
Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies” - s9w
https://old.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/hddnml/the_warnings_have_changed_into_bannings/
======
kace91
I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site.

They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the
development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users
take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with
silence or half measures).

They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't
think of a single honest reason for them existing. Once you've deemed a
community so harmful that you don't want people accidentally stumbling into
it, why go out of your way to allow it to exist behind a curtain, instead of
just outright banning it (unless you want to support it discreetly).

To be clear, I'm not accusing reddit admins of shadily supporting horrible
communities. I'm just saying that, from the perspective of a user that sees
them fight the battle, they're doing it so badly that it almost seems they
don't want to win, and I wonder what's happening behind the scenes for that to
happen.

~~~
klodolph
My take on quarantined subreddits is that it’s just a tool to remove certain
communities from the mobile app so they don’t get in trouble with Apple /
Google (mostly Apple, I’m sure).

~~~
Spivak
And also how to deal with communities that should absolutely not be spilling
over into the rest of Reddit. Reddit, I think rightfully, quarantines a lot of
ED related subreddits.

~~~
the-dude
What does ED stand for?

~~~
klodolph
Eating disorder, I’m sure. There are pro-eating disorder forums around on the
internet just like there are pro-suicide forums.

------
manfredo
Reddit admin message:

> Your account has been suspended from for breaking the rules. Your account
> has been suspended for 3 day(s).

>> You recently upvoted a post or comment that was determined to be against
our policies. Abusive content is not acceptable on Reddit nor is engaging with
it. Please be thoughful about the content that you interact with.

Interestingly nothing in the Reddit policies seems to mention voting or
engaging with content: [https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-
policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy)

~~~
abtom
This is super stupid. If they're so against the content why allow it to exist
in the first place?

~~~
defertoreptar
Whether they intended it this way or not, users will now be worried they're
upvoting the "wrong" thing and will be less likely to vote unpopular opinions
and political views, just in case.

~~~
downerending
Arguably in 2020, you _should_ be very careful about expressing any opinion
that is in any way unpopular. Or that even could be construed as such.

~~~
csunbird
I feel like people have forgotten what free speech is.

~~~
downerending
I grew up in a very fundamentalist (Christian) area, so the lack of it feels
_very_ familiar.

------
motohagiography
There seems to be a divide between people who think discourse is a progressive
art of the exchange of ideas, and those who use language as a pretext for
political struggle where the role of ideas is to act as provocations that
yield a persons "true," alignment and identity. The latter view means engaging
ideas compromises your ethical purity, where the former one means people can
express abhorrent ideas without physical consequences.

There isn't a short answer to what's probably an eternal conflict, but I do
know a lot of people in tech who might benefit from reflecting on the question
of, "are we the baddies?"

~~~
mtgp1000
The dichotomy is seems to be reflected in the growing divide between rational,
scientific inquiry, and modern progressive liberal arts which are rooted in
critical theory.

------
cwhiz
I don't think Reddit should be able to censor lawful content and also claim
protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. If they want
to police lawful content that is fine but then they are no longer an open
platform and they should forfeit their Section 230 protections. I dislike the
ability for online platforms to have their cake of protection against lawsuits
and also eat their cake of policing lawful content they don't like.

~~~
majormajor
So no site should be allowed to have moderation policies that include things
like "no trolling," "no flaming," "no swearing," or anything like else like
that for things that don't cross into "illegal" abusive speech? Without
becoming a target for filling up with illegal shit to overwhelm the moderators
and cause legal trouble for the owners?

So HN is gone, too, then.

~~~
NOGDP
> So no site should be allowed to have moderation policies that include things
> like "no trolling," "no flaming," "no swearing," or anything like else like
> that for things that don't cross into "illegal" abusive speech?

Any site can have any rules they want. But they shouldn't expect to be able
manipulate and control discussion and face no backlash from users.

> Without becoming a target for filling up with illegal shit to overwhelm the
> moderators and cause legal trouble for the owners?

'Trolling', 'flaming' and 'swearing' are not illegal, and honestly, most
complaints about 'trolling' I see are just people who disagree with what
they're reading.

~~~
majormajor
> But they shouldn't expect to be able manipulate and control discussion and
> face no backlash from users.

You're saying they should face backlash from _government regulators_ not from
users.

If there's a big user backlash, those users are already free to move to
whatever site they want, or make their own.

\---

Re: your comment about trolling, etc, not being illegal: yes, exactly. So if a
site wanted to enforce some sort of "family friendly" policy, you could simply
bomb them with truly illegal shit instead and get them in trouble with the
regulators for not being able to keep up as they would be liable for that,
since they aren't a "anything legal goes" platform.

~~~
NOGDP
> You're saying they should face backlash from government regulators not from
> users

I never said that. But it's probably a good idea to have some sort of
oversight for a massive platform that censors and manipulates discussion of
millions of people. You may think their policies are totally justified and
correct (they aren't), but the specific opinions they choose to promote may
change to something you are against.

