Reddit's procedure for communities that go against any mainstream progressive narrative is to quarantine them and then ban them under the accusation of "brigading".
They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics.
The part I find most humorous is I only discovered /r/NoNewNormal this morning and found the posts there to be genuinely kind hearted, open to rational discussion, welcoming and positive. Yet they were obliterated hours later and are now being described by media outlets as evil anti-vaccine bullies. It must be nice to wield the power to delete your ideological enemies in one stroke and then get to describe them however you want across 10 media outlets without chance for rebuttal, debate, or explanation.
>They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics.
This has been going on for years. After the Orlando nightclub massacre in 2016, /r/news and /r/worldnews completely shut down postings about it because a Muslim was the killer. /r/askreddit and, yes, /r/the_donald opened up discussion threads because there was no alternative on Reddit.
There's no rational discussion to be had between homeopathy doctor and an oncologist, for example. It's just a waste of bandwidth and source of misinformation which is killing innocents.
Remember when it was a slippery slope fallacy to suggest that this sort of thing would go beyond banning fatpeoplehate? I haven't used reddit in 2 years. I'm not a vaccine denier or anything like that, but why would I want to use a public discussion tool that disallows public discussion?
I think though this points to an architectural problem with the multi community link aggregator/forum concept. Fact is, when you have a site that allows multiple communities to coexist and bleed into one another some won't get along, some will harass each other, it probably always results in things like this, then you get echo chambers. I think forums and single community sites (possibly even federated) make a lot more sense to prevent interaction from devolving into this. The model reddit based their business on has obviously failed the user at this point. It was a Utopian (and profitable!) dream to be the site for this sort of thing and it was short sighted in hindsight.
Architecturally, I don't think 1.000 subreddits and that different from 1.000 separately hosted forums/chans/Reddit clones (and indeed, many of those exist and the level of conflict and brigading among those separate communities doesn't ever reach the same level as among subreddits).
I'd rather say the difference comes from keeping the same identity across communities, which allows you to easily gain fame/disgrace in one community and use it to influence another one, and an administration/moderation team with a bias and a willingness to cave to pressure.
The "protest", most of those subreddits have the same mods which are removing thousands of submissions every day. And in those "protest" posts they removed hundreds of comments of people disagreeing
Also theverge.com disabled comments on this article in particular. Wonder why...
So much for open debate, reddit by now is conversation conditioning machine for any topic that gets attention, banning anything that disagrees, and leaving bots and banal discussion
Let's just hope they have alienated enough people to get more traction on other platforms
If you have a controversial, non-mainstream opinion you need to be extremely rigorous with verifying your information. That’s something NNN users didn’t do enough of. They got banned for a fake pedo sub being created by someone (maybe a member, maybe a brigadier) that was then used to say “look at the people supporting vaccine mandates… pedos.” That claim got upvoted on NNN so it made them look like they’d upvote anything.
Should be a lesson to everyone to check the claims of the poster from multiple sources so you can call it out before it goes viral.
NNN needed more posts about the science supporting their views against vaccine mandates, and less BS about left-wing globalist conspiracies.
Actually the difference is so large that if we were to restrict people it should be based on who had the virus. Those who caught it or not are a bigger difference in having a chance to spread it than those who are vaccinated or not. So maybe we should have an antibody mandate - not a vaccine mandate?
It is not legal (and should not be legal) for people to force privately owned companies to publish speech that those companies don't want to publish.
Hacker News itself does this all the time; there's plenty of topics and conversations that aren't allowed to be posted here. And people get banned/silenced all the time. And that's good! That's what healthy moderation looks like.
I dont think this article questions if this is legal. Many companies do things that are Legal but are perhaps unethical or just not aligned with consumer interests.
Your focus on legality to me is completely irrelevant at this stage. People want to discuss if this decision was a good idea or bad idea.
Though I support Reddit in its (very belated) actions here, I disagree with your statement.
Restrictions on free speech and dissent ... or the overwhelming of channels, forums, and archives with propaganda and disinformation ... are both characteristics of abusive, power, regardless of its foundation. The origins of free speech princples emerged in response to religious and monarchical governmental abuses, for the most part (with some role played by lesser nobles and interests).
With numerous commercial firms existing at scales which rival entire countries, the "private property" defence against any and all limitations on censorship simply isn't supportable. That said, a reasonable and principled policy with review, oversight, and appeals processes would be useful. Ultimately I see government regulation as a very likely necessity for communications platforms operating at significant scale.
I agree, but it comes across as unprincipled and reactionary when this stuff is always done as a consequence of bad PR or high profile subs throwing a fit.
> It is not legal (and should not be legal) for people to force privately owned companies to publish speech that those companies don't want to publish.
I can't count the number of times that I've come across a would-be useful comment that would solve exactly the issue I'm having, only for it to have been deleted.
Hating the site is fair, but honestly what you're doing is really shitty. Thank god Pushshift exists.
