Reddit To Crack Down On Abuse

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Reddit says that it is going to start cracking down on abuse. The site says that it is targeting the "most toxic users" but didn't say if that included their own CEO. He'll probably just get a warning. :rolleyes:

Social media website Reddit Inc, known for its commitment to free speech, will crack down on online harassment by banning or suspending users who target others, starting with those who have directed abuse at Chief Executive Steve Huffman. Huffman said in an interview with Reuters that Reddit's content policy prohibits harassment, but that it had not been adequately enforced.
 
I always felt reddit itself was toxic so I just didn't go there. Seemed a simple enough solution to me, didn't require restructuring or layoffs or political stances.
 
Maybe they should start with themselves. I was never interested in that site anyway, the layout sucks (prefer regular forums), the user base is mostly really stupid teenagers and the atmosphere is beyond toxic. The management lives up to that quality as well. I don't care if they delete user content / "limit free speech" or not - they have the full right to as a private company. The answer is not whining about them, the answer is not using them in the first place.
 
I remember when free speech* on Reddit used to mean something! Bring back Ellen Pao! lol

* the non-governmental type
 
rat said:
Another person who doesn't understand what 'free speech' really is.

When you're using a private service and they determine you're behaving in ways that they don't want to tolerate, they're free to kick you off.
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Social media website Reddit Inc, known for its commitment to free speech
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Literally from the first sentence of the article.

Maybe your argument is with Reuters...
 
spinach_chin said:
Literally from the first sentence of the article.

Maybe your argument is with Reuters...
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Free speech is different than constitutionally protected freedom of speech. I think many get confused. I can say whatever I want here about our president or government and I cannot be federally prosecuted or silenced, but the mods here are within their legal power to delete my post if they just felt like it. This does not violate my freedom of speech but does curtail free speaking on this forum.
 
rat said:
Spez is a Trump Supporter. So, no, you've completely misrepresented the situation for your own victim complex.
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While many users across the site found what I did funny, or appreciated that I was standing up to the bullies
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This is the CEO OF REDDIT calling people bullies that said mean things to him... and I've got the victim complex.

Well done, kid.
 
spinach_chin said:
Literally from the first sentence of the article.

Maybe your argument is with Reuters...
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"known for its commitment to free speech" ...

Yet....

reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/content_policy_update_ama_thursday_july_16th_1pm/

Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen: These are very complicated issues, and we are putting a lot of thought into it. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for quite some time. We haven’t had the tools to enforce policy, but now we’re building those tools and reevaluating our policy.
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TLDR: It's his site. He can do what he wants. Like how here Kyle can break his own rules, insult people by changing flair (despite saying insults will get you banned from Soapbox) and delete posts he disagrees with and claim they were off topic.
 
Darunion said:
Free speech is different than constitutionally protected freedom of speech. I think many get confused. I can say whatever I want here about our president or government and I cannot be federally prosecuted or silenced, but the mods here are within their legal power to delete my post if they just felt like it. This does not violate my freedom of speech but does curtail free speaking on this forum.
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Look, I understand the difference perfectly. But you can't have it both ways. Reddit can't claim to be The Free Speech Utopia, and then start banning people they don't like because "Hey we can do what we want"

Don't you see the hypocrisy there?
 
spinach_chin said:
This is the CEO OF REDDIT calling people bullies that said mean things to him... and I've got the victim complex.

Well done, kid.
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They were spreading fake news calling him a pedophile and a cannibal. Not just saying 'mean things.'
 
spinach_chin said:
Look, I understand the difference perfectly. But you can't have it both ways. Reddit can't claim to be The Free Speech Utopia, and then start banning people they don't like because "Hey we can do what we want"

Don't you see the hypocrisy there?
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Im struggling to find an official statement by the company that claims such a thing. I read their terms of service and there is pages at length of what you cannot post on there. It does not seem to be this open canvas that can be painted on and not regulated.
 
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rat said:
"known for its commitment to free speech" ...

Yet....

reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/content_policy_update_ama_thursday_july_16th_1pm/



TLDR: It's his site. He can do what he wants. Like how here Kyle can break his own rules, insult people by changing flair (despite saying insults will get you banned from Soapbox) and delete posts he disagrees with and claim they were off topic.
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Reddit is a private company, and of course they can do what they like, however, this is changing the rules after the game is well under way, and Reddit was rightly criticized for that.
 
Darunion said:
Free speech is different than constitutionally protected freedom of speech. I think many get confused. I can say whatever I want here about our president or government and I cannot be federally prosecuted or silenced, but the mods here are within their legal power to delete my post if they just felt like it. This does not violate my freedom of speech but does curtail free speaking on this forum.
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I love it when someone that knows what they're talking about chimes in, even if it usually falls on deaf ears. People act like reddit/social media sites are government owned and no one can take their rights away by banning them.
 
