can perfectly understand that.

~~~
muyuu
It's opening a big can of worms.

You cannot prove their age (I've seen 17 year-olds looking like they were 25)
and you cannot prove they give their consent to have their seemingly private
pic posted, but this can be said about almost any "mirror pic" or home pic.
You also don't generally know when a picture has been publicly posted by the
person in it, or not.

As soon as you put the burden of proof in the website, you start slipping into
SOPA territory.

Not a good idea IMO.

------
benologist
It will be interesting to see how far this goes, it's likely we'll look back
on this as reddit's turning point - there is some really awful content on that
site.

However it's ironic that people rush to defend linking to cam-of-new-
hollywood-blockbuster.torrent as "just a link", declaring it can't be illegal
because it's just _pointing_ to a file, it's not _hosting_ it and only a fool
lawyer or judge nestled warmly in the pocket of the RIAA/MPAA could
misunderstand this.

But when that link goes to 13yearoldinabikini.jpg, a collection of 1s and 0s
on someone else's server, suddenly this Link is a tool of evil and not only
must it be removed, but the community celebrates the censorship and nominates
_more_ items for censorship.

~~~
Czarnian
Banning child porn is hardly the beginning of a slippery slope to the iron
fist of reddit censorship.

Child porn is probably the one subject that is so indefensible that no one in
their right mind would consider it a great loss that a major distribution
channel for it was turned off.

Not that I believe for a second that the degenerates won't figure out some way
to either skirt the rules or find another friendly site to aid and abet them.

It's a good first step, even if it was made under extreme duress.

~~~
jarin
There are people on Reddit trying to make the case that (based on a study from
the University of Hawaii), access to child porn (or, more reasonably,
artificial child porn like lolicon) can significantly reduce the rates of
child sexual abuse:

[http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/11/30/legalizing.child...](http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/11/30/legalizing.child.pornography.linked.lower.rates.child.sex.abuse)

By the way, I'm not in any way supporting that opinion, just presenting the
case that some people are making. I personally think there are probably better
ways to combat child abuse than giving people lolicon.

~~~
Czarnian
I understand that you are not supporting that opinion, but I would like to
rebut anyway.

Whether it significantly reduces the rates of child sexual abuse is besides
the point. If someone thinks it's okay for one child to be abused so another
may or may not be abused later, they need to check into the nearest
psychiatric ward immediately.

We are human beings, for fucks sake. We should be holding ourselves to a
higher standard than that.

Someone should make a site to permanently enshrine all the bugfuck insanity
these people are trying to use to defend the indefensible.

~~~
sliverstorm
Not to mention the sinister side-effect of allowing CP to reduce abuse- last I
heard, much of it is produced via children from second-world countries. So in
the end, we internalize all the benefit within the USA, and externalize all
the suffering to downtrodden nations and their children.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I see little reason why we couldn't ban CP which was produced with real
children, but legalize CP which was not (e.g., cartoons, CGI, etc).

Note that /r/lolicon is one of the banned subreddits.

------
tzs
This is a little off topic, but speaking of child abuse, I was recently called
to jury duty for a case of "first degree rape of a child under 12". This was
not one of those edge cases where you've got a 12 year old with a boyfriend a
few years older, just outside the legal age difference. No, this was a 40+
year old man having sex with a 6 year old girl. (My number was high enough in
the jury pool that I didn't get anywhere near the jury box, but I found out
later the defendant was easily convicted).

Here's what is interesting about this: in the last year, 3 other people from
my area at work (about 10 people) have also been called to jury duty--and ALL
of them were child sex cases. Two were also "first degree rape of a child
under 12", and one just recalled that it was child molestation.

Two things astounded me about this.

1\. That there were so many child rape and molestation cases. I had never
though of this area as some kind of hotbed of child sex (Western Washington,
across Puget Sound from Seattle), but it seems kind of high to have all 4
people called to jury duty in my office in the last year be called for this
kind of case.

2\. There was nothing in the news. The defendant in the case I was on had an
unusual name. I googled for it, and the only things that show up about him are
things like his entry in the county jail booking records:

[http://www.kitsapgov.com/sheriff/incustody/jailwebsecond.asp...](http://www.kitsapgov.com/sheriff/incustody/jailwebsecond.asp?charges=700067930)

and his upcoming court dates on the county court calendar. Not a single
newspaper story of his arrest, or his conviction, or of his earlier trial that
ended in a hung jury.

If a 40+ year old man raping a 6 year old girl is not newsworthy, that leaves
me wondering what other horrible crimes go on around me that do not make the
news.

