Reddit will not ban 'distasteful' content, chief executive says

Are you suggesting that "child pornography" and "sexually suggestive content featuring minors" is the bright line, and that anything on the privacy spectrum that doesn't cross that line should be defended? That's the implication I get from your comment, but I'm happy to be corrected.

  > You can't ban content just because it offends someone,
  > there wouldn't be much content left, if any. Is religion
  > distasteful? Violent images of war? Gay marriage?

In fact, Reddit already has rules against this sort of content. From their user agreement: "You further agree not to use any sexually suggestive language or to provide to or post on or through the Website any graphics, text, photographs, images, video, audio or other material that is sexually suggestive or appeals to a prurient interest."

So what the pressure is really about is Reddit ignoring their own rules to benefit one of their personal friends, and a small horde of terrible people defending this decision by pretending that teenage upskirts are free speech.

Do you just disagree that they're the same kind of information? Is that where the controversy is here?

This just doesn't make sense. Why is the poster (who has deliberately decided to participate in an online forum) entitled to privacy, but the subjects of these photos aren't?

(I'd go further, but I feel like that's a bright line we should all be able to agree on).

I do think a lot of the content that's been talked about is disgusting. I'm not disappointed that reddit is not taking a hard stance on the matter. They have decided to uphold a notion of free speech, but given that the site will be associated with this content in the mind of the general public I would rather not be part of it.

As I mentioned above in an EDIT, the problem with reddit is that reddit sees itself as a group of subreddits which are different communities; everyone else sees reddit as a single entity. So, I don't want to be associated with the single entity that's supporting this content that I find distasteful.

In my opinion people who support something like this, are in the same category as those who take up the forks and march against Google because of "certain" videos, that they feel offended by.

It is evidence of an absolutely intolerant, self-centered world view, that has in my view no place in a democratic society.

Right now we all have the same expectation of privacy - that is we have none if in public, and none if its a digitally distributed photo. That expectation does not shift based on one's age.

What if the non-consenting minor is Miley Cyrus? What if a compromising photo of police brutality has a kid in the background - can they force a take-down of my photo? Off the deep end, but I'm just pointing out that we are on a level playing field, and it's likely for the better.

We obviously make many concessions to our rights to protect children, but this is not one of them. E.g., as an adult male, I can't eat my sandwich in some NY parks unless I'm accompanied by a child. I just hope the children are grateful for my sacrifice ...

I do have substantial problems with the content of creepshots and jailbait, but I cannot divine a scheme to separate such content that wouldn't trample over other content I think is legitimate. In all the scenarios I've run in my head, the cure is always worse than the disease.

I can identify legitimate content that is not at all clearly separable from the contents of creepshots (less so jailbait), and this leads me to believe that not only would attempts to eradicate this sort of content lead to suppression of existing, legitimate expression, but also prevent the emergence of new, as of yet non-existent forms of legitimate expression.

That's all very vague and hand-wavy, so what follows will be some specifics. For the sake of clarity I'm going to assume you know nothing about photography as an art form - if you do, well, we'll be covering some familiar ground. I apologize if this is overly verbose or stream-of-consciousness, there's a lot of ground to cover:

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My other main thing outside of creating software is photography - particularly street photography, a genre with a long and colorful history, featuring some of the most well-known photographers of all time (Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliot Erwitt, Daido Moriyama, etc).

In a nutshell (and with some simplification), street photography is the candid capture of life as it happens. Feel free to Google any of the above names for an example of what I'm talking about.

It is wide celebrated, and may be the next-oldest form of photography after landscapes. Well known examples of street photography hang in the MoMA, Met, Louvre, and beyond. Most "mainstream" street photography is rather mild and inoffensive, but some of it is controversial in its content and the means by which it's obtained.

See for example Bruce Gilden, one of the most prolific contemporary street photographers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc1RrQXidlY

Many photographers despise his methodology, but the results are widely acknowledged to be very good. There is a never-ending ethical battle in the photographic community about the acceptability of it, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that this is legitimate expression.

There are some uncomfortable parallels between creepshots and street photography:

- The subject is frequently unaware. Candidness, after all.

- It is intentionally a (hopefully mild) breach of the subject's privacy. Someone's relaxing in a hammock, someone reading a book, two people conversing in a bar. Nothing that would constitute a legal breach of privacy, but perhaps a colloquial expectation of being unwatched while in public.

- Is is distributed widely mostly without the subject's consent or control. There are celebrated works hanging in the MoMA where the subjects are still unaware they've been photographed.

So, we can't use these criteria to filter creepshots-like content, or we wipe out 100 years of street photography (or be hypocrites), and even a large portion of paintings.

So what are the differences between street photography and creepshots-like content?

Deliberate sexualization of the subjects? Some street photography does this, particularly contemporary street that explores some of the more uncommon themes not seen in classical (pre-60s) street photography.

It's exploitative? Much of photography is also exploitative. See for example the famous Migrant Mother picture, an iconic image of the Great Depression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Owens_Thompson

The children in the image later were extremely offended at perceived exploitation of their image. They were after all, incapable of consenting to the picture - and even if they did they certainly had no say in how it has been displayed and distributed. So sexualization or not, exploitation is both subjective and a poor place to draw the line.

So we've sort of exhausted ourselves here: unaware subjects, breach of social mores re: privacy in public spaces, consent, sexualization of subject, and potential/existing exploitation - all of which are inappropriate places to draw the line as they will all ban substantial existing legitimate content. Not to mention as of yet non-existent content along these lines.

So at the core of it, there does not appear to be an objective measure by which we can identify and eliminate content of creepshots' nature, not without hugely overstepping and eliminating work that both art aficionados and lay appreciators have agreed to be hugely worthwhile and relevant.

The only workable scheme appears to be "we will know bad content when we see it", which I suppose has been Reddit's MO thus far: allow it until enough of a stink is raised, but in general I highly dislike moral stances based around "well, we'll just know". Soft descriptors like "pervy", "creepy", etc, are also unreliable - especially when amateur attempts at street photography frequently (and unintentionally) come across as such.

So yeah, that's why I don't advocate for the banning of this sort of content on Reddit, even though I strongly dislike it. If anything, I may dislike this content more than most, since it makes my future work as a street photographer harder - this is every attractive woman's suspicious nightmare come to life, and content like this means I will face an uphill battle in the future doing my thing.

Hopefully this rambling mess makes some kind of sense.

[edit] Also I have no other aliases on HN ;)

It can not be the task of a platform provider to conduct an in-depth investigation on who agreed or did not agree on a picture being taken. Otherwise you would need to include with every picture some form of a weaver were all persons displayed state their real age and consent to the picture.

Banning the article that doxxes the guy is following their rule. Banning all of Gawker is something very different. It's a way for reddit's moderators to punish Gawker for "contempt of reddit".

by not having any kind of release valve beyond a shit storm, they're bringing them on

Very concise, insightful way of putting it!

Would it? People created original content long before they could post it online with an expectation of anonymity. There are a lot of people who use their real life identities online. Just as I am, right now.