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Comment by stevenh | Hacker News Reader

Reddit should not be listed among the sites hosting the stolen images, as reddit does not support image uploads. Imgur is the primary site hosting the stolen images in that case.

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Are we still unable to move past this pedantic hosting-vs-linking nitpicking? It's like you willfully ignore how content discovery works on the Internet.

Just to be pedantic: By the same logic, Google is also grossly hosting tonnes of illegal material.

The differentiation is knowledge & intent. Nobody types in random photo GUIDs after the imgur url to find content, just like nobody generates SHA-1 hashes hoping to find valid magnet links. Users follow a route of links through search engines and content aggregators to find what they're looking for. Look, I know it's easy to take this whole issue to ridiculous logical extremes[0], but the argument that you don't have culpability by hosting links is really, really weak.

To head off the probable route this discussion will take, linking to Google or Reddit as a whole does not incur the same culpability as those sites do by linking directly to the material, as finding the offending link requires additional knowledge. If you linked to Reddit along with instructions like "go to <subreddit> and click the third-highest link for the week" then it would incur culpability as it's functionally identical to linking to the content directly.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

Google doesn't have moderators posting messages like "uh-oh your illegal content is being taken down. Here's a list of other places to post it." Meanwhile, Reddit has precisely that. Warning: link to NSFW board, though this post isn't itself NSFW.

http://www.reddit.com/r/TheFappening/comments/2fa2a1/meta_ef...

In which the mods write: "On another note: please use other hosting sites besides imgur.com. We have a large list of whitelisted domains listed here that you should be uploading to besides imgur. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket."

I'm merely attempting to correct the author's libelous statement about reddit. Reddit has never hosted any stolen photos, period.

Imgur revealed earlier this year that they have similar image detection built into their back end. Despite the ease with which they could use this to automatically sweep 99.9% of the Jennifer Lawrence photos off of their site the instant they're uploaded and shadowban the uploaders, and despite the fact that every one of their 12+ employees knew about this leak the instant it happened and also knew that their own site would probably be one of the two most actively used to spread the images around the world, half of the Jennifer Lawrence albums I checked there still have all images intact. One album has over 30,000 views and has existed for two days. Why haven't they activated their similar image detection algorithm in this case? At best, this is neglect bordering on malice.

The damage Imgur does by actually hosting these stolen images and dragging their feet for as long as possible when responding to DMCA takedown requests has nothing whatsoever to do with a text-only discussion thread on reddit. The author should correct this accusation and lay the blame where it belongs.

There's pedantry and there's basic factual accuracy. It's like hosting and discovery are different concepts on the Internet.

Reddit's the same site with the dedicated subreddit called "/r/thefappening", right? That Reddit? I'm not seeing how they get a completely free pass here, it's like saying UNIX doesn't store file data under file names, but under inodes. Perhaps pedantically correct, but completely missing the point.

You would have a point, but having just scanned the text, I couldn't find anywhere that it says the images are hosted on Reddit. It says they were "posted to Reddit" which is ambiguous at worst, very far from the allegation you are making.

The text says the stolen images "appeared" on reddit, which reads as an accusation that reddit users or admins were directly embedding the stolen images in pages on reddit itself via CSS or the <img> tag.

The text also repeatedly clumps reddit together with 4chan and anon-ib, with the implication being that they are all sites capable of accepting direct image uploads.

What allegation do you feel I've made?

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