I did the same for my 15 year old account and added reddit to my DNS blacklist. It's as close to voting with my dollar (data?) as I can muster at this point.
"Witnesses report hearing noises emanating from the grave of one Aaron Swartz."
I know this conversation has happened numerous times on HN by now, but at times like this I can't help but speak up. Although I have matured over the past decade, no longer the "Ron Paul" libertarian of my college days, and I understand the nuances w.r.t large public platforms facilitating misinformation; there still exists a part in me that pines for the "old Reddit," and laments that all attempts to remake platforms with liberal free-speech policies have come from far-right extremists.
Right there with you. Aaron was basically a martyr for the cause of bringing free access of information to the common person. To see a huge part of his life's work trampled under the feet of an internet mob in the name of corporate interest is a disgrace.
I would like to take a moment and pray with you fine folks about the possibility of https://getaether.net/ (it is non-trivially in the right direction). We don't have to outright silence people in mere political games. Until at least the users get to moderate who (or what, and given which conditions?) will be their moderators on a platform owned and computed by the people who use it, [[power|https://philosopher.life/#Power]] will centralize, and we'll see the same problems again and again. We must distribute governance of The Great Human Conversation, and even my worst enemies deserve to have voices and a vote. Decentralize until it hurts, then federate until it works.
It is odd to ban /r/TheDonald but not ban /r/NoNewNormal. Whatever you think of the bans, once you go down the path... you'll be asked why one community gets a pass while another gets banned
It is well past time for Reddit to die, with its authoritarian policies that amount to propagandist control of information and ideology. There are many alternatives out there (https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/oioeot/...) but how do any of them overcome network effects and become viable and mainstream?
Reddit continues to insist that its sitewide administrative policies are based on behaviour rather than content, though it appears that this is a somewhat narrow distinction, and that behaviours which draw attention … tend to be associated with questionable content.
I’m not criticising the action. I support it. (The reasons are complex and difficult to articulate, though what I had to say ... on Reddit ... about limitations on speech some six years ago seems strongly appropriate. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2g8e8c/shoutin...)
It's the rationalisation which seems thin.
The more so as what I’d based that argument on at the time --- falsely claiming no harm where a harm clearly existed is precisely at the centre of current discussions of the topic. This also seems to be a major, though under-discussed mode, of deceptive speech, and more pointedly a mode in which the downplaying of risk accrues benefits and gains to the parties promoting that message.
That said, Reddit’s lack of principled leadership and very-late-to-the-party redress continues to erode trust in the platform among those who live in a reality-based world and support strong epistemic systems. Which is one of the key challenges the firm faces: neither of the two principle sides in this matter are or will be happy with how it aquits itself.
I’ll note as well that the principles of “free speech” are not synonymous with the US first amendment (which concerns only government limitations), that speech on a privately-operate platform is both not the same as government censorship, but also not dissimilar in many regards, and that in any regard, free speech itself is not an absolute principle but one existing in balance with other considerations. I’ve been thinking in terms of a set of related, though often conflicting principles as Autonomous Communication (or variously: "informational autonomy" or "communications autonomy" --- naming things is hard --- discussed in “Which has primacy?”). The rights to privacy, free-assocation (both positive and negative), against self-incrimination, of obligated disclosure, and to accurate information, all collide, though there are some common principles which might help in adjudicating amongst them. I’m not aware of others offering any similar construction.
> ...the principles of “free speech” are not synonymous with the US first amendment (which concerns only government limitations)...
I think this is the nub of the problem. There are common carriers like the phone company, and there are publishers. A publisher will be responsible for what they publish, whereas a carrier really just gives access to their infrastructure.
We have a situation now that seems like social media companies want it both ways (none of obligations and all of the prerogatives), so we get something like a phone service that censors your calls when convenient to the phone company.
I really think this requires a political solution, though one often sees technological solutions suggested (peer-to-peer, federation).
> ...free speech itself is not an absolute principle but one existing in balance with other considerations...
Yes, political speech is the most protected variety. Curiously, money can be considered political speech. So while I think the only kind of real solution here is a political one, I don't expect that to ever happen.
>The reasons are complex and difficult to articulate, though what I had to say ... on Reddit ... about limitations on speech some six years ago seems strongly appropriate
I don't think basing your argument on Schneck does it any good. It doesn't seem to be considered good decision nowadays. That case would fall well within First Amendment protections by standards established in later cases.
> In early August, we first heard about the plans by “powermods” (moderators of very large and influential subreddits) to hold “blackouts” (where they take their subreddits private, disallowing posting) in an effort to force Reddit, Inc (a $10 billion company) to change its policies.
I'm surprised that works, and that the Reddit admins let it work.
If I were Reddit, I'd probably cave, but then make a code change so that "very large and influential subreddits" cannot implement those settings changes without admin approval. I wouldn't want to cede so much power to a few users. If done at the right time (e.g. when there's no big meta controversy), it might not even cause that much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I doubt most Reddit users care that much about mod powers.
