[HNthrow22]

> Reddit is another example a company that has recently scrubbed itself of most controversial content,

I agree with you on most points however reddit takes no action against extremists and fringe groups proliferating on their platform until substantial pressure is applied from either advertisers or journalists. They go as far as shadowbanning users who bring up their lack of action to shine a light on their culpability, presumably to keep it off of mainstream journalists radar, thankfully it's now too late and enough good journalists have picked up the scent. Expect to see many great pieces about this in the near future.

Reddit also scrubs the profiles and post history of mass shooters who were indoctrinated on their platform, one example is Elliot Rodgers the incel and Santa Barbara shooter from several years ago, truly disgusting and frightening behavior that denies researchers and journalists from understanding the reach and impact of the spread of ideologies and hatred on these platforms.

Just last week in the wake of the Poway synagogue shooting the #1 post on /r/conspiracy was a holocaust denial post, https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D6HG_LMUUAEXYJy.png:large that received 2x reddit gold.

[freeflight]

Reddit has banned Russian [0] and Iranian [1] "propaganda accounts", now lots of people over there are calling to ban "Chinese propaganda" [2] aka anybody who gets tired of anti-Chinese submissions constantly being pushed on the front-page.

Gee, one might wonder where that might be coming from? [3] That's the absurdity of the situation: Russian, Iranian and Chinese "propaganda" gets banned, while US propaganda [4] isn't even recognized as such because being pro "democracy, freedom US" is considered the default "good" position and anything not in line with it must be evil or at least bad.

[0] https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/04/russia-spam-account-prob...

[1] https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/reddit-accounts-iranian-infl...

[2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/reddit-c...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...

[tepidandroid]

Reddit has been a declining trash heap for quite some time now. It definitely has to do with its emergence into mainstream popularity (the problem gets worse the larger the subreddit). It's the perfect platform for every armchair expert with a bigoted view to gain admiration and affirmation of their views from other uninformed bigots. It happens to be much easier to be a loud and belligerent bigot than to express an informed and nuanced opinion.

The only thing stopping HN from completely morphing into that cesspool is the diligent and fair moderation and the diversity and quality of opinions expressed. For the most part, hackers tend to be more critical and suspicious of authoritative sources than other groups.

[ourlordcaffeine]

>anybody who gets tired of anti-Chinese submissions constantly being pushed on the front-page

It's not really anyone who gets tired, it's the accounts that revert to whataboutism whenever the communist party is criticised, flat out deny things like the Tienanmen Massacre, and spread a lot of hate when something happens that the CCP doesn't like, such as a Tibetan woman being elected president of a student union.

>anti-Chinese submissions

Anti-CCP. It is important to note that criticism of a government does not constitute hate speech towards the citizens. This is another tactic used by propagandists.

[raxxorrax]

> They go as far as shadowbanning users

Nevermind these users really don't do anything constructive since the problem at hand censorship.

Holocaust denial got worse because of efforts to silence some crazy people who did. Not slightly worse, it is really shit you have to think about it again. And people complaining aren't even jews or age above 50.

The self-righteousness, while the incentive might be good, really doesn't help at all.

And yes, denial of the holocaust is a form of censorship, so adjust your talking points correctly.

[dsfyu404ed]

> agree with you on most points however reddit takes no action against extremists and fringe groups proliferating on their platform until substantial pressure is applied from either advertisers or journalists.

They banned IRA_memes because IRA I guess and quarantined waterniggas because it had "niggas" in the title even though the whole sub was just about drinking water. They're definitely taking an approach of culling anything that advertisers might not like.

[HNthrow22]

> They're definitely taking an approach of culling anything that advertisers might not like.

This could not be further from reality, see https://old.reddit.com/r/AgainstHateSubreddits/comments/a3q6... to get a small preview of the attitudes of their executive team and the kind of content they allow to proliferate and spread on their platform.