
Reddit Is Tearing Itself Apart - nkurz
http://gizmodo.com/reddit-is-tearing-itself-apart-1789406294
======
harryh
As someone who reads reddit fairly frequently, this doesn't reflect my
experience on the site. In reality there is no unified reddit. I've taken a
gander at /r/The_Donald a couple of times (mostly out of morbid curiosity) but
other than those few times I've experienced very little impact of whatever it
is they are doing.

I read some sports subredits. I read some culture subredits. I read some of
the bigger basic entertaining but silly subreddits like /r/AskReddit and
/r/TodayILearned. And, to be honest, I really haven't noticed much impact by
these nefarious elements (or whatever you want to call them).

I'm sure others have had different experiences from me, but from my point of
view whatever "crazy shit" is going down is mostly confined to certain sub-
sections of the site that are easily avoided.

~~~
a_bonobo
Looks like it's a bigger problem for moderators than for users:

>“There have been unquestionably instances [where] moderators of other
subreddits were targeted by users in The_Donald,” Reddit told Gizmodo, and the
leaked chatlogs reveal the extent.

>Some moderators had been flooded with constant harassing messages. “One
threatened to kill my fucking dog,” a moderator pleaded in the leaked Slack
chat. A The_Donald user hacked r/politics and booted half of the moderation
team, another told Gizmodo in an email.

>“We have had multiple moderators doxxed and sent death threats, we had one
moderator who had his truck broken into and vandalized,” an r/politics mod
told Gizmodo over Reddit private message.

~~~
wheelerwj
Yeah, this is what was REALLY shitty about /u/Spez's debacle.

Profanity, hate speech, bullying, harassment aren't protected by free speech.
And you see PLENTY of it coming out of the_donald. You don't have to tolerate
that shit, you have every right to shut it down. But no, lets degrade
ourselves by trolling the trolls.

What a strategic waste.

non-edit: greglindahl below me makes an excellent point on my choice of
vocabulary. I won't edit my post, I'll just concede that I chose poorly while
trying to articulate my point.

~~~
greglindahl
You're being sloppy with terms. In the US, obscenity isn't protected by free
speech, but non-obscene profanity is. Hate speech? Threats of violence aren't
free speech, but a lot of odious hate speech is. Court cases about bullying
frequently fail.

Of course Reddit, being private, has the right to do whatever it wants. But
it's important to realize where the lines are drawn for public discourse.

~~~
a_bonobo
I don't think harassment via private messages counts as public discourse

~~~
greglindahl
I agree. I wasn't talking about private messages in my comment. One nice thing
about public discourse is that it's public, i.e., it's easy for everyone to
debate how odious it is. Private messages are very different, and should be
filtered quite differently.

From a sunlight point of view, being able to make private messages public is
quite effective, albeit a feature which should be disclosed in advance.

------
rrggrr
This all amounts to a lack of imagination on the part of Reddit's management.

\-- If the issue is doxxing, which was occurring to some degree in sites with
cross-membership with r/the_donald, then enhanced auto moderation is needed.
The tools are out there.

\-- If the issue is so-called "hate speech" then give users the ability to
filter content they find distasteful.

\-- If the issue is click-bait to offensive or illegal content, then again,
there are ample techniques and 3rd party resources for warning about,
reporting, filtering and discouraging user click-through.

What concerns me is that Gizmodo and Reddit can only think in terms of banning
speech. Combined with the recent pile-on over "fake news", I worry that
expression on the internet is vulnerable to shill pollution, coercion and
overly zealous social equality advocacy.

The irony of not applying innovative technology to problems at Reddit is
thick, almost suffocating.

~~~
jbob2000
Reddit isn't a technology company, they're a media company. They were owned by
one of the largest media companies, Conde Nast, for a while. Their goal isn't
to solve social network problems, their goal is to increase their reach as
much as possible. Reddit is the center of attention right now, their reach is
huge, why would they change anything and risk losing that?

------
tux1968
I'm no Trump supporter but this piece is brutal in its implicit bias.
Essentially, "free speech should not be enjoyed by those that hold the wrong
opinion!"

~~~
paulcole
Reddit, a private website, is under no obligation to provide a safe space for
free speech.

~~~
the8472
the entire internet is composed of private entities. following that logic
there is practically no free speech on the internet.

~~~
leephillips
I can exercise my right of free speech on my website. What do you mean?

