
Why Reddit moderators are “censoring” Glenn Greenwald’s latest - DocFeind
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/28/why_reddit_moderators_are_censoring_glenn_greenwalds_latest_bombshell_partner/
======
madaxe_again
Highly relevant here would be the GCHQ/NSA slides on the topic of how they've
infiltrated positions of power (i.e. moderation) in online communities -
reddit is specifically cited. It's all about FUD, discrediting, and censorship
on fallacious grounds. It would not surprise me to learn that BipolarBear0 is
a plant. It would also not surprise me to learn that he's a pedantic basement-
dweller, but I don't think, given what we've learned, it's conspiratorial or
paranoid to suppose that this is governmental control. It's perfectly
feasible.

~~~
cryoshon
Yep. Controlling the gatekeepers of public conversation is a measure that is
squarely in the court of totalitarianism-- this leak was the evidence needed
to begin calling the USA a right wing authoritarian/totalitarian state. I
really wish the mainstream media had picked up this story, because it'd be an
easy way to convince the public that the government is targeting them as an
enemy. It's blatant evidence that the government is interested in controlling
thought regardless of involvement with terrorism or national security.

It's foolish to think that they wouldn't try to gain positions of power in
bastions of alternative thought and activism. Admittedly, reddit is extremely
mainstream-- but it's still a place for citizens to communicate with each
other and discuss happenings. It'd be invaluable control-wise to be able to
influence conversations there.

~~~
wooter
really wish you had dropped the "right wing"... its a false dichotomy which we
really need to stop perpetuating.

~~~
jbooth
When short-haired, god-fearing and country-loving patriots are the good guys
(no cops bust up a tea party rally), while the long-haired hippies are the bad
guys (see COINTELPRO, police treatment of occupy or the WTO protests), what
else you want to call it?

Yes, there are more dimensions to politics than 'left' and 'right', but it
does indeed seem that the security services are always worried about a certain
type.

~~~
steveplace
Well on the extreme end of things you have ruby ridge and waco. Then you've
got the addition of militia groups to Domestic terror lists.

And then you have the IRS specifically targeting right wing non-profits.

~~~
djur
The IRS never specifically targeted right wing non-profits. The list of
keywords they used included both right wing indicators like "tea party" and
left wing indicators like "progressive".

The tax categorization these organizations were applying for is meant to
exclude political activism, so flagging organizations with explicitly
political names was a reasonable approach.

------
giardini
The article is factual. There are only a few sentences of opinion at the end.
Banning the article _was_ censorship. It should not have been banned. The
article states that "... these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate,
manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the
integrity of the internet itself."

Is that opinion? No, unfortunately.

The documents reveal the above is only part of what the agencies are trying to
do. They also speak of "ruining businesses", "leaking confidential
information", etc. It instructs how to damage someone's reputation and even
their psyche on the Internet. This is the worst of human deceptive behavior.

This is a public relations disaster for GCHQ/NSA. Very, very bad stuff.

~~~
_delirium
> Banning the article _was_ censorship.

The entire idea of "subreddits" is community-specific curation. If you post a
leftist screed to /r/libertarian, they might choose to leave it, they might
delete it, who knows. It's up to each subreddit to decide what kind of content
they want to see, through a mixture of up/downvoting and moderator action.
Some communities want the Greenwald article, some don't. Some have very little
moderator action, others have a lot, and those differences are part of what
defines them (e.g. /r/AskHistorians is known for its aggressive moderation).
That's not censorship, any more than HN deleting some stuff is censorship.

~~~
kyrra
But when a subreddit is part of the default selection of subreddits (for non-
logged in users), that has a fairly large impact for the userbase of Reddit in
general. And if it is part of the default, then the normal user (someone that
doesn't mess with their subreddit selection much) would also be impacted.

~~~
mahranch
Isn't that even _more_ of a reason to remove the article?

It was posted to more than 1 default subreddit, including /r/worldnews which
is larger than /r/news. That means you're going to have multiple submissions
of the same article on the front page. Duplicate content on the front page
doesn't give a good first impression, it looks messy or even spammy. It also
takes up valuable space for people who may not care about the topic.

------
afreak
Reddit moderation is generally terrible as for larger traffic areas require
full time moderators, and as a result of them being non-paid, you can end up
with people running the show who otherwise wouldn't get hired to do so. Luck
of the draw and early adoption are really key to being a mod in r/news or
elsewhere. This also leads to abuses that exist likely due to their inability
to exert such control elsewhere.

