Reddit bans subreddit dedicated to finding the Navy Yard shooters
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
That is verifiably untrue.
Reddit admins permitted the Boston bomber witch hunt to continue and didn't issue an apology for a full week. Reddit had wrongly and emphatically accused a missing student of being the perpetrator.
Reddit admins permitted the continued doxxing and harassment of a preacher who left a bad tip. The reddit CEO previously issued a statement saying "We do believe that doxxing is a form of violence, rather unique to the internet. " yet allowed the preacher harassment to continue unabated.
Compare that to ViolentAcrez being outed where the Reddit admins immediately instituted a site-wide ban for the story.
Reddit is entirely arbitrary with who it chooses to protect from doxxing, and why.
For more on reddit's fluid doxxing policies see: http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/04/reddits-doxxing-paradox/
http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/17/follow-up-a-few-questions-...
If you agree with the official Ideology, I think you're safe. Otherwise, you're the enemy. The whole site is /r/politics with a vigilante twist.
Either way, I remember last time during the Boston bombings when 4chan and Reddit users had purportedly unearthed a conspiracy that Blackwater guards were involved, which caused a buzz but later turned out to be an immense red herring.
As for troll havens, that's always been part of their culture, so no surprise there.
Edit: Also, you're going to have a hard time getting a favorable interpretation of True Threat Doctrine from a court -- which is really the only reason why it would be removed.
Illegal in USA.
Doxxing is not illegal in USA but they ban it.
After the Boston bonanza Reddit is going to squash anything that looks even remotely like it.
I don't believe this, I just find the serendipity ironic.
Websites are commonly blamed for the activities of their users, when in fact all it is is a tool for communication.
That's always been true. Their justification is legitimate if it was actually the reason for the ban, which after the /r/FactualFalcon debacle last month is dubious:
> Erik Martin from reddit tells us: "We banned it because it violated site rules by encouraging the posting of personal information. The quote from the side bar that subreddit that was banned said "no personal information about leads unless you are really sure." We do not allow the posting of personal information under any circumstances."
Is it correct to sacrifice catching the bad guy to protect the small chance that someone is wrongly accused?
Reddit now simply holds their public image higher than justice. I would wager investors and senior management who have a financial interest made this decision.
Large swaths of the US legal system seem to think so, it's why "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is a requirement for a criminal conviction. Whether that translates to moral correctness is up to you but in my opinion, yes, that's a reasonable sacrifice.
And that totally ignores that the probability of a court of law getting something wrong being different from a bunch of internet vigilantes getting it wrong, which of course changes the equation quite a lot.
This isn't about "sacrificing catching the bad guy", it's about giving proper due process. Look how wrong Reddit was about the boston bombers. Imagine if the guy they found was ultimately alive and someone found him and paraded him through the streets. Its no better than mob mentality.
Truth be told, I can't really understand how people can not support Reddit's position. The "pseudo-anonymity" leads people to believe that somehow these Reddit sleuths can be trusted. Look at this way, if your local town to decided to carry pitchforks and hunt this man in the streets, clearly something is wrong and democracy has failed. I for one would not like to go back to burning and hangings.
Not a popular position on HN.
That's the internet post-Eternal September in a nutshell.
Photos of some of those wrongly accused were even printed on the front page of the NY Post, IIRC.
As well intentioned as the contributors might be, there's every reason to believe that this subreddit will cause more harm than good. Reddit made the right call.
(It's also probably the right call from a damage control standpoint, but there's reason enough to ban this sub-reddit anyway.)
Redditors didn't hack and deface the NY Post. What you're citing is an example that the NY Post is no better than any random person in an internet forum.
It's crappy journalism on the Post's part, sure. But it wasn't NY Post reporters that fingered these suspects or that made them newsworthy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade
You may also want to reconsider your statement, substituting "intelligence agents" for redditors. If they collate photos or other information is it harmless?
Well sure it is when you deliberately spread disinformation, as opposed to being mistaken.
>You may also want to reconsider your statement, substituting "intelligence agents" for redditors. If they collate photos or other information is it harmless?
Nope, I don't see much reason to think that the average law enforcement agent is much better or worse than the average redditor. The incentives for the law enforcement agency are often worse from the perspective of potential for abuse.
There is no difference. Sunil Trapathi was mis-identified because somebody said they heard his name on the police scanner, and then Reddit (and Twitter) repeated it as if it were true (see "social proof"), with no confirmation at all. They weren't just mistaken: they didn't even bother to verify it.
I don't see much reason to think that the average law enforcement agent is much better or worse than the average redditor.
Aside from the fact that they actually located the right people whereas reddit identified several wrong people? You don't think that training in proper investigative and analysis techniques plays a role in that? How bizarre.
Actually, Reddit doesn't have free speech. Reddit moderators are famous for enforcing their personal views by banning, or threatening to ban, people who express dissenting views. The level of censorship is so high that one wonders whether those doing the censoring even understand what free speech refers to.
