If they enforced the rules consistently then by that logic I could get any subreddit closed down by asking for things that are against the rules.
I created a music sub 3 years ago on Reddit, ran it for about a year and a half when I made one cross post to a relevant subreddit and got permanently banned with no explanation and no due process. Reddit still has the sub up with all of my (custom) content and comments. My sub was orphaned right when it was picking up steam. I decided to simply build out my own site for posts after that point, IG, TikTok, FaceBook etc, are all operating in the same monopolistic ways with content now.
Honestly, I think reddit was started as a crowd sourcing test that was really meant to build the platform's notoriety, and once it grew in dominance, they simply ditched the independent creators in order to run their own profit and IPO up.
I also think this is why reddit forces most people away from using links to external sites like YouTube, because they want all the traffic on their own site.
By uploading video and images to reddit's CDN, you have no idea of the amount of times items are being used. Tons of content is literally ripped off YouTube and TikTok and then re-hosted on Reddit's CDN and that leads to lower views for the original creators of the content. It's really corporate piracy that preys upon small creators. One day there may be a class action lawsuit, but I doubt it will result in anything fair for the lost time and damage done to content creators.
My point is they only ban the ones that don’t fit their narrative or their political views and they know they can get away with.
What evidence do you have for this accusation?
It may come across that way to you, but black people talking about their actual experiences caused by non-black people in a way that makes a non-black uncomfortable does not mean it’s bigoted.
And even ignoring that, Reddit would never allow the reverse to happen.
Around that time, many if not all of the threads ended up being closed due to the the dramatic arguments that formed when users posted political/racial commentary to the sub; which is to be expected. I believe the real problem was when comments from users who portrayed themselves as POC felt their voices were less pronounced due to the downvotes and negative replies. Understandable
So they decided to lock the sub down for anyone except those who accepts a segregated bubble and willingness to prove their "blackness" in order to post an opinion
Each sub has a wildly different number of posts, moderation results, reporting of violations, and moderation response times. Unless there is clear evidence of intent making the claim that Reddit makes decisions based on political bias is wrong
Laws don't decide things anymore, outrage PR + a potential/real wave of lawsuits do.
If you think about it, that doesn't seem too bad until you realize a lot of of the negative PR is manufactured by only taking part of the story and using it out of context. Sometimes even approaching propaganda or conspiracies.
The few that got closed regularly went out of their way to brigade other subs. But the rest of them is happily flourishing there.
Some subs do get brigaded by users intentionally posting content that violates reddit TOS. The same happens on Discord. Some are trolls, others are intentionally malicious so they can report things. If you have an inactive mod team in either community, yeah your sub will go poof.
Or Reddit employees.
Reddit closes subreddits for lack of active moderation all the time.
I see all sorts of thinly veiled calls for violence on political subreddits, and even on seemingly mundane ones like r/Texas whenever Ted Cruz comes up. Apparently, calls to get out the guillotine are highly contextual.
In my experience r/politics is the most biased and lopsided major subreddit on the entire platform. People criticize r/conservative but I genuinely do not see the same level of wanton hyperbole, demonization of the other side, and calls for revolution in r/conservative that I routinely see in the comments of major posts from r/politics.
Perhaps 80% of r/conservative threads can only be commented on by flaired users. Certainly all the threads one would actually want to contribute to at any rate. How do you get a flair? You have to post conservative-sounding things elsewhere or in the non-flair-only threads. Only once you've established that you're not going to deviate from the groupthink will you be allowed to participate in the community.
Conversely, r/politics is a free-for-all. Granted, there is clear downvote brigading on alternative opinions but they do not get taken down ever. HN is going to read your "intentionally one-sided" quip and not understand how correct you truly are.
So /r/politics is much better because instead of taking down "alternative opinions" they just downvote it? I am not convinced. Effectively downvoting alternative opinions not only effectively makes them completely hidden from view for most users (under a "this comment has too many downvotes" barrier), but the users who do stumble upon those massively downvoted "alternative opinion" comments will get a nice dopamine rush from seeing their own opinions further re-enforced because the downvotes must mean this opinion is wrong.
