Reddit Bans Subreddits about Making Fun of Fat People, Neogaf, and others.

[The Lunatic]

In a surprising move, Ellen Pao, Reddit's particularly unpopular new CEO has banned 5 "Harassing" subreddits today. One of which "Fat people Hate", a section dedicated to the mockery of fat people which had over 150,000 subscribers.

As is completely unsurprising, this move is particularly unpopular, as reddit's community has always prided itself on the freedom of speech, a notion the owners of the site have often said they support in interviews, but rarely actually act that way in practice.

What exactly constitutes "Harassment" is entirely unknown, the announcement came out of the blue and without any explanation.

Despite the closure of "Fat People Hate" various subreddits, such as "Coontown", a subreddit dedicated towards the mockery of black people in light of the recent police shootings remains open.

Other subreddits are also unaffected such as;

CuteFemaleCorpses - A subreddit dedicated to images of dead girls.
HurtingAnimals - A subreddit dedicated to images of animal abuse.
SlutJustice - A subreddit dedicated to finding people posting in the relationship section and calling them out for being sluts.
ShitRedditSays - A subreddit dedicated to harassing anyone who isn't a fat lesbian genderfish.

And so on, and so forth.

The reason why these sections are spared the sword and others are not is particularly confusing.

Another subreddit which was banned was "Neofag" a subreddit dedicated to the discussion of Neogaf, a video game forum, mostly infamous for it's terrible rules and often quoted "If you're a fan of any console other than the PS4, you're more likely to get banned" statement.

And so, whilst I'm sure we can all agree, the people of "Fat people hate" weren't particularly nice, there are much worse things on Reddit, so, the question is, given Reddit prides itself on Free Speech, do places like this have a right to exist on a free speech platform?

Finally, a quote from Yishan Wong, who was the Reddit CEO before Pao.

[sub]We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. - Yishan Wong[/sub]

 

[spartenX]

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall

What's really irksome about this is that FPH apparently went out of its way to keep its stuff to its own sub, strictly enforced a "no linking to other subs" rule, and another strictly enforced rule to keep people's personal info out. when you compare this to SRS, which is well known to dox, harass and brigade it becomes incredibly obvious that the idea of banning an entire sub for harassment is ridiculous as any harassment would almost certainly come from independent redditors.

 

[Conky]

If there are instances of harassment in these subreddits, they should be dealt with.
But this looks like nothing but banning of subreddits that don't fit the SJW definition of free speech.

 

[Padwolf]

Oh gods this is like a steak of drama... I love it!

Well, to be fair, quite a lot of people that posted in FPH were posting in other subreddits commenting on people's weight and just harassing people. I do agree that it should not have been banned.

And yet r/sexwithdogs is still there and still a thing.

 

[Zontar]

Chairman Pao is only trying to bring Reddit's culture in a revolutionary forward thinking direction.

On a serious note, this isn't something to fear due to who is being affected, it's due to how it could be implemented in the future as it's already been shown in its first day to not be a ban which is being enforced on those who are supposedly the problem they are trying to fight.

Unless this boils over and goes away and is never herd from again, some people might want to use a different site. Everyone kept in touch before Reddit came about, and they seem to be under the same delusion that YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all have that their positions are ones competition could never take from them, when in reality the only reason they exist at all is because they managed to show that the previous sites which filled their roles could in fact be usurped, and where by them. What is it with big sites thinking their positions are ones which will be eternally unchanging? We've already seen a whole generation of sites come and go as dominant forces within their markets. Remember Napster? Remember Myspace? Gone and forgotten. Gawker, which used to be the single largest force within online news? On the verge of bankruptcy and could fold within the next year or two unless they have an 11th hour saving throw.

 

[Fappy]

Eh, it's their site. If they want to ban certain discussions that's their prerogative. By all means, tell them their decision is wrong if you believe it to be, but I wouldn't call this censorship. There are other avenues still available to express these ideas and Reddit's CEO isn't stopping anyone from taking their business there.

They clearly want to change the site's image and clean up its content/community. I can hardly fault it for that, honestly. Reddit's rep is seemingly worse than 4chan these days.

 

[Zontar]

Reddit's rep is seemingly worse than 4chan these days.