Part of the reason why I like HN's moderation is you do not know who is
generally doing the moderation work--same goes for places like 4chan if I
might say. This prevents the sort of power tripping you will see on Reddit
because there isn't a way to prove your worth. While I find some of the
content posted here is not to my liking, I rarely have anything if at all to
say about how the site is administered.

Now whether or not this is censorship is subjective. To say that Reddit is
engaging in censorship in this case is a bit erroneous as these moderators are
not employees. You can still post these stories elsewhere without consequence.

~~~
sroerick
I don't think that anyone got censored here, and I'm a big Greenwald
supporter.

I think reddit needs to reform their moderator system immediately. Whether
it's issues like this one, or the /r/standupshots fiasco, content is simply
too controlled to be useful.

It's very similar to what happened with digg. Control of the medium became
less democratic and more centralized. This time, it's in the hands of
moderators rather than very powerful users. The problem is the same.

I'd like to see reddit eliminate the default subs and allow subs there by way
of voting. As it is, it's too easy for a moderator to control a sub, and no
easy way to get rid of them.

Subreddits are amazing, don't get me wrong. They're just subject to becoming
less useful as they get bigger. Ironically, the subreddits I really like are
usually the ones with very strict moderation. Reddit needs to find a way to
bridge the gap between the users who unsubscribe from all the default subs and
the users who never log in.

I'd like to see a reddit clone that used dogecoin for up votes and featured
both increased mod power and increased transparency.

~~~
mahranch
" _content is simply too controlled to be useful._ "

Really? I believe the opposite is true. I think reddit needs _more_
moderation. I wish mods wouldn't be as afraid to lay down the ban-hammer. I
think the mods of /r/News were justified in their approach, and that these
censorship stories coming out about reddit are due to an ignorance of how
reddit works.

The mods are fighting a battle against the lowest common denominator and
losing. The beauty of reddit is that anyone can create their own subreddit and
mod it however they see fit. If you want an easy going subreddit with mods
that are hands-off, you're free to create one or subscribe to one. If a mod
wants to rule their domain with an iron fist, their free to do that too.

More importantly, the users are free to subscribe to any subreddit they wish.
Users can literally vote with their feet and have done so on more than one
occasion. Your proposed overhaul would change that dynamic. It's a dynamic
which has helped reddit get to the level it's at now. People like to believe
the collapse of digg contributed to reddit's success, but the fact is,
(according to google trends), reddit had already surpassed Digg long before
the big collapse.

~~~
sroerick
I agree with you. I think the most useful subreddits by far are heavily
moderated subreddits like /r/AskHistorians or /r/Standup.

I think the subreddit idea is brilliant. If reddit is going to survive, it
will need to increase transparency for mods, and decrease the emphasis on the
default subreddits. The problem is not that there's too much moderation, the
problem is that the default subreddits have such a wide audience because so
many users never bother to subscribe to anything else. If a reddit competitor
offered the democracy of subreddits without the gatekeepers of the default
subreddits I would switch in a second.

If my memory serves, there were quite a few controversies that led to a bunch
of people coming to reddit from Digg. There were quite a few influxes of Digg
refugees. redditors complained about quality drops every time. This is before
subreddits, of course.

The challenge, I think, is combining democracy with with some kind of
editorial function. I think what it comes down to is what happens when you
click the comments button.

Edit: Hey, I just found this and felt it was appropriate.
[http://www.laughspin.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/nathan...](http://www.laughspin.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/nathananderson.png)

------
jasallen
I support the Reddit moderators. There is no censorship going on, and the idea
of unbiased journalism is becoming something we don't even respect any more
(to say nothing of how hard it is to achieve, but we don't even seem to agree
it's a laudable goal any more).

Read the article, a non-analysis based piece on the same subject made the
front page and was not removed. Reddit has other subreddits for analysis
pieces, that _why_ there are subreddits.

/r/news just got a new reader.

~~~
selmnoo
It's not really as simple as that. If you say GG is partaking in biased
journalism, who's to say whether the silence and hesitance of established news
organizations (to not be as aggressively iniquisitive as GG has always been)
is pro-gov bias or not?