Both are insidious and both behaviors massively contribute to group think bubbles. I don't think the pattern of behavior of one is massively better and more healthy than the other.
Better than moderators doing it. Post something that deviates from what the moderators of r/conservative consider acceptable conservatism and they just ban you. If the community legitimately downvotes you, then at least you're facing garden variety groupthink instead of "my way or the highway" of a couple mods enforcing what is acceptable discussion.
This is a pattern. Trump, at his coyly named "Truth Social" bans more people than Twitter ever did. And not for violent threats, either, but for simply disagreeing with his narrative.
1. Cheering the liberal tears that must surely ensue, as 5th graders are taught how to shoot guns in class.
2. Fabricated Biden attack. Just, invented, like as if it was a funny thing to do, or as if there isn't real stuff to criticise him on.
3, 4. Pictures of tweets from Republicans, both blaming Biden/Dems for systemic issues (problems caused and maintained by both sides).
5. Outrage that Sunday morning shows aren't talking about the man on serious meds, who called Emergency Services saying he was going to kill Kavanaugh (for trying to loosen gun control regulations).
... Fucking. Crazy. That's not politics, it's not discussion; it's mental assault on morons. And you are not allowed to post or comment there without affirming your conservatism.
If they are I haven’t seen it.
Plenty of subs out there with zero moderation… sadly.
They’ve typically been quite happy to let quite toxic and otherwise rule breaking subreddits to exist so long as they don’t cause (too many) problems.
For what its worth i used the term proxy for a decade almost exclusively to mean a cheap paper copy of a magic card (or even just writing the word on a sheet of paper and sticking it in a sleeve over a land) and I find this restriction wrong-headed.
Courts struggle with it too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhWCk2f2alI
Smaller sites like HN do better compared to twitter or reddit, because it's easier. But ultimately it all depends on what kind of communities the company wants to nurture.
While it would be nice if social media companies actually said the truth about moderation rather than pretending there's some content neutral principals they're applying, I also think a lot of people would be better off if they accept that social media is what it is, and move on if they don't like it.
This behavior has been occurring on Reddit for years, Social media companies also work hard to suppress dissent and complaints from public view... It's really creating the ideal that hostile, anti-competitive, and abusive behavior towards user bases is the new norm... Especially when they are paying most users to contribute, it creates a grim future for social media overall.
It's just far better to create a web site and pour that effort and time into it instead of working in an abusive and exclusionary community like that.
No, because the rules specifically mention soliciting. As far as I can tell, the only other time this is mentioned is for "soliciting or facilitating illegal or prohibited transactions".
They just change the rules as needed. Look at /r/blackpeopletwitter, they have a rule that you can only post in "country club threads" if you have sent a picture of your skin color in to the mods to verify you aren't white, since they don't want white people posting in there.
When people pointed out the obvious hypocrisy of Reddit endorsing racial discrimination by one of its largest subs, they just re-wrote the rules to make it kosher.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/us/reddit-race-black-peop...
Didn’t work.
Another “politically oriented sub” had users who got pissed that they were banned for spamming a sub that I frequented.
They made new accounts (they did that a lot…) and posted a couple normal posts in our sub and then again spammed but this time pretending to be organizing a brigade vs … their sub.
Admins didn’t act when they complained because it was all pretty obvious and we moderated the brigade posts.
In my experience it’s not just “hey there are a few posts” that triggers these kinds of actions.
Okay, but this goes back to the condition:
> If they enforced the rules consistently
Which reddit does not - and you are right:
> it’s not just “hey there are a few posts” that triggers these kinds of actions.
There is an agenda, and then motivated reasoning to find justification for the agenda.
That’s just common sense.
Pretty sure that's how every subreddit that's ever been banned got banned.