It's a dangerous trend for both society and reddit itself.
Here's a lot of users talking about how it happened to /r/canada
https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/7z1wap/forg...
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7z706y/whats_...
My suspicion is that whatever entity is behind massive twitter troll farms of far-right content (as well as inflammatory far-left content) is also doing everything it can to stir the shitpot over at reddit. /r/conspiracy is another one "lost" to the far-right. I even catch whiffs of it in the bay area subreddits sometimes.
I'd say the same for /r/shitredditsays but for the far-left, except it's been that way for as long as I can remember (LONG before any of the bot farm stuff).
Wouldn't squashing the voices of the "right-wing contingent" just lead to an (already implied) echo chamber of leftist thought?
Your one single comment sums up the problem I have with user-moderation systems like reddit (and HN).
That implies it's only possible to be "right-wing" or "leftist".
The biggest change I've noticed is just how political the city/country subreddits have become. A few years ago, they used to be more fun places but now nearly all the content is very hateful and polarizing.
That's entirely different from people that are explicitly not trying to be neutral and are trying to promote a specific political ideology. I expect that majority of moderators on Reddit are not trying to promote anything. However there is definitely a growing contingent that don't want neutrality and they are taking over.
Or at the very least only ban something when the authorities literally force you to do so.
In theory, everyone has equal ability to share their opinions and all have equal weight. In reality, you have a lot less influence than someone willing to post 24/7 everywhere they can. The quickest way to drive away reasonable people is to do nothing.
I don't think this is a reddit thing - it's a societal thing.
Other platforms are also getting far more acerbic in general. City council meetings, local news, etc. It seems the country is in a period of time where politics is both forefront and rather contentious.
I feel the stuff on-line is simply reflecting the greater societal trends - jut with the typical amplification everything on-line breeds.
A baseline rule prohibiting threatening violence, most people agree with, but apparently it is a controversial attack on free speech if a private website wants to moderate the use of its platform to promote hatred against people based on the color of their skin.
And banning racism is being held as an example of liberal bias! Amazing.
If you don't think that is a problem then... well, I can't help you.
Furthermore, it is the internet - I've never been convinced by any argument that HN or reddit or even facebook has any obligation to give "fair time" to far-right nationalism. For as long as Fox News exists and promotes itself as an actual news agency (HAH!), I don't think community-generated content websites need to bother.
Why doesn't the far-right just "pull itself up by its boostraps" and make a reddit for the far-right? (sidenote, sometimes this does happen, and it almost always is full of the most comically hateful people: see voat)
I'd feel much better if reddit and twitter were even handed with their condemnation of comically hateful people. As someone on the Left, what I've seen is that Left-leaning media bias tends to give indirect license to the most extreme authoritarian and even toxic fringes of the Left. It also fuels a reaction from the far Right.
For as long as Fox News exists and promotes itself as an actual news agency (HAH!)
The mechanism I cite above has been in operation at Fox, just in the other direction.
Umm, why would they do that when they can instead use reddit?
Reddit sells itself as being a strong supporter of free speech. THEY SELF-identify as being a neutral platform.
If the censorship supporters want to interact in a censored forum, then they can make their own subreddit and moderate it how ever they feel like, or make their own website.
The right doesn't need to do anything, because reddit wants to be neutral.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is. For example, lots of lefty subs have banished "Tankies", communists who think Stalin did nothing wrong, from their communities.
Ultimately, neither a fascist nor communist can oppose such a purge/restriction without being a hypocrite. Such actions are well within either group's ideological wheelhouse and therefore they should stop complaining.