Reddit is a failed state | Hacker News Reader

Reddit is a failed state

theverge.com

18 pointschermanowicz9 comments

The thesis of Reddit is: "we exist to make people happy." Popular posts tend to be very personal. Things like: Look at me, I knitted a cthulhu! Or: Look at this painting I did! Then the community piles on praise, jokes, memes, and feelings of being close to other people, even though it's all just strangers engaged in essentially threaded IRC.

But, problems appear when people on the fringes of society start posting. What happens when you have a subculture where happiness is derived from exploding puppies? In the Reddit Philosophy, that's still valid because it makes those subsets of people happy.

We've seen a growing disconnect with content hosting sites and mass clean-minded appeals. Tumblr was acquired while seemingly ignoring that tumblr is the largest repository of porn online. Reddit is talked about as a trend setter while ignoring the vile underbelly too. It's just the new normal.

> It's just the new normal.

Yes it is. If we want platforms that allow truly free speech, this is part of the cost of that privilege. Much in the same way, here in the US, we allow the KKK to rally in public. We don't have to like it, and we don't have to participate, but trying to legislate it or regulate it to a state where it is free from undesirables will ultimately lead to abuses that will limit speech from minorities.

One thing that I found to be missing from this article is that reddit doesn't really actually care for free speech-- it cares for making money.

When the "free speech" is getting them really bad PR, it gets removed from the root. When the "free speech" is ignored by the mainstream or lauded, it's allowed. It isn't really free speech because you're still not allowed to say certain things.

Reddit gives you easy exit over voice. You can always start your own subreddit and run it pretty much however you want.

When did American journalists turn into such delicate flowers concerned with privacy anyway? Where was all that indignation when some old guy's private conversations were analysed for their racist content? No problem there? Or when Gawker "reported" on Hulk Hogan sex tape? How is TMZ not constantly under fire?

I'm liking this new stance but it seems rather selective.

The problem is with mixing pure + vile. Nobody cares that Huffpo or TMZ hosts sideboob galleries or privacy invading gossip just for clicks. People do care if "show off your baby pictures" is hosted next to "we sell meth at discount rates anonymously."

(Reminder: reddit is just centrally controlled usenet with some wonky turducken corporate structure. nobody ever claimed usenet had to moderate standards, but your provider could filter you if you wanted to be filtered. the problem is... you can't apply arbitrary filters to reddit (outside of nerd-fueled browser extensions) because they aren't just a message provider, but they are also the closed, proprietary message reading interface.)

This article was frustrating to read because it has heaps of criticism without offering anything constructive about what reddit should do differently as policy. It also quotes from and criticizes reddit's blog post, but unhelpfully doesn't even link to it (I've linked it below).

reddit admins have posted a few things explaining how they handled this crazy situation:

* http://www.redditblog.com/2014/09/every-man-is-responsible-f...

* https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/2fpdax/time_...

It's a difficult situation and this article doesn't have anything helpful to say.

Not to contradict the views in this article, but I wish we had more female hackers. They could then leak pics of male celebrities and women could benefit from leaked nudes for once. Yes, we need more female hackers.

Male celeb nude leaks happen on a fairly regular basis. They're just framed in a different way by society. Seems most (male or female) leaks don't really come from "hackers," that is an outlier, they often come from friends/acquaintances of the famous person.

If women want to track down such materials they undoubtedly can. It is just a Bing image search away.

>In other words, Reddit feels really bad that your stolen nude photos are being shared all over its website, but won't do anything about it unless you're privileged enough to understand the copyright system or able to afford a lawyer who does.

This is the most deliberately misinformed way to say that. Reddit's stance, correctly might I add, is that they won't take down anything unless they have to by law. That is the most pure form of free speech they can allow. That means shitty things are going to be posted there and unless they are illegal they won't take them down. Why is reddit getting the blame for all this? They didn't steal the photos, they didn't even host the photos, what do you want them to do?

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