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Comment by ytq11 | Hacker News Reader

I recently retired (before this drama) a 12-year-old Reddit account with close to a million combined karma. This line, that individual subreddits defy any concept of Reddit identity, needs to stop. The overlaps between moderator groups and users, as well as the impact to ALL subreddits from decisions by the administrators, mean it is completely fair game to talk about Reddit as a singular entity.

The notion that individual subreddits mean Reddit Is What You Make of It is useful only to distract just like you’re (unintentionally) doing here. It helps deflect some of these situations by having folks who unsub all defaults saying “looks great here!”

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"This line, that individual subreddits defy any concept of Reddit identity, needs to stop"

I can only speak to what I experience and I can't pretend my experience is something it's not. If that is unintentionally distracting from some greater purpose, too bad I guess. I'm not about to get on board with a perspective I have not experienced and do not understand.

I mean, that’s fine, but that exact sentiment is trotted out every time anything critical about Reddit comes up. “Having a bad time on Reddit? You must be subbed to the wrong places” and/or “I’ve not noticed anything on my carefully curated sub list” means it’s much harder to have a realistic discussion about the actual, sitewide problems like hiring someone uncomfortably close to realized pedophilia on a site chock full of young children (believe it or not).

I used to say the same thing you have here to say pretty much the same thing about Reddit. That’s why I cited my experience in response, as you say you’re sharing yours, to point out that beyond what you’ve experienced there’s some nuance you may not have considered (and learning it was valuable to me).

> I'm not about to get on board with a perspective I have not experienced and do not understand.

That's one of the foundational causes to all the violence and ignorance in the world if we say "get on board" means "can tolerant and respect"

I think it's less about policing and more about the size/content of the subreddit. I check a few sports subreddits and some about fantasy books. I would never notice all this drama if it weren't on HN, because those subreddits are focused enough on a particular subject to avoid getting caught up in meta-reddit drama / politics / controversy.

Being unaware of something is orthogonal to being affected by it. I was similar to you - mostly non-defaults, which made me miss how bad the larger site had become over time. It’s easy to overlook.

I don't think that's correct. Certainly you're less likely to be aware of something if you aren't affected by it. I think maybe we programmers just overuse the word orthogonal.

But regardless, as concerning as these policing decisions are, it's not clear how any of this stuff affects a reader of only apolitical, non-default subreddits.

I’m not a programmer. I’m a statistician. I think your observation about orthogonality is correct from your industry’s perspective, though I’ve used it correctly from the context of mine (meaning statistically independent, or uncorrelated, variables). And I disagree that awareness is correlated to personal impact when it comes to sociocultural concepts like racism, or sexism, or the dynamics and behavior of an online community.

I appreciate the attempted correction despite it being wrong.

Edit: Sigh, HN being HN. I’m rate limited and can’t respond to persistent, sustained miscorrection over a single word choice in a much broader point, because I spent all my thought tokens defending the word choice, which matters approximately zero, instead of the point.

You said:

  Being unaware of something is orthogonal to being affected by it.

You truly believe that being aware of something and being affected my that same thing are independent and uncorrelated? So if a bomb goes off, my awareness of it is not at all dependent on, or correlated with, whether or not I was in the blast zone (and thus affected by it)?

Edit: The parent has edited their comment since my reply to be more specific. I'm not sure I agree, but it's now not as obviously wrong as I outlined here.

The parent is not a very good statistician, is what I got from this exchange.

the policy decisions of admins that affect the overarching site are not to be discounted of course, but other than a few 'common' connected areas that are heavily frequented and interconnected by either content or more significantly shared users, the site is basically a giant platform for hosting community forums. You can set up your subreddit for whatever topic/niche and exist in those. There's no reason to see /r/all or anything of the major things if you're hanging out in the your followed subs - you are basically silo'd from any of this drama, roving outrage etc. It's just a large site hosting a bunch of discussion boards. The other use being 'on the pulse' of new link sharing and topics because of sheer number of users surfacing up new content. Which is what Digg was until the exodus (that was mainly about a revolt against a redesign, which threw Reddit, an almost dead site at the time, a huge bone and set us on a course to today)

Same. I left after The_Donald ban. Like Donald Trump or hate him, his supporters have a right to speak.