You should read Bill Keller's conversation with Greenwald here on the
objectivity/partiality of news:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-
in-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-
column.html?_r=0)

It's a little long, but it's a very, very important conversation, everyone
should read it really.

~~~
higherpurpose
Agreed. I'm not liking this latest trend of saying journalists that attack the
government are "biased", especially when they have strong facts to support
their reasoning, and it's not just the daily senseless Obama-bashing we see on
TV. I think there's a pretty big difference between these two.

I really don't want this to just "fade in the background" like it happened the
last time around with the NSA:

[http://pando.com/2014/02/04/the-first-congressman-to-
battle-...](http://pando.com/2014/02/04/the-first-congressman-to-battle-the-
nsa-is-dead-no-one-noticed-no-one-cares/)

~~~
walshemj
No journalist is unbiased

~~~
selectodude
Any journalist that claims to be unbiased (I'm looking at you, Bill O'Reilly)
is someone who you should never be listening to.

It's all about accepting your biases and making them very clear, allowing the
reader to come to their own conclusions.

Disclaimer: this requires critical thought, which seems to have fallen out of
favor these days.

~~~
walshemj
Quite unfortunately in the US Watergate seems to have elevated Hacks to some
sort of sainted status who poop rainbows.

When in the rest of the world they are regarded as at best a necessary evil or
lower than estate agents and politicians in the trust states in the case of
tabloid journalists.

------
jere
tl;dr: /r/news considers the piece an opinion piece and they don't allow
those.

And here's the last paragraph of The Incerpt aticle that makes clear it's
opinion:

>Whatever else is true, no government should be able to engage in these
tactics: what justification is there for having government agencies target
people – who have been charged with no crime – for reputation-destruction,
infiltrate online political communities, and develop techniques for
manipulating online discourse? But to allow those actions with no public
knowledge or accountability is particularly unjustifiable.

~~~
asgard1024
Although I disagree with the premise that news shouldn't contain any opinion
(because it's not always black and white, especially since the article in
question contains original reporting), I would play a devil's advocate and
argue that this isn't an opinion.

The sentence states that this cannot be justified by the government, which may
be a fact. Or do you know of any justification? We could maybe even prove that
this contradicts freedom of speech, and therefore cannot be justified.

(What I am trying to show here is that you can, to some extent, make an
opinion into a fact and vice versa.)

~~~
raldi
_> I disagree with the premise that news shouldn't contain any opinion_

Nobody's asserting that premise. The question is whether _/ r/news_ should
contain opinion.

~~~
selmnoo
That is the right question. And, I think at this point, it's become abundantly
clear that default subreddits should _not_ be "randomly" moderated. Policy
(written by Reddit staff) should be set for moderators to follow.

When you have a website that gets visited by more than _a hundred million_
users, this just won't do. Why are a few handful of anonymous random users
dictating what is seen and not seen by millions and millions as "news? That
makes no sense, something has to change.

There is something quite different about "news"... from, say, "biking". Most
subreddits can stay as-is, but r/news and other subreddits would probably do
better with officially picked staff.

~~~
raldi
The admins (disclaimerbrag: I used to be one) prefer to exercise control one
level up: by deciding which subreddits to put in the default set. So the
moderators have near-absolute domain over their subreddit, but only the ones
who do a good job get featured on the default front page.

That restores the proper incentives and controls to the system while
maximizing free speech and experimentation.

------
roc
_“The story itself is irrelevant, it’s simply how the story is presented—which
is why any unbiased, objective and wholly factual news article on the event
would be (and is) allowed in /r/news.”_

That's an awfully hazardous line they're trying to walk. I understand the
desire to walk it, but the inevitable hair-splitting over when articles cross
a given line is going to go on forever.

------
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
"Unbiased news" \- what would that even look like? As soon as you decide what
to report on and what not to report on, that is a bias. If anything, this is
about filtering out stories that don't fall within the consensus narrative and
thus require that value judgements be made explicit and explained - what they
seem to call "analysis".

~~~
Semiapies
I believe the idea is the "both sides" approach, where you get quotes from
those who disagree on the story at hand, then uncritically present an equal
amount of quotes from both sides (and there are only ever _two_ sides to a
story). And of course, you do your best to keep out any context that might
suggest one side or both is full of shit.

~~~
Zigurd
You are being too generous. "Unbiased" means you didn't ask questions outside
of the talking points predigested by the press secretary's office or PR agency
that prompted something to be in the news in the first place.