> If there's a big user backlash, those users are already free to move to
> whatever site they want, or make their own.

Yes, they are also free to shit on the website and point out it's flaws.

> So if a site wanted to enforce some sort of "family friendly" policy, you
> could simply bomb them with truly illegal shit instead and get them in
> trouble with the regulators for not being able to keep up as they would be
> liable for that, since they aren't a "anything legal goes" platform.

Trolling is not illegal, it's not even a specific thing. It's a very ambiguous
term used to describe 'comment's that make me feel bad'. Trolling and posting
illegal shit is completely different, sure ban illegal stuff - you kind of
have to, but don't use 'trolling' as an excuse to ban stuff you disagree with.

~~~
majormajor
Separate reply for the other side of this thread. I honestly don't know where
you're getting it with your comments re: trolling.

Do you honestly believe that a discussion forum site that wanted a family
friendly policy shouldn't be able to have any liability protections? That if
someone started flooding them with child porn, say, at a rate they couldn't
keep up with, they should have to shut down because they'd otherwise be liable
for all that content due to their having a content moderation policy that
forbid certain types of legal speech (say, swearing)?

~~~
NOGDP
Dude, I honestly don't think you understand what 'trolling' means. You already
agreed that trolling is not illegal, why do you keep trying to use examples of
illegal content to demonstrate why 'trolling' should be banned?

And what does child pornography have to do with swearing?

> Do you honestly believe that a discussion forum site that wanted a family
> friendly policy shouldn't be able to have any liability protections?

Again, I never said that.

~~~
majormajor
You keep bringing up trolling as a term in general, I tried to make it
specific.

The pitch being made in this subthread was "I don't think Reddit should be
able to censor lawful content and also claim protections under Section 230 of
the Communications Decency Act."

So you lose liability protection if you censor lawful content.

So if you want to ban swearing, you become liable for your user's content.
Which makes you a WIDE OPEN target for bad actors who could post whatever
illegal content they want faster than you could moderate it.

I'm trying to illustrate why I think `cwhiz took an absurd position, and am
not using the term "trolling" in general now. I've given a specific example of
"legal content some communities might want to prohibit" as well as "illegal
content that bad actors could use to get the owner of that site in trouble in
this proposed world."

~~~
NOGDP
Okay, to make it clear - I don't think sites should lose 230 protections for
having a moderation policy. I do think that the excessive manipulation and
censorship of dissenting opinions on sites such as reddit is a bad thing
however.

~~~
guug
I do. If you moderate your site, you endorse its content and should be held
responsible for it (i.e be treated like other publishers).

If your laws permit speech you don't like, either fix your laws or fix
yourself.

------
Jonnax
I used Reddit a lot back in 2013ish but went off of it.

Looking at it now, it feels like that in general the site is really mean
spirited.

Also upvoting means that you're just seeing whatever the majority of voters
want you to see. It works on a smaller community like HN because comments get
10s of upvotes at most. It's not a site for good discourse.

However there's communities where there is interesting discussion still and
often if you want an opinion of a product or an issue you might find a thread
on it from a real user.

But generally they've done nothing to stop the nurturing of
racist/sexist/bullying content over the years.

Now you can argue about free speech being important for an internet platform.

But Reddit trying to change the community attitudes of their site now seems a
little late.

Also there is a real sense that some users believe that Reddit is the Sheppard
of society and they're fighting on the forefront of society. Which I think
stems from the millions of apparent subscribers to subreddits.

But it's just a fancy internet forum.

Like this linked post is on a subreddit called Watch Reddit Die. Apparently
something about free speech being stifled in Reddit.

People need to realise they shouldn't waste their life on a website they don't
like.

The internet hasn't been fully consolidated by Facebook and Google just yet,
they can find or make a different community.

~~~
pteraspidomorph
I have been a redditor for a decade and have a few remarks based on my
experience.

I feel like reddit has always had recurring and overlapping cycles of mean
spiritedness. For instance, during the summer holiday period it becomes
notoriously harder to have a reasonable exchange of ideas there (don't ask me
why; I'm not quite sure). This year, since the beginning of the COVID19
isolation period in March, we've been in a period of very high mean
spiritedness. It could be a consequence of users' high stress levels.

Reddit does still have several excellent communities. I find that there's one
thing in common between them: They have real, dedicated, human moderators
enforcing strict, rational policies. Also: There are some weird cliques of
power moderators on reddit who control dozens if not hundreds of subreddits. A
good subreddit is usually not run by those cliques. Not to discount the hard
work that some grunt moderators put into trying to run the large, clique-
controlled communities, but the commonalities are hard to ignore.

On upvotes: Reddit should have clear policies enforced equitatively and
transparently at the company level, by a human staff, and downvotes shouldn't
be presented as the opposite of an upvote. I don't see a complete alternative
system that can replace the upvote, though. They do provide different sorting
options; what else could they do, there?

