Reddit bans 2000 communities including The_Donald | Hacker News Reader

Reddit bans 2000 communities including The_Donald

reddit.com

47 pointssubroutine65 comments

Earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679425

it was quickly flagged out of the front page

It's the same topic but a different article. The reddit anouncement is the official source and it's not paywalled so this submission still has some value in my opinion.

I've never heard of Chapo Trap House before, apparently it's a "dirtbag left" podcast:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapo_Trap_House

Am I being too cynical to assume it was singled out in the comms so Reddit can pretend to be fair and balanced, when the actual target was r/The_Donald?

It could well be the other way around. Progressive activists hate the hard-hitting 'dirtbag' left, they see it as a dangerous threat to their own worldview.

BTW, discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679425

Not so much a threat to the progressive worldview, but a threat to progressive politics having a positive impact. From what I understand, the 'dirtbag left' consider themselves the gatekeepers of progressive politics, and do a good job of alienating as many other people as possible. The Trumpists of the left, sounds like a reasonable description.

Some argue they were a big part of the reason why Bernie's campaign was unable to find much traction outside his core. Of course they blame it on others, even calling other progressives, like Elizabeth Warren, traitors.

I'm really conflicted on this. On one hand I wish we could improve civic discourse and dialogue and combat tribalism in politics but on the other I recognize that one of the factors that seems to have led to the rise of the alt-right is that the left just vacated a space that appeals to a large group of people - impolite, combative and (sometimes) witty. When I was growing up it was natural for rebellious, cynical young people to be drawn to this kind of politics. That hasn't changed but now it seems to alarmingly be the primary recruiting tool for a particular brand of regressive politics.

I understand these two impulses are probably in direct opposition. I can't want both but I also fear what will happen if we lose a chunk of an entire generation to the far right.

Obama made the best warning/observation (better than any during his presidency imho) it turned into a circular firing squad.

Impolite, combative and witty is fine, and there's plenty of that among progressives. It's the step towards destructive and burning all bridges, that I don't like. I also believe in democracy, and want a society that works for everybody, and not just a small in-crowd. Maybe it's because I'm not as young as I was in my punk days. But it's also that I care more about results than about ideological purity. Compromises are unavoidable. Nobody can have exactly everything they want, because you're not the only person in the world, and we've got to do this together.

Agree. I've noticed that the word "centrist" seems to have been irreparably tainted to mean something like "crypto-conservative" and seems to be a target of bile more than being, you know, an actual conservative. (Good old Judean People's Front behaviour from the left as always).

But I wish it could be reclaimed to mean "willing to compromise to move forward" and "doesn't regard anyone who disagrees with him as either a crook or an imbecile".

I regularly check the comment history of reddit users when I come across a particularly egregious trolling comment on subreddits like /r/news and /r/politics. Users who frequented /r/ChapoTrapHouse are a real problem, and lately I'd been seeing that subreddit in people's comment history more often than /r/The_Donald (which had withered considerably from its peak). This isn't a case of Reddit simply picking an obscure target for the sake of "balance"; they were going after a real problem.

With the subreddit(s) gone there will be no comment history. You've now lost signal, some added context. We all have.

The subreddit(s) isn't the problem. It's a symptom. Extremists feed on marginalization. It's a rallying cry.

Reddit has served its community. Fair enough. But it's ultimately a balloon grab. There will be unintended consequences. Further marginalizing the frustrated won't stop those feelings.

CTH is basically the radical left version of TD. They're hateful and toxic. I've been told I should be murdered for not supporting m4a for example- and I'm a Democrat! That's not the language reasonable people use when discussing opposing views. Good riddance.

"I've been told I should be murdered for not supporting m4a for example"

Crazy. You'd have thought the hard left would prefer ogg.

For other people that did some googling and couldn't immediately find it, m4a stands for medicare for all. (took me longer than it should have to find that...)

> While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.

Some are more equal than others.

The left is currently redefining racism. Hate against Whites is defined as not being racist. And being White is means that you are always racist. I wish, I was kidding.

Sad that this truth has been downvoted.

Better only being downvoted than being Canceled, like so many others are for daring to question the new "truths".

So many people's economic and social lives have already been destroyed.

The silent majority needs to be able to stand up to the authoritarian and vocal minority. The problem is that you can loose your job over questioning them.

You are correct. I found this video quite enlightening, particularly the part starting at 5:58: https://youtu.be/zT_0SULHCJI

The SJW-left is indeed redefining the word 'racism' to fit their own power-based view of the world.

Clearly a false equivalency.

"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread"

That sounds as if you're dismissing the seriousness of anti-white racism.

I think you're wrong to do so. For example, 1036 people were victims of anti-white hate crimes in 2018. There were more anti-white hate crimes than anti-Asian, anti-Hispanic, or anti-native hate crimes.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2018/topic-pages/victims

I am dismissing equating protecting vulnerable minorities with the allegory of George Orwell's Animal farm, where the ruling class was enshrining privileges for itself.

Yes, the "ruling class" of social media is enshrining their privilege to say nasty things about white men and women.

Banning "hate speech" would be less disturbing if it were done fairly, but so much of the content on reddit is hate speech that I'm sure that won't happen.

By adding the caveat "the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority", reddit admits that anti-white racism is a problem on their site, and says they've decided to allow it.

Allowing white hate isn't "protecting vulnerable minorities," it's spreading hate.

It'll bite them in the ass when the trolls start posting white racist content.

In the US 51% percent of the population are women, so the rule protects men but not women.

Reddit's not just banning the subreddits, it's banning mentions of the websites where these communities are moving.