Everything else is obviously driven by potentially dangerous and unfair
opinion, since it hasn't been vetted for safety.

~~~
Semiapies
There's definitely that, too.

------
lutusp
> Redditors are calling it an act of censorship.

It's not as thought Reddit moderators don't censor certain fact-based topics
at their personal whim:

[http://arachnoid.com/psychology/reddit_psychology.html](http://arachnoid.com/psychology/reddit_psychology.html)

~~~
cwal37
I actually think /r/askscience is one of the best moderated subreddits, which
is impressive given its size and traffic. The example you linked is incredibly
frustrating to me. That blogger has a very specific mindset about a subset of
problems in parts of the general field of psychology that he is hellbent on
applying generally to the entire broad discipline.

I went to an engineering-heavy undergrad and I saw that disdain from engineers
on "softer" sciences all the time. I did not major in psychology, and parts of
the field do have some serious issues, but to paint with such a broad brush
and be so sure of yourself in casting aspersions on fields you have no formal
training in is really gross to encounter.

EDIT: Hell, I'll go a step further and say that as neuroscience continues to
intersect and grow with psychology I would consider a greater portion of
psychologists as scientists than engineers.

~~~
lutusp
> That blogger has a very specific mindset about a subset of problems in parts
> of the general field of psychology that he is hellbent on applying generally
> to the entire broad discipline.

Which blogger would that be? Perhaps you're thinking of Thomas Insel, director
of the NIMH, who has taken exactly the same position I have, and for exactly
the same reason:

[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
diagnosis.shtml)

Quote: "While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at
best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength
of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has
ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. _The weakness is
its lack of validity_."

"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM
diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, _not
any objective laboratory measure_. In the rest of medicine, this would be
equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or
the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other
areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we
have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of
treatment. _Patients with mental disorders deserve better_." [emphasis added]

For the above reasons, the NIMH has recently ruled that the DSM may no longer
be the basis of scientific research proposals, on the ground that it has no
scientific content.

> ... parts of the field do have some serious issues, but to paint with such a
> broad brush and be so sure of yourself in casting dispersions [sic] on
> fields you have no formal training in is really gross to encounter.

Fair enough. Let's see how your viewpoint stands up under scrutiny. Do you
think astrology is a science? No? But you don't have a degree in astrology --
doesn't that disqualify you from having an opinion on this subject? My point
is that, in science, authority counts for nothing, only evidence matters. To
put this another way, in science, evidence means everything, reputation means
nothing. The greatest amount of scientific eminence is trumped by the smallest
amount of scientific evidence.

Also, the expression "casting dispersions" isn't quite what you had in mind
(s/dispersions/aspersions).

And finally, Allen Frances, editor of DSM-IV, has recently written a book that
makes the same points I do ([http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Normal-Out-Control-
Medicalizati...](http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Normal-Out-Control-
Medicalization/dp/0062229257)).

If NIMH director Insel, or Allen Frances, tried to post to r/askscience, they
would get the same treatment I got -- scientific censorship.

More here:
[http://arachnoid.com/building_science](http://arachnoid.com/building_science)

~~~
cwal37
As for aspersions/dispersions, I tend to miss a lot of autocorrects on my
phone these days when I believe I've typed a word correctly, so I came back to
fix it and saw your response, which I'll take a closer look at after work.

My major bugaboo is that I think the field of psychology is broader than the
DSM, I don't argue with its failings, just that there is more to the entire
field of psychology.

~~~
lutusp
> My major bugaboo is that I think the field of psychology is broader than the
> DSM, I don't argue with its failings, just that there is more to the entire
> field of psychology.

Fair enough. Let's make a comparison with medicine. Medicine isn't just
doctors and clinics, there are scientists working behind the scenes to produce
new research-based cures that have been validated as well as explained in
scientific studies. Doctors who go off the ranch in medicine are censured or
arrested because medical research is a science and clinical practice is fully
backed up by solid, empirical evidence.

Psychology has clinics and practitioners, but what takes place there is not
remotely scientific and is sometimes astonishingly ignorant
([http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology](http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology)),
and there are no cures, only questionable symptomatic treatments. The reason?
Unlike medicine, psychology has no scientific component to prevent absolutely
any practice in clinics.

My point? Many argue that psychology isn't just clinical psychology, that
there are scientific psychologists working behind the scenes. My response is
to ask why this fact, these psychological scientists, have had no effect on
psychological clinical practice, as is true in medicine? The answer is obvious
-- psychology describes, it cannot explain, and science requires empirical,
testable explanations, for reasons given here:

[http://arachnoid.com/building_science](http://arachnoid.com/building_science)

But don't take my word for it -- NIMH chairman Thomas Insel has recently come
to the same conclusion, recently ruling that the DSM may no longer be used as
the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has
no scientific content.

[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
diagnosis.shtml)

