> due to the nature of the censorship on reddit ... there seems to be no concept of being anti-censorship in and of itself
I have spent very little time on reddit, so I'm unfamiliar with what form censorship takes there. That said, viewing Twitter and HN, I wonder if this doesn't have more to do with people pulling tangential topics into discussions. It takes effort to pare down an idea, separating it from others that may be logically related or associated with some bundled collection of ideas.
Also, while two people may share a belief, they may not rank the belief equally among all of the others they hold. Alice and Bob may both think free speech is important, but it's really important to Alice. It's more likely that Alice will want to talk about it than Bob. So perhaps people who end up discussing free speech/anti-censorship issues also tend to share similar rankings of other shared values. That could explain why people discussing free speech tend tend to share other beliefs as well. They hold similar beliefs and similar belief rankings.
I have nothing to back that up :) But it sounds reasonable. Anyone need a research topic?
What do you think? Is there something more going on in reddit's case?