Reddit is one of the last places to talk about free speech. Yes, you can post your opinion there, but if it goes against the hive mind, it's buried so far that no one will read it. Try posting anything positive about conservatives on /r/politics though. But it's not even just limited to one side. You go into the safe spaces for even the other side, and alternative voices are drowned. Sure, [H] leans conservative, and yes, you can be banned for insulting users, but I haven't seen any posts deleted if they stick to topic, even if they're pro-progressive. For a group that prides itself on trying to be open minded and allow free speech, they sure love to follow the separate but equal mantra.
 
Darunion said:
Im struggling to find an official statement by the company that claims such a thing. I read their terms of service and there is pages at length of what you cannot post on there. It does not seem to be this open canvas that can be painted on and not regulated.
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http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/15/8964995/reddit-free-speech-history

Let's not pretend that Reddit didn't regularly use the "Free Speech" tag to their benefit, and had stated so publicly on multiple occasions.

To be honest, I don't really care either way, because I completely agree with you that they are free to ban whomever they want to.

But the hypocrisy...
 
spinach_chin said:
Translation : "We're gonna start banning people that I disagree with politically."
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The worst is when the cancerous mods ban you from major subreddits when you did nothing wrong in their sub.

They just do mass bans of all usernames that post on other subs they don't like, so if you're in /r/The_Donald for example you get banned. Or even on a case-by-case basis, as a mod told me after banning me that she doesn't have to provide a reason when I asked what I did (I said only positive-uplifting things with a very high upvote score on that sub and yet got banned out of the blue), and I'm fairly confident its because she checked my post history and saw my worship for the orange faced God emperor or I challenged a post of hers at some point.

Its like c'mon, just because I'm MAGAing my heart out in one sub or disagreeing with you in /r/politics, doesn't mean I have to be banned when all I'm doing is making positive comments about people posting their kitties being cute and crap...

I'm hoping its just a case of temporary misdirected aggression, since these are the salty people that probably cried for hours completely flabbergasted when Hillary lost since the Huffington Post assured them that she had a 99% chance to win and only neo-Nazis support the other candidate, and were completely devistated when their fake reality bubble was burst letting the unwanted real world seep in to their consciousness.
 
rat said:
Another person who doesn't understand what 'free speech' really is.

When you're using a private service and they determine you're behaving in ways that they don't want to tolerate, they're free to kick you off.
Click to expand...
Yeah... so, here's the thing. Reddit has PROMOTED itself on allowing people to say whatever they want to say. There is a place, somewhere on Reddit, for pretty much anyone to say anything they want (well, except, for example, things that would get you a visit from the Secret Service). It sounds a bit like the old USENET days (of which I was a part). But when this sort of policy suddenly gets implemented, the obvious reason is censorship, pure and simple.

I know what 'free speech' is in regards to the government but, as you so cleverly noted, Reddit isn't the government. However, that doesn't mean that putting limits on speech that they previously allowed is NOT censorship: it definitely is censorship. Yes, they are *entitled* to do that, but that doesn't make it not censorship.

BTW: HardOCP has clear guidelines as to what kind of posts are allowed here. I don't recall them changing since I joined. I accepted them from the beginning and I accept them now. But HardOCP never promoted itself as a place where you can say pretty much anything you want, and so since they're consistent, I'm fine with HardOCP's policies and have never complained about them, even though they're far more constraining than Reddit.
 
rat said:
Another person who doesn't understand what 'free speech' really is.

When you're using a private service and they determine you're behaving in ways that they don't want to tolerate, they're free to kick you off.
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Says the person who has on these forums defended every form of censorship and persecution of people who disagree with his political beliefs.

I'd normally agree with you, but the platform was founded on free speech and has legal protections allowing it - if they start censoring, they lose those protections and reddit can then be sued for content found on its site - actually, this already happened and they already lost that protection because their admin was editing other people's posts without their consent.

Reddit is going to sued into oblivion in the next couple years. Ah well, time to move to Voat.co. Better platform if smaller, and they allow more honest discussion without censoring people of a particular viewpoint.
 
Darunion said:
Free speech is different than constitutionally protected freedom of speech. I think many get confused. I can say whatever I want here about our president or government and I cannot be federally prosecuted or silenced, but the mods here are within their legal power to delete my post if they just felt like it. This does not violate my freedom of speech but does curtail free speaking on this forum.
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And just to clarify, free speech is free speech. You don't have a constitutional protected right to free speech in the private domain, but that doesn't mean that Reddit can't promote or discriminate against freedom of speech.

What I think is great about Reddit is it allows the community to rank up or down posts that are good or suck, and this allows society as a whole to police each other quite well. Shitposting or trolling gets buried, and helpful or funny posts have higher visibility. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of major community outlets of communication, and a small handful of people with an agenda can abuse their platform to push their narrative and censor what they don't want people to know, and honestly that's not cool. Just because its not illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't suck, and I think that's the point.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Says the person who has on these forums defended every form of censorship and persecution of people who disagree with his political beliefs.