On alternatives: People attempt to leave on a regular basis. The problem is
that there's a much higher incentive for the people who are ostracized not
only by reddit as a platform but by the associated community to leave than for
people who are, for the most part, comfortable, even if the administration
acts a little weird on occasion. All alternatives are quickly colonized by
people that the majority of the reddit community (if there is such a thing)
would rather not be immersed in: White supremacists, conspiracy theorists,
fanatic nationalists, etc. For the more moderate people to be willing to move,
they want to feel surrounded by a majority of people like them, not a
minority.

~~~
thejynxed
The phenomenon you are describing is called "Summer Reddit", and that term
comes about yearly because schoolchildren are home for the summer, with the
average age of Redditors participating during this time lowering from 24 to
16. It also heavily correlates with an increase in edgy commenting and
shitposting.

------
kache_
Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their
best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about
transexuals who decided to transition back and their experiences. That post
got promptly removed by moderators; even though there was no hateful content
within it at all. They effectively silenced the transexual population due to
an ever so slight conflict of ideology.

To think that the reddit administrators would go so far as to ban people for
even interacting with content that THEY deem problematic.

Reddit is dead and no one I know uses it anymore.

EDIT: \- In case anyone is interested; here is the censored post that I was
referring to
[https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_a...](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_are_there_people_within_the_trans/)

~~~
cmdshiftf4
>Reddit is dead and no one I know uses it anymore.

It's not dead, and I say thankfully because it not being dead retains its
state as a containment mechanism of what is easily the worst group of internet
users in internet history.

I fear for the day Reddit falls and its userbase spills out looking for
another avenue to be comforted with groupthink, newspeak and feel goods for
the Brands We Love.

~~~
umvi
Reddit is a collection of communities. I like several of them, and think they
are generally good and uplifting, /r/pixelart for instance. Some communities
have some pretty bad people in them, but it is impossible to create a social
media site at scale without like-minded bad users creating and/or flocking to
bad communities.

People are in different stages of life and seek solace in other people having
similar experiences. Thus, the sexually frustrated congregate, the depressed
congregate, drug enthusiasts (and abusers) congregate, disgruntled ex-<insert
organization> congregate, you name it, and angry/sad/anxious people with a
shared condition will congregate in search of validation/confidence.

But the opposite is also true - people with a shared hobby/passion/vision
congregate as well and create some really fun and uplifting communities.

------
mherdeg
Considering how much of Internet culture is currently being formed on reddit
it's amazing how opaque the site is to history. The archival is low-quality
and missing a lot.

I sometimes browse by /r/all/gilded, which gives you a weird, weird, WEIRD
cross section of the Internet. One time I found a heavily gilded post
memorializing a recently deceased contributor to /r/cripplingalcoholism --
which appears to be an important but saddening community for people with a
serious medical problem -- then followed a few links on the profile of the
deceased and their associated until, a few minutes later, I ended up at
/r/opiaterollcall.

Wow oh wow, what a subreddit that was:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130904195509/www.reddit.com/r/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130904195509/www.reddit.com/r/opiaterollcall)

That forum died pretty soon after I found it (and got national press coverage
at [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/us/opioid-
reddit.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/us/opioid-reddit.html) ) but
wow, oh wow, there was a lot going on there which is now essentially lost to
readers of history, because existing archives don't go deep into posts and
comments.

------
dredmorbius
Gizmodo addressed this in February, though just as Covid-19 news coverage
began overwhelming everything:

 _Yesterday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (or “Spez,” as Redditors affectionately
know him) published the platform’s annual transparency report, highlighting
how the platform took down more than 200,000 pieces of offending content over
2019, along with nearly 56,000 accounts and nearly 22,000 subreddits—the
site’s communities, most of which are moderated by volunteer users. He also
flagged a “company update” regarding the way Reddit thinks about “quarantined”
communities..._

[https://gizmodo.com/reddit-will-start-to-punish-users-for-
up...](https://gizmodo.com/reddit-will-start-to-punish-users-for-upvotes-as-
it-eye-1841907899)

That policy, in a Reddit post by Huffman:

 _When we expanded our quarantine policy, we created an appeals process for
sanctioned communities. One of the goals was to “force subscribers to
reconsider their behavior and incentivize moderators to make changes.” While
the policy attempted to hold moderators more accountable for enforcing
healthier rules and norms, it didn’t address the role that each member plays
in the health of their community._

 _Today, we’re making an update to address this gap: Users who consistently
upvote policy-breaking content within quarantined communities will receive
automated warnings, followed by further consequences like a temporary or
permanent suspension. We hope this will encourage healthier behavior across
these communities._

[https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/f8y9nx/sprin...](https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/f8y9nx/spring_forward_into_reddits_2019_transparency/)

According to that statement, bans (apparently temporary) are for voting only
in already quarantined subreddits.

WatchRedditDie's discussion is not especially nuanced, considered, or
balanced.

------
dmart
I don't understand why you would even publicize this. Just stop counting those
users' votes, if that's what you want to do?

There's enough fuzz in the vote counts that no one would notice, and you
wouldn't have any controversy on your hands.