~~~
bratao
It is interesting that yesterday I was reading an article that relates
increase of child attraction to Internet Phonograph.
[http://www.reuniting.info/wiring_sexual_tastes_to_hairless_g...](http://www.reuniting.info/wiring_sexual_tastes_to_hairless_genitals_oops)

TLDR: The market standard of waxed in phonograph movies , confuses the
evolutionary trigger that protect adults having desires for females that are
not sexually mature.

~~~
mistercow
Virtually none of the crucial citations on that source seem very reputable;
just lots of links to pop-psychology sources, and links to the authors' own
books. Very sketchy.

------
kmfrk
Update: alienth from reddit explains why and how they went about forming the
new policy:

    
    
        As the post said, we follow NCMEC reporting procedures.
        However, addressing this type of content was taking up
        more and more of our limited time. Also, none of us
        were particularly keen on analyzing this content and
        trying to determine what was and was not illegal.
        
        Whenever flair-ups like the preteen mess occur, it adds
        a tonne of stress upon us. We've been pouring over
        these decisions all weekend. It became clear that
        unless we addressed this content with a new rule, we
        were going to continue to drown in the minutia of what
        is child pornography, and what is not.
    

[http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/pmk22/admins...](http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/pmk22/admins_today_we_are_adding_another_rule_no/c3qk6s9?context=1)

------
tzs
One thing that disappointed me in the discussion is how most was focused on
whether or not the pictures in /r/preteen_girls were legal. Even if they were
clearly legal, I think a strong case can be made for banning them for
violating the privacy of the children in the photos.

Most of them seemed to be girls photographed at home, probably by family
members. I suspect they were shared on the net with relatives, by people who
did not know they were making them publicly available. There were also quite a
few that seemed to be girls photographed in public who were not aware they
were being photographed.

~~~
streptomycin
If the standard becomes to delete every picture containing people who haven't
explicitly consented to that picture being posted in a public forum... well,
that's a huge chunk of Reddit.

~~~
sadface
Good thing for them that's obviously not the standard.

~~~
streptomycin
I know, I was just pointing out a flaw in tzs's reasoning.

------
stfu
Very interesting to watch what a coordinated attack can do to a website.
Always sad to see when people rally behind better/stronger censorship.
Companies should get attacked for taking freedoms away and not the other way
around. If they had illegal content on their sites, than by all means report
it etc. But I still believe that anything legal SHOULD be allowed.

On the other hand it might be more a personal thing against Reddit for
freeriding/pretending ownership of ideas with might have originated in other
places.

~~~
w1ntermute
What concerns me here is that they made this change not because it was the
right thing to do (if that were the case, this would've happened months ago,
when the controversy initially surfaced). Instead, they did it after a
concerted campaign by SA. Who's to say that SA couldn't/won't do the same to
get other topics banned as well?

Of course, the nice thing about the internet is that we can route around these
issues. The fact that the software powering Reddit is open source[0] only
makes it easer.

0: <https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki>

~~~
owenmarshall
Are you honestly trying to set up a slippery slope argument starting with
child pornography?

There's a _significant_ difference between protected speech and illegal
material. Reddit (finally) cracked down on illegal material. Let's talk when
they crack down on legal speech.

~~~
w1ntermute
You completely missed my point here. Reddit didn't crack down on the material
because it was illegal, they cracked down on it _because SA decided to launch
a campaign against it_. If the Reddit admins had been concerned about hosting
illegal material, they would have banned all such material months ago, when
Andersoon Cooper mentioned its presence on Reddit _on national TV_.

This sets a dangerous precedent - that anyone who wants to get any sort of
material banned from Reddit just needs to whip up SA (or an internet forum of
similar influence) into a frenzy. My concerns are largely orthogonal to the
fact that the particular type of content against which SA launched a campaign
today was child pornography.

~~~
owenmarshall
Yeah, I think that's a strange view.

Reddit finally banned illegal child pornography because they were afraid of
the media shitstorm that would arise from not cracking down on child
pornography _the first time they knew about it_.

If SA "gets whipped up" about any other type of content that _isn't illegal_ ,
what's the harm?

Reddit admins were afraid for a good reason - any more attention to the fact
that they knew about child pornography _and did nothing_ would be a big
problem.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Reddit finally banned illegal child pornography because they were afraid of
> the media shitstorm that would arise from not cracking down on child
> pornography the first time they knew about it.