I'd normally agree with you, but the platform was founded on free speech and has legal protections allowing it - if they start censoring, they lose those protections and reddit can then be sued for content found on its site - actually, this already happened and they already lost that protection because their admin was editing other people's posts without their consent.

Reddit is going to sued into oblivion in the next couple years. Ah well, time to move to Voat.co. Better platform if smaller, and they allow more honest discussion without censoring people of a particular viewpoint.
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We aren't talking about political discourse. We are talking about people using Reddit to commit criminal acts. The crackdown is because there was a group of Branch Trumpidians, who, after listening to the latest tin-pot verbal diarrhea from Alex Jones, decided to start a witch hunt against an innocent small business owner and then compounded their libel by then accusing the Reddit CEO of being a pedophile when Reddit shutdown the subreddit that was devoted to criminal harassment and doxxing of anyone the tin pots suspected of being involved in their nonsense conspiracy theory.

Voat.co says that it is censorship free but I have to wonder what they would do if someone started posting child porn. I think you will find that they are not quite as censorship free as they claim to be. In fact, even their own user agreement says it is for lawful activity only which means that they will censor unlawful activity (and, hence, are not censorship free).
 
damicatz said:
We aren't talking about political discourse. We are talking about people using Reddit to commit criminal acts. The crackdown is because there was a group of Branch Trumpidians, who, after listening to the latest tin-pot verbal diarrhea from Alex Jones, decided to start a witch hunt against an innocent small business owner and then compounded their libel by then accusing the Reddit CEO of being a pedophile when Reddit shutdown the subreddit that was devoted to criminal harassment and doxxing of anyone the tin pots suspected of being involved in their nonsense conspiracy theory.
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The mainstream media's spin has been replaced by internet fabrication.

"Alt-right" is the politically correct term for white supremacists and you are watching radicalisation in action. Political correctness is downright dangerous when you refuse to call a spade a spade, now the resurgent white supremacy movement is bloating its numbers with people who don't fully understand what they're getting in to. Hatred of journalism is the most important part of building a truly authoritarian state.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Says the person who has on these forums defended every form of censorship and persecution of people who disagree with his political beliefs.
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Gaslighting. Provide one example. Just one.

Zion Halcyon said:
I'd normally agree with you, but the platform was founded on free speech and has legal protections allowing it - if they start censoring, they lose those protections and reddit can then be sued for content found on its site - actually, this already happened and they already lost that protection because their admin was editing other people's posts without their consent.
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And the admins themselves released a statement saying that was not the case. It's their site so I'm inclined to believe what they say over the people who say what they wanted it to be.

Zion Halcyon said:
Reddit is going to sued into oblivion in the next couple years. Ah well, time to move to Voat.co. Better platform if smaller, and they allow more honest discussion without censoring people of a particular viewpoint.
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Bye!
 
OEM said:
Look what I got from Reddit TODAY:

http://imgur.com/WYNMWpi
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If I sent you a message on here telling you to go kill yourself or whatever is the usual 'threatening, harassing' boilerplate statement of the week is, would you report it so Kyle could ban me?

The ability to use a service has never been a license to use it with impunity.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Better platform if smaller, and they allow more honest discussion without censoring people of a particular viewpoint.
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How do you feel about Kyle censoring and editing my words as a form of passing insults and attacking the user?

By his own rules he should be banned from the Soapbox.

By how people feel about spez 'trolling the trolls', he should step down as CEO/Admin from his own site.

The simple fact of the matter is that every single one of you complaining about reddit right now give a pass to anyone else you deem to be on your 'side' when they do the same things.

While I may be calling Kyle out for his infantile and hypocritical behaviour, I still acknowledge that this is his forum and he's free to act as immaturely as he wants to. Even to the detriment of his own reputation knowing that other people will see how he treats those with different opinions.
 
It seems people have a hard time articulating the problem here.

Reddit is a community which was essentially built on the very things it now seeks to regulate. People went to Reddit because they wanted to say mean shit, because they wanted to be abusive.

A change like this always signifies one of 2 things. Either the Reddit user base is aging and therefore becoming more tame, or the powers that be at Reddit are trying to grow it further into the mass market and need to clean it up to do so. If the reason is the former, then it should be fine for them. If the reason is the latter then they will probably see a mass exodus of users as they are alienating their core user base.
 
OEM said:
Absolutely not.

I DESPISE people that report posts. Man the fuck up and confront the person who offended you.
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I'm triggered. Cause I actually agree with you here. But unfortunately, I've been told too many times that I should report instead of responding to posts on here. So that ceases to be an option because certain people WILL report you when you confront them. It's a very Lord of the Flies sort of thing we've got going on here in this forum.
 
rat said:
While I may be calling Kyle out for his infantile and hypocritical behaviour, I still acknowledge that this is his forum and he's free to act as immaturely as he wants to. Even to the detriment of his own reputation knowing that other people will see how he treats those with different opinions.
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You guys give me a good laugh though. Juvenile, yep. Funny, yep. ;)
 
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