~~~
cwal37
Again, the NIMH argument from authority. I truly do not understand the laser
focus on clinical psychology and the DSM, which, I agree, has some major
issues. Clinical medicine was not always as science-backed as it is today, but
the field evolved over time as our tools and methodological became more
sophisticated. I would argue that the broad field of psychology is far closer
to its infancy than medicine, as it only branched off from philosophy late in
the 19th century, and over time (with better tools and increased interaction
with neuroscience and biology) the field will evolve to be closer to what you
want. It might have a different name at that point. I think one aspect of
psychology that leaves it open to attacks is that it borders a whole bunch of
other fields, because it comes from an inherently fuzzy place of human
consciousness and behavior.

Despite that, it still doesn't make sense to discredit all other psychological
research as non-science because you don't believe in clinical psychology. By
the way, if you want to trade federal research organizations, the NSF funds
psychologists and psychological research.

I just can't and won't see the value in denigrating an entire field because I
disagree with a piece of it. It's counterproductive and only breeds animosity.
If the argument goes "hey, there are some parts to this research methodology
that I don't think are up to snuff, let's focus on improving it." It's a bit
more effective than "The DSM is worthless, clinical psychology is worthless,
therefore all psychology is not a science."

And hey, going back to my first comment, sorry I didn't know you were the
blogger, but you didn't have to be snarky, obviously I wasn't accidentally
mistaking a random website for an indictment from the head.

------
detroitcoder
After reading the article, my gut reaction was 'Oh this is an interesting
article, I wonder what the HN comments have to say about it?'

Then I see the top comments and they all try to discredit Greenwald as a
sensationalist trying to grab publicity at the expense of honest reddit
moderators. I then mentally put less validity on the article and move on to
the next link. However I can't help but question if somehow my reaction was
engineered by someone else. Just a thought.

------
thrillgore
Power users/Mods using the vague reasoning of "editorial standards" on a
crowdsourced rating mechanism to game stories. Where have we seen this
before???

~~~
higherpurpose
My thoughts exactly. On a crowd-sourcing platform based on consensus you
shouldn't _need_ moderators messing around with the stories being posted
there.

As PG put it "if it's what the community wants, it's what the community wants"
(even though I'm very disappointed he's still heavily penalizing stories with
"NSA" in them).

~~~
mahranch
It's easy to say "Oh, you shouldn't need moderators" but the reality is, you
most certainly do need them. It's like saying "Wikipedia shouldn't need mods
or admins". I couldn't see wikipedia existing without them. There are just too
many people out there who aim to ruin it for everyone.

Without moderators the system is easier to game, communities will almost
immediately go off-topic, and the lowest common denominator will win. It's
naive to think that online anonymous internet forums can exist without
moderation. It's even more naive to think that you can foster high-quality
content without heavy-handed moderation. Subreddits like /r/Askscience just
wouldn't exist without it.

When you plant a rose garden, you don't just let the garden grow wild. You
prune it to your liking, and to keep the garden healthy. The garden must be
meticulously pruned if you want it to look beautiful. Pruning content which
break the rules is the same thing.

~~~
thrillgore
You certainly do need moderation as a community reaches exorbitant scale, and
if there are standards requirements to enforce. Not every online community is
Something Awful or Hacker News.

I'm not singling out that Reddit is a flawed community because it has
moderators. I am outlining that the behavior they are taking, within their own
sense of unwritten standards and "internet points" reminds me of why I left
Digg.

This is all further compounded with the sheer number of moderators who are
editing /r/news and on other subreddits, especially those that are
specifically covering the NSA/GCHQ stories.

------
nhangen
I'd have more sympathy for GG if he wasn't using the Snowden docs to further
build his personal brand.

He's treating these docs like a marketer treats a new product launch, and
because of that, I have little faith in his analysis. I'm happy to see /news
standing up for what they believe in.

