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Comment by ffn | Hacker News Reader

So... top management at reddit literally allows loud and vocal groups to deny even the right to exist for other groups whose opinions they don't agree with. I don't condone hating on fat people (or any group of people), but all these fat-haters were doing was expressing their own opinions amongst themselves on a containment sub. And if top execs at reddit can express their hostility for a certain group of people (in this case fat-haters) by straight-up kicking them out for intolerance or harassment, I don't see how they're any more tolerant or less harassing than the very people they just banned.

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The stated justification is not about the nastiness of the opinions expressed on that subreddit, but about their behavior in terms of harassing other members. There are plenty of equally odious subs that are still up and running.

If you read the thread, between all the torches and pitchforks there are a fair number of comments supporting that viewpoint, for instance:

"I love how everyone is saying no, but they actually have [harassed users in other subreddits]. Most recently someone took pics from a /r/keto post and not only posted to FPH, but also got in a huge argument with a lot of members there. That's not the only time I've seen FPH in the wild." http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removi...

"I got this PM from a /r/fatpeoplehate mod for having a BMI of 25.7" (vicious and obscene content elided) http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removi...

"Some of you may know that we are currently under a comment brigade from many users from /r/fatpeoplehate due to the current top post of the subreddit, linked here." http://np.reddit.com/r/GrandTheftAutoV/comments/35rp8l/a_mes...

> but all these fat-haters were doing was expressing their own opinions amongst themselves on a containment sub.

Untrue. They were posting stolen, posted elsewhere, and original pictures of obese people just to make fun of them. That was the entire sub's purpose, to victimise and bully people. You could go on that sub any day of the week for months and that was their entire front page, pictures of fat people and hateful comments.

How long do you honestly think a sub would last if it took random pictures of black people and then everyone posted hateful comments? Even a week?

There's absolutely nothing "contained" about what they were doing. Plus they would invade other subs and threads, brigading those with differing opinions to themselves.

>How long do you honestly think a sub would last if it took random pictures of black people and then everyone posted hateful comments?

Uh, there is one and is still up: https://www.reddit.com/r/coontown

That isn't an argument for defence of FatPeopleHate. It is just an argument for Reddit to remove more subs. That's fine, I'd happily see that sub go the way of FPH.

>They were posting stolen

Just because the people who originally uploaded those pictures don't understand how the internet works doesn't make the images stolen.

The likely impetus for the ban was harassment of the Imgur administrators, which is a different story than "free speech."

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