No, they knew about it months ago, when they banned /r/jailbait in response to
AC360 coverage. But that's all they did, despite being aware of the presence
of numerous other subreddits offering similar fare.

> If SA "gets whipped up" about any other type of content that isn't illegal,
> what's the harm?

The harm is that the Reddit admins banning this sort of material had nothing
to do with the fact that it was illegal (they already knew that a long time
ago, as I stated above). The sole reason seems to be that SA had launched a
campaign against it. So if SA launches a similar campaign against something
else that _isn't illegal_ , one can logically conclude that the Reddit admins
would once again cave and ban that material as well.

> Reddit admins were afraid for a good reason - any more attention to the fact
> that they knew about child pornography and did nothing would be a big
> problem.

And here we get to the fundamental problem. As I stated in my initial post,
this was a response to a potential PR shitstorm. It had nothing to do with
purported illegality of the material, or it would've been banned a long time
ago.

~~~
owenmarshall
If SA gets angry at reddit about, say,
atheism/libertarianism/whatthefuckeverism, and goes after reddit, how is there
going to be a PR shitstorm?

Your premise is nonsensical. The PR shitstorm was brewing because reddit
_continued_ to provide a safe haven for pedophiles to exchange child
pornography _after CNN called them out on it_. What the fuck else is reddit
doing right now that could lead to such a shitstorm? Assassinations? Human
trafficking?

------
samstave
I am one who has pushed for removal of specific /r/ for some time.
Specifically, /r/picsofdeadkids as well as most recently stating we should
both delete /r/preteen_girls as well as the community to have ability to vote
to close/delete /r/.

In the past, when I was against /r/picsofdeadkids - my comments were voted
down with arguments of "I may not agree with what you say, but ill defend your
right to say it"

I know it is a slippery slope, censorship, but I don't feel that standards ==
censorship. These people would be free to start whatever site/forum they like
- but to argue that the platform that reddit provides should be wholly open to
ANYTHING without standards is just plain stupid.

I am very pleased with such a direction. Again, if you're the sick POS that
needs extremely fringe content - then go host it yourself.

Don't play victim that a public forum is actually telling you there is
something WRONG with your interests - maybe its a freaking SIGN that people
are offended by what you think normal.

~~~
kevinh
Many of the comments on the post are disgusting. People being downvoted for
supporting the removal of subreddits such as r/beatingwomen and
r/beatingtrannies under the guise of supporting free speech (which isn't
really a viable point on a website).

~~~
mistercow
> which isn't really a viable point on a website

It's a viable point on a website like reddit, which built its community on a
no-censorship basis. They're free to do with their business as they like, but
I'm free to feel betrayed when they do.

~~~
samstave
You feel betrayed when a site like reddit says that child porn is bad, but I'd
be willing to bet everything that you have a facebook account which sells you,
your likeness and your personal data and you couldn't give a shit when they
alter their privacy policies.

~~~
mistercow
>You feel betrayed when a site like reddit says that child porn is bad

No, I feel betrayed when reddit, a community that grew because it did not
limit expression that was within the law, bans "suggestive or sexual content
featuring minors", which is _way, way_ broader than child porn - an umbrella
so broad that it even covers _news stories_ about sexual abuse.

>but I'd be willing to bet everything that you have a facebook account which
sells you, your likeness and your personal data and you couldn't give a shit
when they alter their privacy policies.

I do have a facebook account, and the fact that I _do_ give a shit about its
privacy policies is why I basically use it when there's no other way to get in
touch with someone. This is, of course, utterly irrelevant. Why are you even
bringing it up?

------
mistercow
>Today we are adding another rule: No suggestive or sexual content featuring
minors.

It's good to see that smut like _Romeo and Juliet_ is no longer welcome on
reddit.

------
Jun8
Before you start heaping it on Reddit for "child porn", think about the
prevalent sexualization of girls in the US society. I just saw the movie
"Journey to Mysterious Island" with my son and the outfit that Vanessa
Hudgens, who was playing a 16 year-old girl, had to endure during the whole
movie was mind-boggling: Short-shorts and tank top strategically altered to
tease with cleavage. There were many shots focusing on her thighs and breasts.

------
danielrhodes
This discussion of whether the content is legal or not isn't very
constructive. Clearly Reddit has to ban illegal content. However, they also
have to uphold community standards and enforce rules which keep more toxic
parts of the community in line. Allowing pseudo-child porn creates a meeting
place for pedophiles and that is likely not a liability that Reddit wants to
take on.

