Ellen Pao Responds to Reddit
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Then they quarantined it for being anti-police.
Then they tried to replace it's moderators with their own handpicked ones.
The old mods decided to lock it down so no one can post. It's been like that for a few months. It's a shell that points people to a reddit clone specfically for the_donald style posts.
What more do people want?
It's incredibly cynical to now come out against internet bigotry after being one of the premier destinations hosting it for the past few years.
freedom of speech just means the government can't create laws to censor you. free speech is not free from repercussions and it's also not guaranteed by private companies.
No, it absolutely doesn't. You're confusing Freedom of Speech with the 1st Amendment, which is a single instantiation of the value of Freedom of Speech.
Also Freedom of Speech is nothing if it is not somehow enshrined in law. There is no universal freedom of speech, like gravity or the speed of light. Freedom of Speech is whatever is detailed in law, so the 1st Amendment is probably the best example of it however. It allows hate speech (if you dont call for violence), because you can be free to express your opinions without the government shutting you down or arresting you. But that protection does not mean others cannot avoid you or withdraw services from you if they diagree with you.
I now think this is an incorrect view. Freedom of Speech is a societal value, and yes, the First Amendment is where the U.S. holds its governments to the standard. But if it is a value first, before it is a law, then we really ought to expect more from what is rapidly becoming our primary form of discourse.
We should value Freedom of Speech wherever speech occurs. I'd argue that these days, especially in a pandemic, the majority of our ideas get exchanged over the internet, in forums, on Facebook, on Twitter, and not in the public square or in newspapers. Holding that Free Speech is required for a free society, requires that we should expect its protection even when the venue changes.
The government must not censor. But we ought to hold private companies who monetize public discourse to the standards we value. Whether those requirements, those values, require laws applicable to these new venues is separate debate, and definitely worth having.
We really ought to require that these companies should not silence or censor someone speaking their mind.
All of that said, there is no right to be heard.
Yes? Freedom of speech doesn't need to be there for popular ideas.
It's a good question, because from what I recall The_Donald actually gamed Reddit by itself by using stickied posts to drop a "reverse-anchor" to the tops of r/all and r/popular... I wanna say every day, or perhaps multiple times a day. They used Reddit's own system better than almost any other sub, and I don't think Reddit actively promoted T_D, ever.
But of course by the time Reddit could stifle T_D sufficiently without damaging other subs, the boom was pretty much over.
> How exactly did Reddit "amplify" r/the_donald?
It's also worth mentioning, at least, the conspiracy theory that Reddit is proactively censoring sinophobic speech on it's platform. But, I don't know if that's been proven for certain.
Or maybe it was simply Poe's law: some of us thought it was satire when it wasn't, and some of us thought it was Trump support when it wasn't.