They don't have a right to a megaphone, though.

I'm sorry -- are Trump supporters not able to speak any more? To my knowledge that is not at all the case. There's even one subreddit dedicated to asking Trump supporters questions, although posts have to be approved by the moderators.

> I'm sorry -- are Trump supporters not able to speak any more?

The subreddit was banned, Donald Trump was banned from Twitter, a very popular conservative social media platform was kicked off of its hosting providers, etc. Regardless of your political views, it is abundantly clear that certain viewpoints and opinions are being suppressed, which is fundamentally contradictory to free speech and American values.

One subreddit was shut down. There are many other subreddits with pro-Trump users -- I visit them when I'm bored.

Donald Trump is a billionaire and a former president. He can and does call into Fox News, et. al and immediately has an audience of millions. The idea that his speech is being suppressed is absolutely ridiculous .

Why exactly should private entities be forced to host content that they choose not to host?

> Why exactly should private entities be forced to host content that they choose not to host?

Where did you get that idea? No one is forcing a provider to host content they do not wish to host, and my comment made no mention of such a thing.

Regardless, that's completely orthogonal to the fact that certain view points are being suppressed. How do you consider such an assertion to be ridiculous? Do you consider something suppressed only when all mentions, everywhere, of a particular topic, are erased? I don't think you do. Just because those opinions have not been _fully_ suppressed does not mean they _are_ being suppressed, as indicated by examples such as the bans and erasures previously mentioned.

> Where did you get that idea? No one is forcing a provider to host content they do not wish to host, and my comment made no mention of such a thing.

You previously said:

> a very popular conservative social media platform was kicked off of its hosting providers, etc

The hosting provider kicked off the social media platform. They didn't want to host that platform. Nor should they be forced to host it. What's more, your whole point seems to be that because Donald Trump has been banned from some platforms, that his speech is being suppressed. But those platforms, which are private entities, are choosing not to allow him to post on their platforms. So you seem to be complaining about private entities choosing what and what not to host on their platforms.

And the bigger point, Donald Trump is free to go out into the public square and voice whatever viewpoint he has. Some networks, social media companies, etc. will cover it (in fact, a lot of them will). No one is stopping him from doing this. Just because he can't tweet it doesn't mean his speech is being suppressed.

> which is fundamentally contradictory to free speech and American values

Freedom of association is a deeply American concept. Within certain parameters, I can ban anyone I want from my business.

The problem here is that certain entitled people feel entitled to use other peoples' property as their own.

Also... just noting that many of those same users went on to do arguably the most unAmerican thing in American history - they attempted to end it.

You can spit and puff all you like, but I won't be listening to a word you have to say about who is and isn't acting in the American tradition.

Political activity retaliation is a bit different from standard freedom of association concerns. You can plug your ears and go “not listening,” but there’s a real debate to be had about where it fits in the spirit of our country.

> I'm sorry -- are Trump supporters not able to speak any more?

Try it. You'll be censored, down voted (real votes or not), shadow banned and actually banned.

> To my knowledge that is not at all the case. There's even one subreddit dedicated to asking Trump supporters questions, although posts have to be approved by the moderators.

I doubt there are any left given that they can't post anywhere.

I was gobsmacked that The_Donald was banned because some users 'threatened police officers' and then a slew of ACAB and anti-police subreddits faced no repercussions during the summer riots. I shouldn't really be that shocked though, it was well known that the admins and site moderators wanted The_Donald banned for quite a long time.

I shouldn't be shocked people are trying to rewrite such recent history, but it still feels weird when most people here were there watching it happen. Reddit not only bent over backwards to try and keep TD up, they went to lengths they definitely don't go to when they ban other subs. TD stayed up past numerous warnings. They even tried direct intervention to get the mods to do their work.

"It is well known the admins wanted TD banned" is a direct lie. I doubt you have better insight than anyone else about what was going on inside Reddit.

They have a right to speak, they don't have a right to dox people, threaten people, break site rules, etc. Remember when they tried to frame a Clinton supporter for a school shooting? They're not good people.

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