Reddit does not want to host these groups anymore. But it doesn't want them to organize and find another host.

It's a lot of power for a free forum hoster.

Interesting. I do know about thedonald.win - any news about the ChapoTrapHouse community?

r/CTH wasn’t run by the hosts, if anything the CTH community exists on twitter

The chapo crew met on twitter so that is where their main community is, the relationship with /r/cth was never great I think.

Chapo members Will Menaker (@willmenaker) and Matt Christman (@cushbomb) seem to be glad it is gone.

- https://twitter.com/cushbomb/status/1277649588019699716

- https://twitter.com/willmenaker/status/1277649915041153025

Source for this claim?

Smart people already countered those idiots by establishing the place where to meet up in case sth like that happens beforehead.

I dread the day when they actually go for 4chan. While it's being heavily attacked especially in recent weeks, it's still by far the bigest place to get neutral information and discussion.

Just after I read about [Lemmy] on [hn post], and kinda moved to it.

[Lemmy]: https://dev.lemmy.ml

[hn post]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23664067

One of the values I believe in the most is the right to free speech.

Free speech is a powerful thing, which means it can be used for good and for bad. Sometimes what appears to us today as bad can actually turn out to be good in the future.

The general rule of free speech is that it does not permit threats of violence or obvious incitement to violence.

Hate speech, on the other hand, is MUCH more subjective. What may appear to me to be a well-reasoned argument may to you appear to be hate speech.

With these complex issues in mind, I'd say that unless the groups that Reddit banned were advocating or threatening violence, banning them was counter-productive and hurtful to having an open and free discourse on the internet.

Of course, there is the go-to argument that Reddit is a private company, and as such they can do whatever they like, but because they provide a public service that is used by billions of people, they have an obligation to uphold the values and laws of our society - most notably the first amendment - which protects free speech.

You speak as if there is an objective definition of "threats of violence or obvious incitement to violence" but I've seen people argue that as no less subjective (and therefore no less a slippery slope) as defining hate speech.

I think there is a much more objective definition of "threats of violence or obvious incitement to violence" than there is for hate speech.

Some people could interpret a sentence like: "I don't like the taste of curry" to be hate speech, since it targets the ethnic food of a difference race. (For the record, I love curry...)

So yes, banning "hate speech" that does not threaten violence is a slippery slope, because it is simply too open to interpretation.

A "much more objective" definition is still subjective. Some people consider the fourteen words "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" to be a threat of violence, others consider it to simply a neutral statement. Some people consider wearing MAGA hats to be a threat of violence, others simply a form of patriotism. Was Trump making a racist, violent threat when he said "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," or just prosaically supporting law and order?

If it can be argued that one can apply a test of reasonableness as to whether or not a statement constitutes a threat of violence, then it should be the case such a test can be applied to hate speech. There's a risk of abuse involved in both cases, yes, but there is always a risk where the interpretation of language for political ends is involved.

No. If everything is subjective, then we must err on the side of being permissive, not restrictive, because if we choose restrictive, then everything is a threat of violence and illegal, and what you just said above is against the law and you need to go to jail for it (it isn't, and you don't - I'm just trying to illustrate a point).

Here's why you're wrong about your approach: if everything is subjective and the answer to everything is repression, then the law is no longer valid, and the only possible outcome is civil war.

If you do not want bloody, horrific, monstrous civil war with giant swarths of the population who don't agree with you, then you should err on the side of being permissive of questionable speech.

As you've seen from the mass riots recently in the USA, a massive violent response is only a single sensationalist news story away.

We need to support and encourage free speech.

> if everything is subjective and the answer to everything is repression, then the law is no longer valid, and the only possible outcome is civil war.

We already live in a world in which limits on speech exist, including the limit against threats of violence being discussed. We also already live in a world in which every law besides the laws of physics is subjective and open to interpretation.

If it is the case that subjective reality must render law invalid, then the law is and has always been invalid. Given that the law does not appear to be invalid, and civilization appears to remain intact, it cannot be stated as a certainty that the existence of laws themselves (restrictions) in a subjective reality must inevitably lead to anarchy.

Your error is the fallacy of the excluded middle, assuming the only possible paths to take here are towards unrestricted free speech or arbitrary repression.

>If you do not want bloody, horrific, monstrous civil war with giant swarths of the population who don't agree with you, then you should err on the side of being permissive of questionable speech.

Arguments of the type "x or blood will be on your hands" appear more extortionate than appealing to reason. I don't believe that Reddit banning these communities will lead to that outcome, and if you consider that a likely possibility, maybe you should reexamine your assumptions.

>As you've seen from the mass riots recently in the USA, a massive violent response is only a single sensationalist news story away.

There was a lot more behind that then a single sensationalist news story.

Suppose they'll move to voat.co now, a lot of the too extreme for the_donald had moved there already.

>Alongside the change to the content policy, we are initially banning about 2000 subreddits, the vast majority of which are inactive. Of these communities, about 200 have more than 10 daily users. Both r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse were included.

We’re a long way from the halcyon days of Usenet. Couldn’t have imagined in the 1980s the embrace of censorship by the tech world. It almost makes me physically ill.

This is just another small piece in the big puzzle of social changes that are currently happening. The "Big Nap" is over. And it won't be fun.

I am ok with Reddit choosing what content is publicly available on their platform. It should go without saying Reddit should also be responsible for the content it chooses to serve.

If anything it's unfair competition against traditional media which doesn't enjoy "platform" protections.

"Communities and people that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.

[...]

While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate."

So as long as you hate or incite violence towards whatever groups Reddit define as "in the majority", you are welcome? Mind blowing...

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