Reddit’s decision to police “behavior, not ideas” is reckless

I disagree that Reddit is an incubator of hate, but the article makes a good point showing it's a channel for all kinds of communication, including - apparently indiscriminately - racism and other kinds of hate.

In much the same way 4chan was getting increasingly linked in public opinion with the bad things happening in /b/, it appears that Reddit has similar albatrosses around its neck. At that point, it becomes very difficult to get rid of a worrisome user segment - because of their nature and number, any action to drive them away has a huge potential to backfire.

This is a bad position to be in for a business: you need to placate a growing number of mean-spirited users who constantly probe the boundaries of what they can get away with, and yet you have to do everything you can to avoid the problem that your brand is publicly identified with the hate groups residing on your site.

I want to point out that the goals of a company having these problems are not necessarily the goals of people who want to deprive hate groups from having a public and company-supported outlet.

While /r/coontown is place filled with scum that doesn't mean we should shut it down or ban it... These people are going to exist, reddit community or no reddit community. It shouldn't be reddit's (or any internet company's) job to police things people find offensive as long as they are legal (free speech).

Related, I'm a little worried about stores pulling the confederate flag. I don't know where I stand on that. Don't get me wrong I think it's a terrible symbol and the fact it was/is flying on government property is crazy to me (I honestly did not know this was a thing). That said banning a flag or anything product that uses said flag on your platform feels a little reminiscent of not baking a cake for a gay wedding which I'm still conflicted on as well. What about a confederate flag cake or a swastika cake?

Please understand I'm not comparing being gay to being a racist or a nazi I'm just comparing people being made to produce something that is at odds with their personally held beliefs. The example that hits home for me is if I run a software development company and I have a client who asks me to make a product for a political party I disagree with. Do I have the right to refuse to work on the project? (this example happened to be as an employee) Or, hypothetically, someone offers to pay me to make an anti-gay or racist website for their cause/group. It's something I don't quite have my head wrapped around and don't know how to feel about it all. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on the matter.

Kitchen knives can be used to murder people. That doesn't mean we're not going to use them.

I wouldn't mind hate if it was directed at buzzfeed.

I can't believe I fell for buzzfeed clickbait on HN. :(

Reality is an incubator of hate. You're not obliged to participate in it online, much like in real life.

No, it's not. What subs are you subscribed to?

This post was flagkilled by users, but as we usually do when there's an ongoing discussion, we unkilled it so commenting can continue.

We changed the title to (most of) the subtitle, since some of the flaggers seemed to be reacting to the Buzzfeed headline.