~~~
MrZongle2
So what if GG is using them to build his personal brand?

Are the documents authentic? _Then the truth needs to be reported and
disseminated as widely as possible._

If GG is a self-promoting hack, it will eventually catch up to him.

~~~
nhangen
I've come to the conclusion that he is a self-promoting hack. His primary
concern should be disseminating the truth, not editorializing it on an ala
carte basis.

His treatment of the docs is a disservice to the public.

~~~
scarmig
Interesting: you spend every comment condemning him for not being tightly
focused on "disseminating the truth" (whatever that means), and somehow you
find nothing dissonant about you having nothing to say about the actual
investigations, facts, and content he writes.

Interesting indeed.

~~~
Semiapies
Mind, he doesn't actually have to be a plant. It's surprisingly easy to find
fans of an administration who will go after critics with amazing single-
mindedness.

------
igivanov
I'll go with end result: the discussion has shifted from the manipulation
stuff GG wrote about to censorship. Doesn't it look like a perfect example of
successful manipulation?

------
cryoshon
The conspiracy theory explanation for this is that the mods are actually
government assets and censored the stories in order to make their handlers
happy. I don't believe that this is consistent with the history of the NSA
leaks on reddit so far, given that most of the other NSA stories have been
highly visible and upvoted, though some have been deleted infrequently.

Perhaps this isn't so far fetched after all, though. I checked the front pages
of CNN, ABC, MSNBC, and FoxNews, and found zero mention of the NSA whatsoever,
nevermind the explosive reveal of COINTELPRO style operations against the
internet public.

------
grandalf
I don't think the moderators are necessarily employed by the US Government.
The gravitational pull of power, particularly state power, is something some
people have a hard time resisting.

I am pretty shocked about the ban on RT as it seems like a legitimate news org
that helps fill in the gaps in coverage.

~~~
Zigurd
It is very unlikely that participants in spinning online forums are direct
government employees. PR agencies do this. There are even GSA schedules for
buying PR services from an established group of firms. What you see on TV and
read in mainstream newspapers has been steered by this PR. It would be
anomalous to think online forum influence isn't on the menu of services.

------
balls187
> How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and
> Destroy Reputations

I knew there had to be a reason why my posts were getting downvoted.

------
JeremyMorgan
Funny, that article pretty much describes why I don't participate in Reddit
much.

Drama, drama and more drama.

Your news is filtered no matter where you go to get it. Unless you're
personally there and involved with every event happening around the world,
you're getting filtered news.

If you don't like how /r/news is filtered don't go to /r/news. It's that
simple.

~~~
normloman
No it's not that simple. When you get news from a community curated source,
you get a say in how it's run. You're criticism helps shape how r/news is run.
In a way, places like r/news depend on participants voicing their complaints.

------
ryepen
The problem with classifying this event as censorship is the subjectivity of
the argument. One can propose that an individual is a subject of a government
whose sole purpose is the malicious discredit of unfavorable information
pertaining to that particular government's desired propaganda, but we can also
propose that this particular individual believes that government conspiracies
to undermine the public opinion on internet forums seems irrational.

I think we can all agree that both are entirely feasible, but remain unable to
provide substantial evidence that discredits the other.

------
adamors
Interesting that even this post is dropping heavily on the frontpage. Posts
that were submitted 6 hours ago that have less karma are higher up.

------
higherpurpose
Ok - what about the story about webcam spying yesterday. It was #1 on
r/technology for a couple of hours, and all of the sudden it _disappeared_
from the page.

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guelo
Why is /r/subredditdrama spilling over onto HN? Flagged.

~~~
mindrag
This issue has implications far beyond reddit.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Maybe if he didn't want to be censored there he should have posted teen girl
creepshots or some other reddit-condoned content.

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peterwwillis
News flash: If you get all your news from a single source, you might not get a
complete and unbiased picture of the news.

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smutticus
There's no censorship going on, and Reddit is not the only place people get
their news. Seriously, if /r/news is your primary news source then something
is wrong with you.

------
bertil
I’m not very convinced by either side: none is trying to offer an objective
take on what Greenwald tried to do. It doesn't sound impossible to get the
source, filter facts from his analysis and offer that to r/news. Is this me
not being a journalist, and missing the point?

