I was actually very disappointed when Reddit banned r/WatchPeopleDie. Sure, there were some idiots there - there always are, insensitive comments sometimes, and a lot of gallows humour - sometimes literally. But there were thoughtful comments as well, and the content itself could be... well, educational, in a brutal kind of way. I visited occasionally as a kind of memento mori, and I feel like gained a lot of appreciation for the fragility of life from that sub - as well as a very healthy respect for safety around industrial machinery, and a resolve to never again ride a motor scooter in South East Asia.

Sweeping it away - sure, they likely made their lives easier. But what's the real outcome? The real freaks who get off on that stuff will go off to some horrible other site to ferment and radicalize away from the normalising influence of the more well-adjusted participants there, and regular people, who just might have been curious, have been deprived of whatever insights they might have found. I think it's a real shame.

And for what it's worth, I don't think The_Donald should be banned either. People have a right to speak, and we can ignore them if we want - or we can at least try to engage. I don't buy the "private company, they can do what they want!" argument. The age of the internet has introduced powerful network effects into where we can conduct our public discourse with any efficacy - Reddit is huge and there's no real competitor. It's basically a monopoly, in its niche. "Deplatforming" whole groups because of their political views, however nutty, is a very slippery slope. Unless you also support speech you don't like - you don't really support free speech!