~~~
psychometry
The point is that the users who are upvoting this kind of content will stay on
the site if they think their votes matter. Reddit clearly would rather they
leave entirely, and this is a good way to encourage
racists/misogynists/incels/whoever to find another platform.

~~~
bradlys
It happens for far left content as well. I don’t think it’s limited to hateful
content. At least, that’s what I’ve read from the chapotraphouse subreddit.
Example being upvoting some far left stuff in r/politics.

~~~
jlawson
'Far-left content' and 'hateful content' are not mutually exclusive. Quite the
opposite, really.

It is amazing how people will redefine hating Trump supporters, men, white
people, "the 1%", western civilization etc as somehow 'not hateful'. "My hate
isn't _hate_ , I just dislike things that are bad." Right.

------
walrus01
Eventually reddit will go the way of digg and fade into irrelevance.

~~~
justaman
Can't happen soon enough. The days where forums were the defacto place for
discussion were just better. The communities would self-police and alternative
opinions weren't suppressed nearly as easily. Reddit is a meme slideshow, not
a place for discussion.

~~~
gnulinux
I don't want to register zillions of forums and manage my passwords. I
contribute to hundreds of subreddits. If reddit dies I'll find a replacement
like reddit and move on.

~~~
serf
>I don't want to register zillions of forums and manage my passwords.

and I don't especially want the admins of any one site to be able to erase my
entire existence off the net on a whim.

single/token login from known net authority agents is common. I'd rather
embrace that kind of thing than the idea that any one site should be our de
facto forum and communications standard.

I was reminded of this recently when a personal favorite BB forum disappeared
, taking years and years of niche automotive data with it. Data that was rare
from the get-go, and un-replaceable now.

I'd rather decentralize my 'data-stores'. Reddit will disappear one day, and
it's up to them to be a good actor towards the archival group, providing data
bandwidth during a time when investors have become disinterested, and paying
the light bill is near impossible.

I wouldn't count on that.

Keep archives, repeat information elsewhere , and most importantly : don't
embrace adding and relying on centralized structure where doing so inherently
adds weakness and fallibility.

~~~
gnulinux
I don't think any "irreplacable" data or conversation should be on reddit. If
I lose my conversations about funny cats, or factorio, or why I love a
programming language, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it. I agree with you
for critical stuff, I don't think they belong to reddit. But please understand
that for consumers like me, reddit is an incredibly convenient social media. I
can login now and spend hours talking about hundreds of different things.
There is no way in hell I'll be able to register to so many different forums
and not get frustrated.

------
spacephysics
Reddit once being a haven away from large corporate interests, has continually
succumbed to the mainstream narrative of what’s appropriate.

Sure, there are communities that are horrid, but then there are those that are
on the line. And inch by inch that line moves from moral goodness, to
corporate interest.

Reddit is no different than Twitter/YouTube/Facebook, only they haven’t
covered the same amount of ground.

Given another few years, if that, we’ll see the same censorship practices on
Reddit, with the same magnitude, as youtube, facebook, and twitter.

This is essentially account entrapment. Show content they know is in bad
faith, then punish them. Or, once a post is deemed in bad faith, retroactively
punish them for not having the correct opinion.

1984

~~~
qq11ww22ee33
> 1984

1984 and its consequences has been a disaster for the human race. Read another
book

~~~
minkzilla
I’ve read many books in my time and I liked 1984 both for its entertainment
value and as a warning about government power and limiting free speech. What
is wrong with 1984? Is there a similar but better book I should read?

~~~
jodrellblank
What’s wrong with 1984 is people sign up for a private service, post something
against the ToS, get their account banned by a volunteer user-moderator, then
call it “punishment” and cite 1984 as if “piss off, troll” from JimBob
moderator of /r/WhippetFanciers is exactly the same as living in North Korea
and being forced to speak NewSpeak on threat of having caged rats eat your
face in Room 101.

------
gruez
My long time reddit account (same name as my hn account) was shadowbanned 2
weeks ago. I sent them an appeal and they responded really quick (it was
sunday night I believe) saying that my account "got caught by Reddit's spam
filter" and unbanned the account. A few days later my account was banned
_again_. I sent an appeal and this time they haven't responded in over a week.
Is this possibly related?

~~~
dannyw
Probably not, but my reddit account of 10+ years have been shadowbanned too
with no explanation. As a Digg immigrant, I can't wait to migrate away to the
next reddit.

------
ru552
I'm a daily redditor. On Saturday I logged into reddit and found "Your account
has been permanently suspended from Reddit." across the top banner. The mod
message says I was permanently suspended for repeated violations of the
content policy.

