This is offtopic and, I freely admit, overly cynical. However...
People in general are selfish; the core Reddit demographic (males 18-29) is certainly no exception.
One of the paradoxes of Reddit is that the site can appear so monolithically left liberal, yet at the same time so militantly libertarian. Few politicians seem to engender such strong positive feelings as Ron Paul and Elizabeth Warren, often at the same time and from the same people.
The answer is that if Reddit has a vibe it's "freedom for me", closely followed by "fuck you, I've got mine". Redditor's don't like being censored, and they don't like content they like (mostly celebrity nudes) being censored. They don't like taxes that they might have to pay, and they don't like social programs for the poor, but they love taxes on the rich or spending on the middle class (and, especially, spending on student loans). They're anti-cop when the perceived victim looks like them, but pro-cop when it doesn't. They're very much pro-pot, and pro-civil-liberties if it involves their email being read, but otherwise they don't much care. The NSA reading their email is a true outrage and morally indefensible; the CIA torturing swarthy foreigners is a big yawn.
It's fair to call Reddit anti-authoritarian, but it's the anti-authoritarianism of someone in a dorm room bitching that the dorm monitor asked them to turn their stereo down. What there isn't, in my experience, is any deep reservoir of principle. The median Redditor will write outraged screeds about free speech if you suggest that the site shouldn't play host to links to celebrity nudes, or if you move to ban a subreddit they personally participate in. They might even follow along on a popular bandwagon (eg, making snide remarks about "Chairman Pao") even if they couldn't articulate why, exactly, Pao was meant to be bad.
So yes, cops shooting a pot dealer gets Reddit's attention (although I will note that as of right now, the top comment is critiquing the writing of the article, and the second-top-top comment is blaming the victim, and yes I do think that is in part because the victim is black, and thus harder for the average Redditor to empathise with). Youtube bullying an app author, or employers snooping on employees are also obvious examples of the stuff Reddit care about (ie, "bad stuff happening to people like me"). What I haven't seen is significant numbers of people who care about eg, free speech qua a universal human right.
(And thus ends my probably overly cynical digression.)
People in general are selfish; the core Reddit demographic (males 18-29) is certainly no exception.
One of the paradoxes of Reddit is that the site can appear so monolithically left liberal, yet at the same time so militantly libertarian. Few politicians seem to engender such strong positive feelings as Ron Paul and Elizabeth Warren, often at the same time and from the same people.
The answer is that if Reddit has a vibe it's "freedom for me", closely followed by "fuck you, I've got mine". Redditor's don't like being censored, and they don't like content they like (mostly celebrity nudes) being censored. They don't like taxes that they might have to pay, and they don't like social programs for the poor, but they love taxes on the rich or spending on the middle class (and, especially, spending on student loans). They're anti-cop when the perceived victim looks like them, but pro-cop when it doesn't. They're very much pro-pot, and pro-civil-liberties if it involves their email being read, but otherwise they don't much care. The NSA reading their email is a true outrage and morally indefensible; the CIA torturing swarthy foreigners is a big yawn.
It's fair to call Reddit anti-authoritarian, but it's the anti-authoritarianism of someone in a dorm room bitching that the dorm monitor asked them to turn their stereo down. What there isn't, in my experience, is any deep reservoir of principle. The median Redditor will write outraged screeds about free speech if you suggest that the site shouldn't play host to links to celebrity nudes, or if you move to ban a subreddit they personally participate in. They might even follow along on a popular bandwagon (eg, making snide remarks about "Chairman Pao") even if they couldn't articulate why, exactly, Pao was meant to be bad.
So yes, cops shooting a pot dealer gets Reddit's attention (although I will note that as of right now, the top comment is critiquing the writing of the article, and the second-top-top comment is blaming the victim, and yes I do think that is in part because the victim is black, and thus harder for the average Redditor to empathise with). Youtube bullying an app author, or employers snooping on employees are also obvious examples of the stuff Reddit care about (ie, "bad stuff happening to people like me"). What I haven't seen is significant numbers of people who care about eg, free speech qua a universal human right.
(And thus ends my probably overly cynical digression.)