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Comment by eli_gottlieb | Hacker News Reader

Complete bullshit. Reddit's /r/news, /r/politics, and /r/worldnews (which are default subreddits focused on politics) are regularly raided by Stormfront. Just this week the Reddit administrators finally got it into their heads to ban /r/niggers, which had functioned as "Stormfront on Reddit". This won't accomplish much, since subreddits like /r/WhiteRights or /r/newright remain alive and serve much the same purpose.

And that's just the neo-Nazis. /r/anarchism got quite nasty too, at one point, and God only knows what end of the spectrum /r/conspiracy are on.

And that's just the open extremist hate groups and subreddits that raid others on Reddit.

Just today I ran into a DailyKos thread from 2010 debating whether or not to ban reference to some blog on grounds that its text was indistinguishable to the already-banned Stormfront.

The internet is not nearly as censored a place once you get away from Facebook and CNN.

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The fact that you are so hostile to these politically incorrect subreddits and blanketly label them all as "Stormfront" makes it clear that you are not in a position of rationality.

None of those groups ever "raided" anyone, unless you define it as linking from one subreddit to another. None of them ever encouraged downvoting, or even participation (although you can't expect them to not participate at all).

Some -- or at least one -- of the Reddit admins is a participant of the SRS (Shit Reddit Says) community which is notorious for being #1 for "brigading" other subs and massively downvoting anything and everything they disagree with. They have never even been considered for a ban to my knowledge, even though they sometimes discuss things like killing men.

It's fine for Reddit to make a decision to ban a subreddit because it might garner some bad press. However, it is ironic that Reddit call, or even consider itself a bastion free speech. They have banned other politically incorrect subreddits before (jailbait).

If you look at the rules which offending subreddits supposedly violated, you'll see that they are really just a tool for Reddit admins to selectively ban whomever they want.

"..regularly raided by Stormfront" -- I actually laughed out loud at this. Please, grow up.

They have banned other politically incorrect subreddits before (jailbait).

You understand that /r/jailbait wasn't banned for being 'politically incorrect', right?

Sure it was. While being more abhorrent to most people's moral sensibilities than the hard drug forums, the activity going on there was no more or less illegal.

Child porn and hard drugs are both illegal.

> It's fine for Reddit to make a decision to ban a subreddit because it might garner some bad press. However, it is ironic that Reddit call, or even consider itself a bastion free speech. They have banned other politically incorrect subreddits before (jailbait).

A lot of people saw this coming when jailbait was banned. As abhorrent as it was, they were the tip of the iceberg in the Great Purification of Reddit. Once that door is open, the admins at Reddit HQ have to meet and defend the content of subreddits instead of merely evaluating the legality of their existence. Which is why I'm not surprised /r/nrs was banned this week. There's plenty more subreddits that will be equally difficult to defend in a corporate meeting.

I didn't bring up Reddit, but as long as we're talking about it... with all its mainstream celebrity AMAs and VC money, it's been doing a lot of "house cleaning" and is hardly a free speech zone anymore. The whole point of free speech is that unpopular groups aren't shut down for having unpopular opinions.

What you call "raids" I call links. Hacker News "raids" blogs everyday. Nothing malicious about it. If you're talking about actual, organized raids in the "you know what to do" fashion... well, I never saw that or any evidence for it.

well said. a lot of these guys would rather eliminate the right as much as possible.

The now-banned subreddit had an external forum (the name of the subreddit with a prepended 'r', if memory serves) which they used to coordinate raids with obvious malicious intent.

The whole point of free speech is that unpopular groups aren't shut down for having unpopular opinions.

Reddit's administration has made a point of this as much as they possible. But when you break the rules, you break the rules.

> they used to coordinate raids with obvious malicious intent.

Kind of like /r/shitredditsays (a forum exclusively for raiding other subreddits), which has the blessing of the reddit admins because it's PC...

> Reddit's administration has made a point of this as much as they possible.

Then why is this in the Reddit ToS?

You agree not to use any obscene, indecent, or offensive language or to provide to or post on or through the Website any graphics, text, photographs, images, video, audio or other material that is defamatory, abusive, bullying, harassing, racist, hateful, or violent. You agree to refrain from ethnic slurs, religious intolerance, homophobia, and personal attacks when using the Website.

Reddit is many things, but a free speech zone it is not.

> */r/shitredditsays ... it's PC...

I wouldn't quite say they PC... but I don't know what I would call them. I don't think there is really a term that adequately describes using shock tactics, belittling, and bullying to further an otherwise commendable cause. They are "Un-PC about being PC" I suppose.

Bullies. Bullies for a good cause are still bullies.

Just the word "bullies" doesn't explain why they have been untouched, but yeah. They are bullies.

From what I've read, one of the Reddit admins is an SRSer, which is why they are untouchable despite their duplicitous behavior.

Well... that would explain a lot....

The whole of Reddit is PC. SRS is violently PC.

There is a subreddit devoted to beating women. What is your definition of PC?

The purge of Reddit will continue. Don't worry, /r/beatingwomen will be gone soon.

"trolls using political correctness as an excuse for lulz"

Which is totally unlike everyone else, who troll and use free speech as an excuse for lulz.

The TOS has never been enforced, as the admins have explicitly stated.

Supposedly, the Reddit admins banned it also because of threats of violence.

http://i.imgur.com/o7CrW3y.jpg

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