Example: http://arachnoid.com/psychology/reddit_psychology.html
Because Reddit sometimes expels moderators and subReddits it doesn't approve of, this implies that it either approves of, or tolerates, the rest. They're not under any legal obligations to monitor content, but they do, and they sometimes act in their own interest.
Not to make too much out of this. Reddit has the right to run their business any way they please and that their stockholders will tolerate. My point is that it's a business, not a soapbox.
If you mean the moderators, yes, I agree to some extent. I think it's bad form to contact someone privately and threaten banning if they don't stop dissenting from popular views, but it's not an earthshaking issue either.
> Too many flaming liberals.
Too many flaming whatever. Too much heat, not enough light.
That doesn't make it excusable, but it's not at all reddit's fault that it happens.
That's true. Most of the time.
> Outside of a few subreddits, reddit moderators are just random people, not reddit employees.
You're missing the point. If a moderator censors content, and if Reddit doesn't have a policy against censorship, the fact that the moderators aren't Reddit employees is irrelevant. Neglect shapes policy.
There are only a few things that Reddit (Note: edited the following) will aggressively prevent as a matter of public relations, among which are threats against people, the dispensing of medical advice, and libelous remarks. Those are aggressively acted against. And a few others -- for example, Reddit just today banned a subReddit that planned to try to locate a Washington shipyard shooter that allegedly escaped. Reddit got a black eye over a similar subReddit that searched for the Boston bomber suspects and wrongly accused someone innocent, so they're not going to allow that to happen again.
The Reddit moderator who censored me made that argument also -- he wasn't a Reddit employee, so it was wrong to call it a Reddit problem. There are some ways in which that's true, but there's no impenetrable fence between Reddit policymakers and subReddit moderators who aren't employees of anything. I had to explain this to the moderator using Galileo as an example -- Galileo wasn't ever tried by the Inquisition, he was just walked through a room full of torture equipment and told to shut up (greatly simplifying a complex story).
But the moderator wasn't very bright and I don't think he ever got it -- he just wouldn't tolerate any criticism of psychologists or psychology, and if I criticized psychology again, I was out. I'm familiar with the typical intellectual gifts of those who think psychology is a science, and I realized nothing could be be done. And that was the last time I ever posted to Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/user/lutusp
http://arachnoid.com/psychology/reddit_psychology.html
> ... but it's not at all reddit's fault that it happens.
In fact, in fairness and in the eyes of the law, it is. If Reddit doesn't have a policy against it and doesn't act against it, it becomes corporate policy de facto. There are any number of examples in case law where benign neglect turns out not to be so benign.
The reason I haven't tried to do anything about this is that the moderator has speech rights also, and the fact that he doesn't know anything about the topic is not a meaningful argument against his right to express ignorance -- that's a right he certainly has.
There are only a few things that Reddit really must prevent, among which are threats against people, the dispensing of medical advice, and libelous remarks
I agree, I should have said they aggressively act against those things as matter of public relations, not because of legal requirements. I edited the original post to reflect this.
> A "reasonable" interpretation of advice given from an unauthenticated source (ie. not a real, living breathing doctor with their MD behind them) is that you shouldn't follow it.
True, but it seems many people don't know this. Interestingly, outside of a book (protected by freedom of the press), if a non-MD dispenses, or appears to be dispensing, medical advice, in most times and places he can be prosecuted.
Your argument is lousy, because you're pretending something that isn't true - that subreddits lack owners. Subreddits go to the first person who creates them. It's a land-grab. If you don't like the rules in someone's subreddit, you're free to create your own. Yes, the global site admins have their own rules, but they're nowhere near as restrictive, as what you're talking about.
Yes, it does. It has severe restrictions on what kinds of speech the government is capable of punishing you for expressing. That's what free speech is.
Free speech does not mean that you have the right to come into my house and scream obscenities at me. Nobody, nowhere has that right, regardless of where they're from.
Actually, Reddit doesn't have free speech. Reddit moderators are famous for enforcing their personal views by banning, or threatening to ban, people who express dissenting views. The level of censorship is so high that one wonders whether those doing the censoring even understand what free speech refers to.
I sometimes find myself unable to detect a satirical or ironic intent in someone's writing, one that may seem obvious to other people. Then someone charitably points out what I've missed, and I slap my forehead.
This was once described as a symptom of Asperger Syndrome, but that supposed mental illness has been reluctantly abandoned recently because of its dubious foundation and widespread abuse by opportunistic psychologists, which leaves the more likely explanation -- a variety of nerdy intelligence that makes subtle ironies essentially opaque, but that hardly merits a mental illness diagnosis.
In other words, a little smart, not a little sick.
The corporation known as 'Reddit' has free speech, which means they have the right to ban people from using their forum in ways they disapprove of. I'm pretty sure that's what the poster you replied to meant.
Reddit has property rights, which allows them to control their service. The also have free speech rights, but that isn't what is being excercised in this case. IMHO.
Helpful link above.