The last time I posted ANYTHING on reddit was 21 days ago when I commented on
a Schwarzenegger post and said I'd love for him to be president. I appealed it
and haven't heard anything.

~~~
NietTim
Do you share your internet? I read today that someone got banned because his
roommate got banned

~~~
ru552
I don't. I'm not sure what the reason is. I generally only post nerd stuff in
r/sysadmin or r/networking. Oh well.

------
scythe
Reddit has two conflicting aims.

First, it tries to be a "community hub", like Forumer in the old days, where
anyone can set up an "autonomous" messageboard (subreddit) to support
discussion among a particular subculture. Consider e.g. /r/smashbros.

Second, it tries to be a "community-in-itself", complete with its own demonym
"redditor", and a shared set of values, etiquette, and jokes/memes.

These goals are fundamentally at odds. A community of competing factions --
some of which openly hate each other -- is hardly a community. A board for
Super Smash Brothers players which must hew to the diktat of reddit at large
is not really a community of Smashers. When a norm on Reddit at large is
violated by a subreddit, the general population is incensed. When a rule is
handed down from the admins to the moderators of a subcommunity, the members
of that community feel they are being manipulated by outsiders -- even if they
might have decided to enforce that rule on their own, if they had been left to
their own devices.

Reddit splits the baby and nobody's happy.

------
nend
Is there any evidence this is real? The image specifies /r/reddit.com, which
was discontinued about a decade ago.

Obviously this practice is/would be awful. But it's really surprising and the
image seems a little fishy.

~~~
dredmorbius
From 24 February 2020:

"Reddit Will Start to Punish Users for Upvotes as It Eyes Ad Cash"

[https://gizmodo.com/reddit-will-start-to-punish-users-for-
up...](https://gizmodo.com/reddit-will-start-to-punish-users-for-upvotes-as-
it-eye-1841907899)

"Spring forward… into Reddit’s 2019 transparency report"

 _Users who consistently upvote policy-breaking content within quarantined
communities will receive automated warnings, followed by further consequences
like a temporary or permanent suspension. We hope this will encourage
healthier behavior across these communities._

[https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/f8y9nx/sprin...](https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/f8y9nx/spring_forward_into_reddits_2019_transparency/)

------
duxup
They've got so many moderation related issues.

Amidst all this accounts that randomly spam the site with collections of
articles and etc run free. They don't participate in discussion (maybe a
handful of actual comments... with more links), they just push a particular
point of view and inundate every sub they can find with article after
article....

A simple query "hey is this user just spamming submissions" could deal with
some of them.

If you search new you're presented with repost after repost of these spammers,
sometimes reposing their own content, just from another news source.

If you're part of a location based sub that is in the news, it's just an
AVALANCHE of distantly cause related submitters spamming it up.

~~~
unholythree
That’s the most obviously problem I see with section 230 freedom of speech
maximalists arguments. Who’s right is it to curtail the freedom of someone to
announce their love of a some sexual performance enhancing supplement in every
thread and comment section on the internet?

------
fulldecent2
Here is what people mean when we say we don't like Section 230. And we mean it
whether or not Section 230 is actually responsible.

\- Advertiser uses our trademark on Google Ads? Google makes money and has
editorial control. But we can't sue them.

\- Somebody posts something libelous about us on Twitter? Twitter makes
serious money and has editorial control. But we can't sue them.

\- Fakes on eBay? Can't stop them. eBay not liable.

If Twitter is going to have a "fact checking" department, then they also need
a "retractions" department. And if retraction aren't forthcoming when
reasonable, then we need a cause of action against them.

------
mullingitover
> Abusive content is not acceptable on Reddit nor is engaging with it.

This is such a fail for Reddit. If the content isn't allowed on the site, it's
on Reddit to remove it. The existence of the content on the site implies
Reddit's approval of the content, so engaging with that content is a wholly
innocent act.

~~~
MauranKilom
Please explain by what mechanism you would expect abusive content to be
unengagable before being recognized (and treated) as such. Preferably one that
does not involve Reddit having to travel back in time.

~~~
mullingitover
I don't have a way to programmatically detect abusive content, and for users
the content's presence on the site implies it's legitimate. Just remove it
when it's found, and shadowban the people who posted it. It isn't rocket
surgery.

------
cde-v
This was announced back in February....

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8044337/Redd...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8044337/Reddit-
start-suspending-users-consistently-upvote-rule-breaking-content.html)

~~~
dredmorbius
Gizmodo is cited, and gives better info:

[https://gizmodo.com/reddit-will-start-to-punish-users-for-
up...](https://gizmodo.com/reddit-will-start-to-punish-users-for-upvotes-as-
it-eye-1841907899)

------
marricks
An obvious concern of this would be just silencing content which isn't violent
or morally wrong but just not wanted in a large commercially viable website.
This is obviously polarizing but something I'll be watching is what happens to
/r/chapotraphouse.

CTH has some posts that violated a rule but most don't, the admins claim their
quarantining was never well communicated and intentionally vague, posting
screenshots of lack of communication from mods.

If people get suspended for just participating there without any clear
violations of calling for violence/brigading/etc then that's not really a
great sign for transparency.