That's mainly due to 4chan suffering from sudden death syndrome. After the exodus to other chan sites (most of which actually are affiliated with 2chan, something 4chan is not) 4chan has become a site which will likely never return to relevance on the internet, its glory a past one. REddit, on the other hand, is still relevant, though with actions like these they seem to think they're immune to the harsh reality of the internet that is that it never forgets, and that somewhere someone is offering what you have, but better, and a single screw up is all it takes to kill even the largest site.

 

[L. Declis]

To quote Chairman Pao, "Reddit has never been about free speech".

This is only the beginning.

Which is a shame, because I rather liked Fat People Hate.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Not a freedom of speech issue.

Reddit becoming irrelevant is an inevitability. Whether it happens sooner or later doesn't really matter much in the long term. Everything becomes irrelevant at some point, particularly websites. Their popularity tends to be fleeting.

It's charming that people always believe that X stopped being popular because they did Y thing that the individual in question disapproves of, but the reasons tend to be multi-factoral.

I'm sure the charming denizens of those sub reddits will find somewhere else to ply their trade, and the big blue globe will keep on spinning.

 

[Fappy]

Reddit's rep is seemingly worse than 4chan these days.

That's mainly due to 4chan suffering from sudden death syndrome. After the exodus to other chan sites (most of which actually are affiliated with 2chan, something 4chan is not) 4chan has become a site which will likely never return to relevance on the internet, its glory a past one. REddit, on the other hand, is still relevant, though with actions like these they seem to think they're immune to the harsh reality of the internet that is that it never forgets, and that somewhere someone is offering what you have, but better, and a single screw up is all it takes to kill even the largest site.

Nah, I think the Reddit community is a lot more varied than 4chan ever was. Sure, a large portion of the site will resent them for their decision, but I don't think it'll ultimately impact the site too much. Channers are generally a lot more vindictive about this kinda stuff than Redditors are in my experience. 4chan has always been about sticking it to the man, anti-censorship and counter culture. For the majority of its users, Reddit is just an echo chamber for their political views, a source of cheap laughs or a repository of porn/cat pics. No common ideal unites the community like it did for 4chan.

And even if it didn't negatively affect the site to a noticeable degree, I imagine the people in charge would consider it a necessary sacrifice.

 

[Redryhno]

Biggest problem is probably the wording and reasoning given. You wanna say you don't want the stuff that was banned there anymore? Then just come out and say it, don't hide behind a "harassment" wall and then allow other "harassment" subs to stay open. Sorta reeks is all.

 

[Longing]

They'll probably get around to banning those other subreddits as well?

I'm mean I don't see the big deal, people are always hammering on about free speech and whatnot, but I consider this more harassment and hate speech than anything else.

Redditors are such whiny little babies. I cannot for the life of me understand the kind of people who would spend all of their days relentlessly mocking others. What sad, sad little people.

 

[Zontar]

I'm mean I don't see the big deal, people are always hammering on about free speech and whatnot, but I consider this more harassment and hate speech than anything else.

Here's the problem, in the few subreddits they've banned there's already ones which we know for a fact did not harass people which where removed, while others which are openly about harassing people have not been touched when they logically should have been in the first wave.

On top of that there's the issue that hate speech is protected under free speech so long as it doesn't turn into harassment or become a threat to any group or individuals. This is because of the fact that speech is purely subjective and has no objective measurement by which you can separate what is and what is not hate speech. It's one of the things the Yankees got right over us that we should have imitated instead of putting our fingers between our ears and pass hate speech laws which now make it so that you can get sued for criticising a religion in public (though Islam seems to be the only one that when criticized ends up with such a suit being made).

The reason redditors are upset about this is the same reason a good 99% of all websites with active communities would be upset if such blatantly politically based censorship (and before anyone mentions government, the definition of censorship does not include government inside it, anyone doing the act is committing it regardless of their form of authority) from third wave internet adopters who are upset that the internet formed by first and second wave adopters made it a place where ideas and speech are free and so through attrition good ideas rise and bad ideas fall, which doesn't bode well because a lot of the authoritarian ideas pushed by a disturbingly large number of third wave adopters are particularly bad ones which can't survive under basic scrutiny. As a result, censorship is the only means of not having their bad ideas ridiculed like they rightly deserve to be.