~~~
the8472
Hosters and DNS providers can kick you out. This doesn't happen often, but
occasionally it does, without court order, when a customer becomes too
inconvenient. Some don't even want to deal with DMCA notices, so even when
they get fake ones they kick you out after a few.

~~~
leephillips
That's a good point - so even my own website is not as free as standing on the
street corner and shouting. But if my hosting company did kick me out it might
be (haven't checked) a breach of contract; and in any case I could be on a new
host in a couple of hours.

------
ky738
"Its members spread coded hate speech" yeah had to stop nice bias

~~~
wnevets
you're right, its not even coded hate speech.

~~~
leurfete
I took a look at their sub. I couldn't find any hate speech (though I ignored
heavily downvoted comments). I'm also suspicious of "coded hate speech" since
that concept grants license to attach racist connotations to just about any
sentence.

Is there a post on r/The_Donald that stands out to you as being hate speech?

~~~
jballanc
I was curious. So I looked. This was the top non-stickied post I saw:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5fltt9/amy_schu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5fltt9/amy_schumer_and_lena_dunham_are_finally_leaving/)

To save others the trouble, the title of the post is "Amy Schumer And Lena
Dunham Are Finally Leaving The Country" and the image is of two orca whales
being prepared for transport. The very non-coded message is that these two
women are "as fat as whales" and furthermore that they deserve to be derided
based on physical appearance because of their expressed political opinions.

I'm no lawyer, but I think that's treading awfully close to "hate speech".

~~~
MK999
Is it illegal to call people fat in this country now? Serious question. At
first I was inclined to ridicule your position, but I have to wonder how far
the 'hate crime' legislation has progressed.

~~~
internaut
You're right to ask. There's a trend.

In Ireland we have foolishly installed laws that made criticism of Mohammad or
Jesus illegal.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/apr/11/why...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/apr/11/why-
ireland-must-get-rid-of-its-disgraceful-blasphemy-law)

I don't enjoy their humour but I think this would prevent something like
Charlie Hebdo from operating in my country.

------
tzs
I got banned from /r/The_Donald today.

There was an article complaining about the main stream media for criticizing
Trump's saying that flag burners should have their citizenship revoked and be
jailed, when Hillary Clinton said exactly the same thing in 2005, and citing
the Flag Protection Act of 2005, which Clinton co-sponsored.

I'd never heard of that, so took a look at it. It did indeed make flag burning
illegal (possible fine and jail time, no stripping of citizenship)--in two
specific circumstances.

1\. When the primary purpose and intent was to incite or produce imminent
violence or a breach of the peace, or

2\. When the flag was stolen from the US or from US lands. E.g., if you stole
the flag from a government building and burned it, that flag burning would be
illegal. Bringing your own flag to burn, fine (unless the primary purpose and
intent was to produce imminent violence).

I posted that information, and noted that this seemed to be written to try to
stay within the bounds of allowed restriction on speech under Brandenburg v.
Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). I noted that this was not anywhere near "exactly"
the same as what Trump said, which appeared to be just blatantly
unconstitutional. That earned the ban.

I asked the moderator that banned me what rule I had violated, since it was
not at all apparent to me. Here are their rules:

• Do not violate Sitewide Content Policy

• No Trolling/Concern Trolling

• No Racism/Anti-Semitism

• No Releasing Personal Information or Doxxing

• No Vote Manipulation, Brigading, or Asking for Votes

• No Dissenters/SJWs, this is a pro-Trump subreddit

• No Posts About Being Banned From or Linking To Other Subreddits

• Ban appeals, suggestions, concerns (including sticky choices) go to modmail

• No Posts About Trump Assassination Threats (Send screenshots + Archive.is
link to the FBI).

• Please do not behave in a way outside of the subreddit that would reflect
poorly on it.

The moderator's answer: "The President Elect's.". I have no idea what that is
supposed to mean, and cannot ask because he slapped a 72 hour ban on messaging
the moderators on me.

I frankly don't know what to make of /r/The_Donald. I've occasionally seen
substantive discussion of Trump's proposed policies on there, including
criticism, that was up voted and the critics were not banned. But it also
seems to be full of complete and utter idiocy. I can't tell if it was supposed
to be a serious group that got taken over by the trolls and idiots, or if it
was supposed to be a trolling joke group from the start, and the substantive
discussion was just from people who had not figured that out yet.

------
skylan_q
I love the freedom and exchange of ideas on the Internet. The centipedes are
now turning it into their very own echo chamber.

~~~
rrggrr
And that is different from every special interest site on the internet how?
Most subreddits are echo chambers.

------
jwise0
This appears to have been flagbombed.

~~~
empressplay
Because the article is, quite frankly, bullsh*t.

~~~
anigbrowl
Posting a bowdlerized criticism (when swearing is perfectly OK on HN) is not
very impressive compared to explaining what you think is wrong with it.

~~~
err4nt
Isn't posting a bowdlerized word when you desire to also perfectly OK on HN?

------
mzw_mzw
Gizmodo? Isn't that the revenge porn outfit that was sued into bankruptcy a
while back?

------
anigbrowl
It's an ill wind that blows no good...