~~~
cthalupa
>CTH has some posts that violated a rule but most don't

I'm not familiar with the CTH situation, or super familiar with CTH in general
besides knowing them to be pretty far left on the political spectrum.

But based solely on this line, if their admins are not making enough of an
effort in Reddit's eyes to clean up and discourage people from making these
rule breaking posts, then the quarantine makes sense. Even if only 1% of .1%
of the posts are violating the rules, if the subreddit isn't policing that
small minority of posts, what is Reddit supposed to do? Ignore it because most
posts aren't breaking rules?

~~~
marricks
I don't follow them enough to personally have an opinion on if they warranted
that treatment or not, but did follow enough to know it really couldn't have
been most posts. So really can't argue with you on the validity of the
banning.

but... that if the fraction of bad posts lead to mass suspensions on CTH then
I'd say it is a creepy/not-good direction for Reddit.

~~~
cthalupa
I pulled the fractions out of thin air, so I have no idea what they actually
are.

But you have to do something about people refusing to enforce site policy,
even if it's only on a small portion of the content.

For an extreme example (and to be clear I am not saying anything like this
happened at CTH), if 99 posts out of 100 on subreddit fall within the rules,
but that 1 post that doesn't is promoting killing everyone of a certain race,
and the subreddit moderators refuse to do anything about that one post, then
they 100% need to have something happen. And that doesn't change if it's 999
out of 1000, etc., either.

Now, it's unlikely that anything on CTH was at that level of toxic and
hateful, but the same overall concept applies - they have to take care of
posts that are against policy, even if they're a small minority. If not, it
seems like getting quarantined or even removed completely is a reasonable
course of action.

~~~
Miner49er
The thing with reddit's rules is they aren't applied in a consistent way. You
can go to /r/justiceserved (which is basically a violence porn sub) and talk
about violence all you want. Look at
[https://www.reddit.com/r/JusticeServed/comments/hdvsy2/dayli...](https://www.reddit.com/r/JusticeServed/comments/hdvsy2/daylight_robbery/)
as an example, look at the people there that are saying they think it's a good
thing that a guy was shot (and killed) for attempted robbery. This was the top
post on /r/rising for that sub when I made this comment.

You can go to /r/politics and say that we should go to war with Iran, or say
that it would be great if Putin died and be fine.

/r/chapotraphouse has probably the same amount of calls for (or glorification
of) violence as /r/politics (and less then /r/justiceserved), but for some
reason reddit has it out for them. Also, how is /r/cth supposed to fix their
rulebreaking if the admins aren't very clear on what content is breaking the
rules?

~~~
cthalupa
Yeah, Justice Served definitely looks like it needs to be looked at.

I think there's two separate issues here:

1) There's probably not enough manpower to be able to do this evenly and
consistently across all of Reddit. They're not ever going to be able to do
everything all at once. If efforts are ongoing, I don't think it's fair to
penalize Reddit for not having taken care of everything that needed to be
taken care of all at the same time. If we get to the point where Reddit says
"ok we're done we've taken care of all the bad communities and are scaling
back down the moderation team" and we see that it still is uneven, then I
think we're at the point where it's a problem.

2) The mega subs are tough to deal with in general. Politics is absolutely
massive, and from a practical standpoint as one of the core subreddits, is
going to be handled differently than a non-core one. Reddit is ultimately a
business, and even if from a moral absolutist standpoint it should be treated
exactly the same as any other subreddit, realistically it's not going to be.

I do feel like CTH might have been targeted a bit specifically because so much
of this has been focused on far-right subreddits, and there was some desire to
"balance" it out.

------
godzillabrennus
There is an alternative to the group think/hive mind called
[https://gab.com/](https://gab.com/) but it’s also a cesspool or horrible
people sharing horrible ideas.

Not sure what makes sense.

~~~
notkaiho
So it's a hive mind and group think but with terrible people instead?

~~~
typon
Yes that's right. They won't ban you for having non-terrible opinions, but
they'll downvote you into non-existence. I tried participating in voat for a
couple of days before leaving forever.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
Interesting approach. Assuming no bots, doesn't that change actual sentiment
among the population. How can you measure what people are thinking if
dissenting voices are banned?

------
braythwayt
Every time we have a conversation about why Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit
shouldn't be allowed to"censor" content, I ask what would become of Hacker
News if it was not permitted to moderate spam or threads that do not follow
the HN guidelines.