TL;DR: The reason people are upset is because they are taking the site and making it the literal opposite of what made it one of the most used sites to begin with.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

On top of that there's the issue that hate speech is protected under free speech so long as it doesn't turn into harassment or become a threat to any group or individuals.

That's irrelevant. Reddit is a privately owned website. Those people are quite free to carry on their hate speech elsewhere, much like the owners of the website are free to dictate what they will or will not allow on their private "property".

...making it the literal opposite of what made it one of the most used sites to begin with.

Minus 50 DKP for hyperbole, Zontar!

Even if the ONLY thing that made Reddit popular was the freedom to engage in hate speech, it still hasn't achieved the "literal opposite", as not all hate speech has been banned.

Reddit is popular for a great many reasons, and will remain popular for many of those reasons until something else that is newer and more convenient comes along to topple it. As is the case with everything. Everyone likes to believe their pet causes and hates are what cause the sun to rise and fall but the vast majority of Reddit users aren't even going to be aware this happened. They're just going to keep upvoting cats and cross posting memes and complaining about how a particular sub is a circlejerk because their shitty opinion got downvoted again.

 

[Angelblaze]

*People commenting on a non-government owned site claiming that the owner/creators decision to remove content from site is 'censorship'/'violation of free speech'*

*I cry for the future of humanity again*

--

OT: The same reason I don't care and, am actually really happy about this, is the same reason this isn't censorship; those people can go someplace else, build themselves a website. They haven't had their freedom of speech taken away, they've been told to stop screaming in the middle of a popular street.

 

[spartenX]

*People commenting on a non-government owned site claiming that the owner/creators decision to remove content from site is 'censorship'/'violation of free speech'*

*I cry for the future of humanity again*

hey at what point did everyone decide that freedom of speech meant "the first amendment of the US constitution"? cause it really seems to be a popular misconception.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

hey at what point did everyone decide that freedom of speech meant "the first amendment of the US constitution"? cause it really seems to be a popular misconception.

"Freedom of Speech" and "Censorship" are deliberately invoked because of their alarmist implications. If we are to use "censorship", for example, at its most flexible definition, then asking a pre-teen to stop screaming "******" at the top of his lungs in the school cafeteria would be censorship, and a violation of his freedom of speech. Yet if someone were to ever say "I conditionally support censorship and the removal of freedom of speech", they would be labeled as a book burning Nazi and asked if they knew where de fuhrer was buried.

This is why their employment in situations like this one is routinely mocked. There are a lot of ways to describe what is happening, but some calamity involving freedom of speech is not one of them.

 

[runic knight]

Is t censorship? Yes, by definition it is is. Despite how often I hear it repeated, just because the government is not the ones doing it does not mean it is not censorship.

What you are confusing censorship for is the violation of the free speech amendment. In that, yes, the reddit thing is no a violation of the first amendment. But I don't think anyone is using that as an argument here (instead invoking the right of free speech as an inherent tenant of humanity as currently represented in the online world), so I don't get why people might be bringing it up like it is relevant. The first amendment is designed to stop government censorship, yes, but that doesn't make it ok when it is not the government doing it.

It is still the practice of examining books, movies, art or whatever else (in this case open forums), and suppressing unacceptable parts. It is still censorship. Hell, even wikipedia has it marked as such, bolded for my emphasis

"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions"

Reddit could be considered any of those other examples by extension, regardless that it is not a government agency. Damned word is not dependent upon it being government, so why do I see so many bring that up every time the topic drifts over to censorship.

Do the owners of reddit have the right to do it? Certainly, they have all the property rights in the world to pick and choose what they want to censor same as every other forum. But censoring is indeed what they are doing. To a degree, most sites censor according to the standards of their code of conduct.

Now that we've established that yes, it is censorship, can we talk about the actual issue of outrage here, the horribly uneven application of the rule in a heavy-handed way that comes off as either a personal grudge being exercised or a complete unawareness of what actually exists as acceptable topics on reddit in general? Considering the position, I am not sure which is worse for reddit at this point.

What seems to have people in a frenzy right now is that the uneven application of the rule, the draconian means of handling it, the sudden ruthlessness in enforcing the rule and the general attempts by the site to censor discussion relating to complaining about what happened (at least early on, I don't know if they still bother trying to sweep it under the rug now).