~~~
streptomycin
Allowing /r/trees creates a meeting place for illegal drug users and that is
likely not a liability that Reddit wants to take on. Indeed, quite similar to
how people were accused of trading child porn on Reddit, people set up drug
deals on Reddit.

etc etc etc. It's a slippery slope.

~~~
vectorpush
The difference is in the effort required to moderate the content. An /r/trees
worst case scenario is two people meeting up to perform an illegal activity at
a later point. An /r/jailbait worst case scenario is illegal material being
indexed by the site.

Additionally, /r/trees isn't generating hundreds of flagged threads for review
by the admins (who are then forced to spend man hours browsing pictures of
under-aged girls).

------
pjscott
What alarms me about this is that Reddit has to worry about hazily-defined
legal gray areas. One of the big goals of common law legal systems is to make
the law and its interpretation as predictable as possible, so that people can
go about their business without fear of arbitrary legal penalties. The common
law may not always be just, but it should at least be consistent.

~~~
Czarnian
Child porn is not really a hazily defined legal gray area. The law is pretty
concise on what constitutes child porn.

Possessing may be a bit murkier but only in the edge cases where the pictures
were put there without the persons knowledge.

Reddit finally got shamed into taking the ultimately correct stance. Anything
that vaguely smells of child porn is no longer allowed. There's no slippery
slope here.

~~~
pjscott
Not a gray area? The Reddit admins say otherwise, and presumably they would
know what they've been dealing with:

> Beyond these clear cut cases, there is a huge area of legally grey content,
> and our previous policy to deal with it on a case by case basis has become
> unsustainable. We have changed our policy because interpreting the vague and
> debated legal guidelines on a case by case basis has become a massive
> distraction and risks reddit being pulled in to legal quagmire.

While we're at it, Neil Gaiman points out examples of several of those gray
areas:

[http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-
of-...](http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-
speech.html)

~~~
Czarnian
I think it's been pretty well demonstrated that the Reddit admins have their
heads up their asses, at least when it comes to this issue. Just stating that
the law has grey areas is not evidence that the law has grey areas. It has
more to do with their deliberate obtuseness toward what the law actually says.

As far as I can tell, Neil Gaiman is a really talented writer. There's nothing
in his background that indicates expertise in law. Beyond that, upon reading
his post, he is clearly talking about government censorship in the context of
literature and graphic novels depicting sex involving minors, not the
distribution of actual pornography. At one point he even concedes that he has
not even looked at the site in question and cannot make a judgement on it's
contents.

Really, if you're going to post a link as support for your argument, read it
first and make sure it supports your argument.

------
joejohnson
There were whole subreddits with questionable content? Damn, I'm surprised
that they didn't take this move earlier.

~~~
citricsquid
There have been for years, it wasn't until recently r/jailbait was removed.
For the longest time the policy was anything legal is allowed.

~~~
TillE
> anything legal is allowed

And quite a lot that was, at the very best, ambiguous.

------
EiZei
One of the remarkable things about this is that the campaign orchestrated by
Something Awful users caused this happen in less than 4 hours. Even the CNN
exposé took days.

~~~
timdorr
It actually started a few days ago. The account creating the preteen girls
subreddit and posting most of its content was 3 days old. It is very suspect
and a plausible explanation is that someone from SA was running a smear
campaign from the start.

~~~
citricsquid
These sort of subreddits have existed for years, although it is most
definitely the case that the actions of Something Awful caused them to be shut
down, they did not create them. For example r/teen_girls has existed for 6
months.

------
sequoia
I may have missed some of the context here, but it looks like SA was able to
force a significant policy change at Reddit in _less than a single day_. I
know there was a lot of lead up, but still, wow. They obviously take the
"goons" quite seriously!

------
scragg
I can relate to the decision Reddit made. Moderating the content on a forum is
alot of work and it's frustrating. Eliminating the grey area is probably the
safest move (on a legal stand point) although it will create many angry users
that feel entitled. Expect mass bannings because users love to rebel then
afterwards the inevitable "well you removed this but allow that" arguments.

------
tommoor
I honestly cannot believe this was not already a policy at reddit.

------
wavephorm
Scumbag Reddit

Freaks out about anti-childporn laws

Bans pics of 18+ teenagers in bathing suits

------
dinglemyberry
Funny that they knew the 3 day old subreddit before everyone else.

~~~
owenmarshall
Subreddits focusing on jailbait have been on reddit for _a lot longer_ than 3
days.