I think it would quickly devolve into 4Chan. Almost all of the current
community would decamp, and the trolls that infest other sites would take
over.

~~~
qq11ww22ee33
"Devolve into"? This website is just the "sounds educated" arm of imageboard
users.

HN is entirely filled with right-wing to far-right sheltered techbros. Half
the accounts here that are constantly complaining about "free speech" and
"consequences to their actions" are really one bad day away from calling
everyone they disagree with various slurs, and the other half are so insulated
from any sort of actual injustice in the world that they sit atop of their
smug towers of indifference, cawing at the peasants below who have things such
as "opinions" (that disagree with theirs, of course) or "motivations".

~~~
braythwayt
You are not wrong, but don't forget Sturgeon's Revelation: "90% of everything
is CRUD."

What makes something valuable is the 10% of the thing that is not CRUD, and
whatever measures put into place to make sure that the 90% CRUD doesn't poison
the 10% that's worthwhile.

To me, that's having clear guidelines that are consistently applied through
moderation.

------
dogma1138
Nice I wonder how many comments that go against Reddit’s policies I’ve upvoted
over the years unintentionally on the mobile app.

I up/downvote posts/comments at least couple of times a day when trying to
scroll on my phone or just hitting the screen to wake it up after being
distracted.

This is ridiculous policy.

------
crazypython
This seems like a good way to suppress bots that upvote posts that incite
violence or severe verbal abuse or gingoist. However, I am afraid if they
start doing this for discussion on COVID-19.

------
antishatter
The main issue is asymmetric rule enforcement more so than the rules
themselves. This is probably true for most if not all social media platforms.

------
colordrops
If you told a reddit user from 5 years ago that you would be banned for
upvoting content, they'd call you a nut job.

------
surround
If this submission gets flagged/killed (it’s already gone from the front page)
will I be penalized for upvoting it?

------
root_axis
Seems a little extreme, but the overall logic seems sound from a moderation
perspective. If you have users that consistently upvote content that violates
the TOS inside of quarantined subreddits its probably a sign that they're a
trouble-maker with respect to the site guidelines.

------
Natsu
What would it take to bring back pre-Eternal September Usenet?

------
akho
On the one hand, I can understand them not wanting to be a platform for
content they do not like (find offensive, believe legally dangerous, &c). On
the other hand, presence of porn and nazis is an indicator of a healthy
community — banning these things leads to decline in other areas (see Tumblr).
You can’t have partial freedom of speech.

At least the porn is still there.

The problem with ‘social’ sites is that they allow cross-contamination between
the seedy bits, and r/woodworking and the like.

The open web — with separately hosted forums — is a lot better, but less
convenient. I hope to see a solution sometime, but the odds are not good.

------
zaro
The thought police strikes again.

It's not anymore about simply censoring unwanted content, punishing the users
for engaging with will be way more effective in the long run.

------
isatty
No jedberg comments on this post?

------
mey
Is this any different than making Shadow Banning visible to the user who has
been Shadow Banned?

------
zarkov99
I feel safer already. Thank you Reddit for protecting me from my bad opinions.

------
mtgp1000
At this point reddit is arguably a social danger, in that it is made to look
like organic content, while in truth everything is heavily censored and
opinions are implicitly and explicitly approved in an absolute top down
manner.

Opaque vote display and ranking algorithms, keyword based shadowbanning,
ideological mods and admin - combined with an organic facade you have a
platform to manufacture consensus and push propaganda onto millions of
unsuspecting users, young and old alike.

Frankly it's scummy and I hope they fail.

------
hogFeast
You can vote any way you want. As long as you vote the right way.

------
kilo_bravo_3
Why do SO MANY pretend-libertarian tech bros pretending to be libertarians and
liberty-loving freedom fans think that free speech applies to private
property?

And why have they let themselves be tricked into spewing the Section-230
nonsense that conservative hate-mongers are using to threaten online service
providers?

Section 230 protection is irrelevant to service providers policing their site.
It is very relevant to service providers who are being told by conservative
hate-mongering politicians “hey we’ll strip your protections unless you allow
our hateful content even though the protections are unrelated to our content
and comments”.

You’re carrying water for malicious actors who don’t care about you.

By your own logic, not mine (I think it’s bullshit) YOURS if you downvote this
comment to the point that it is hidden or automodded then you are infringing
on my “FREEZE PEECH RAIGHTS” because you are “removing” constitutionally-
protected freeze peach from the public sphere.

------
lenkite
No one complained when folks voting on an unpopular forum were kicked out late
last year. Everyone laughed and said "good riddance" then. Now the chickens
have come home to roost.

The adage of the "fascists will next come for you" continues to remain true.

------
wnevets
For years reddit stood by and did nothing while certain groups exploited and
spammed the front page with their hate speech, im glad to see they're finally
doing something about it.

------
UweSchmidt
The idea that the "vote" is not just counted but judged is new, it seems. It
is the next step in the trend of hyper precise tracking of peoples thoughts
and actions, and their judgement in a transparent and opinionated global
social sphere with extreme consequences.

Overall, a worrying trend.

------
hn_check
Of course "voting" should be something you are accountable for. If you are
pushing nonsense and banned content up, you become a part of the problem.

Even on HN there have been many anti-science nonsense stories on the front-
page where the site would benefit from letting people indicate that they want
anyone who enabled it to have no weighting in the curation of their own
personal view. This may be a sort of filter bubble, but it's an anti-idiot
filter bubble. I don't need to have my world clouded by the noise of
conspiracy fanatics and idiots.

------
zeveb
So, if people don't vote the way the Reddit admins want, the Reddit admins
will replace the voters. That is definitely _a_ way to get only the things the
Reddit admins want upvoted, upvoted. But it seems to me to be the opposite of
free discourse.

I can sympathise with the admins, because a) there are a lot of terrible,
toxic people b) there are a lot of bot armies. The latter is probably easiest
to combat, but it is still a tough nut to crack. The former is even worse: I
imagine that the most engaged users are quite often the users one wishes were
_least_ engaged.

It's a tough problem, but Orwellian punishment of wrongthink seems the wrong
direction.

~~~
tw04
How so? Calling for someone to be murdered is understandably against their
policy. As is doxxing someone. The user accounts that upvote the call for
murder or upvote the doxxing details _KNOW_ that the post is against their
policy and decided to participate anyway.

I hate how these conversations always devolve to "well they're just trying to
control what everyone says!" as if it's black and white and not shades of
gray. No, they're trying to prevent assholes from spilling over into people's
real lives, because the alternative is becoming 4chan. Where all that
"upvoted" content results in ACTUAL PEOPLE BEING KILLED.

I hope most people on HN don't agree with the train of thought that websites
have no duty to their fellow man to not normalize hate speech. "Where does it
stop" \- it stops at not doxxing people and not calling for people to be
murdered, per their TOS.

~~~
deft
Theres no upvoting on 4chan and bumping a thread (or on reddit upvoting) does
not kill and cannot kill anyone. The people making the threads end up killing
people (very rarely) not the randoms that reply (or upvote).

You don't even know what the account upvoted, and upvoting isn't hate speech
(or calling for someone to be murdered). Do you have a bunch of unknown
information on this or are you just defending reddit's continued slide to
dystopian horror for no reason?

~~~
mikeyouse
"Slide to dystopian horror"? For banning a bunch of garbage subs and the
people that upvote the garbage? Hyperbolic much?

~~~
wnoise
The problem is that there's no reason to believe that this policy will be
limited strictly to obvious garbage. Unpopular, but not garbage views will
inevitably be hit too. Maybe that's worth taking out the garbage, but
collateral damage is still a negative.

~~~
mikeyouse
It's amusing how much HN mocks the police for their stance that everything
that enables privacy could enable child exploitation imagery while at the same
time insisting that anything that resembles moderation will end in dystopian
thought policing.

Sometimes slopes just aren't that slippery.

~~~
wnoise
Everything that enables privacy absolutely could enable child exploitation
imagery. But privacy as a whole is too fucking valuable to give up to make
prosecuting some crimes easier. In the US, that's the whole point of the
fourth amendment -- warrants with probable cause and specificity requirements
are the proper escape hatch, not bulk data sifting. Not all crime can or
should be caught at any cost whatsoever.

Moderation need not end in dystopian thought policing. Reddit has had
moderation for quite some time. Indeed voting was there from the beginning,
and is a primitive crowdsourced form of moderation, with many obvious flaws,
including groupthink.

Forum moderation's whole point is to constrain what can be said. It can be
used for good or ill. Extending it to bans from agreeing with wrongthink is a
step beyond the status quo. Maybe it'll balance out to be good on net, maybe
bad, but don't pretend it's not novel or that it's obviously good on balance,
and no one should be concerned.

------
iron0013
For those of you who aren’t familiar, the “watchredditdie” subreddit is a
“safe space” for alt-right users to whine about not being able to brigade,
astroturf, and otherwise manipulate reddit to their own political ends the way
they did in the run-up to the 2016 election.

------
newacct583
This isn't a ban, it's a 3 day suspension. And we don't know what content was
upvoted, or why it was a against Reddit policy. We do know, however, that
Reddit indeed _has_ policies about acceptable content, and most of us seem to
agree they're fairly reasonable. So I don't understand the use of the scare
quotes in the title.

Why exactly should an upvote, which is publicly visible approval, be different
than a comment? I mean... they're both content posted to the site. It's not
unreasonable that they be subject to the same rules.

Is the outrage here that votes are supposed to be "anonymous" and this feels
like an unmasking of something people felt more comfortable doing "in
private"? Is that something we want to protect per se?

This seems like more outrage than meat, honestly. I'd really like to know what
the comment was before deciding.

~~~
ng12
Well for one it makes every user individually responsible for identifying
content that breaks the rules, and this is very hard given Reddit's history of
arbitrarily enforcing the rules.