> Just an absolutely pathetic, counterproductive, downright stupid decision on behalf of reddit
You may be right, but your choice of words make me wonder why some people feel so sure of being right as to claim somebody else incapable of getting something right when it's so obvious what to do. But is it?
Perhaps the decision is sad as it would be better for the world that they stand their ground. But perhaps it was the only rational choice that reddit could do (game theory and all that). Or perhaps they did intentionally choose what they thought was the better option for everybody, and letting people radicalize in their ghettos (and stand out as radicalized groups) instead of normalizing the radical positions.
In any case, I wouldn't be so sure we're dealing with downright stupidity.
How is it so clearly a bad thing to quarantine extremism and misinformation to dark corners rather than allow them to be in a more easily stumbled upon location by non-extremists or not yet extremists that are somewhat susceptible to falling down that rabbit hole if exposed?
Reddit hardly cares about improving the world as much as it's own bottom line.
The boycotts by several popular subreddits were hurting them, and that is all. — r/legaladvice is a known hotbed of misinformation of potentially drastic consequences that is allowed to stay, as that misinformation does not run enough across political tribalist lines to make people care.
[+] [-] sinecure|4 years ago|reply
They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics.
The part I find most humorous is I only discovered /r/NoNewNormal this morning and found the posts there to be genuinely kind hearted, open to rational discussion, welcoming and positive. Yet they were obliterated hours later and are now being described by media outlets as evil anti-vaccine bullies. It must be nice to wield the power to delete your ideological enemies in one stroke and then get to describe them however you want across 10 media outlets without chance for rebuttal, debate, or explanation.
[+] [-] TMWNN|4 years ago|reply
This has been going on for years. After the Orlando nightclub massacre in 2016, /r/news and /r/worldnews completely shut down postings about it because a Muslim was the killer. /r/askreddit and, yes, /r/the_donald opened up discussion threads because there was no alternative on Reddit.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] b0sk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] betwixthewires|4 years ago|reply
I think though this points to an architectural problem with the multi community link aggregator/forum concept. Fact is, when you have a site that allows multiple communities to coexist and bleed into one another some won't get along, some will harass each other, it probably always results in things like this, then you get echo chambers. I think forums and single community sites (possibly even federated) make a lot more sense to prevent interaction from devolving into this. The model reddit based their business on has obviously failed the user at this point. It was a Utopian (and profitable!) dream to be the site for this sort of thing and it was short sighted in hindsight.
[+] [-] sigotirandolas|4 years ago|reply
I'd rather say the difference comes from keeping the same identity across communities, which allows you to easily gain fame/disgrace in one community and use it to influence another one, and an administration/moderation team with a bias and a willingness to cave to pressure.
[+] [-] mcphage|4 years ago|reply
Alternately, why would I want a public discussion tool that lets low effort garbage memes fill the public channels with effluent?
[+] [-] rex-mundi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] praisewhitey|4 years ago|reply
It started earlier than that with the ban of r/jailbait. It always comes back to "protect the children"
[+] [-] guilhas|4 years ago|reply
92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018
Also theverge.com disabled comments on this article in particular. Wonder why...
So much for open debate, reddit by now is conversation conditioning machine for any topic that gets attention, banning anything that disagrees, and leaving bots and banal discussion
Let's just hope they have alienated enough people to get more traction on other platforms
[+] [-] halfjoking|4 years ago|reply
Should be a lesson to everyone to check the claims of the poster from multiple sources so you can call it out before it goes viral.
NNN needed more posts about the science supporting their views against vaccine mandates, and less BS about left-wing globalist conspiracies.
For example prior infection offers way better immunity than the vaccine… https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
Actually the difference is so large that if we were to restrict people it should be based on who had the virus. Those who caught it or not are a bigger difference in having a chance to spread it than those who are vaccinated or not. So maybe we should have an antibody mandate - not a vaccine mandate?
[+] [-] CheezeIt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beebmam|4 years ago|reply
Hacker News itself does this all the time; there's plenty of topics and conversations that aren't allowed to be posted here. And people get banned/silenced all the time. And that's good! That's what healthy moderation looks like.
[+] [-] petermcneeley|4 years ago|reply
Your focus on legality to me is completely irrelevant at this stage. People want to discuss if this decision was a good idea or bad idea.
[+] [-] mycodesucks|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|4 years ago|reply
Restrictions on free speech and dissent ... or the overwhelming of channels, forums, and archives with propaganda and disinformation ... are both characteristics of abusive, power, regardless of its foundation. The origins of free speech princples emerged in response to religious and monarchical governmental abuses, for the most part (with some role played by lesser nobles and interests).
With numerous commercial firms existing at scales which rival entire countries, the "private property" defence against any and all limitations on censorship simply isn't supportable. That said, a reasonable and principled policy with review, oversight, and appeals processes would be useful. Ultimately I see government regulation as a very likely necessity for communications platforms operating at significant scale.
[+] [-] incadenza|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guilhas|4 years ago|reply
https://fullfact.org/blog/2020/nov/framework-combat-misinfor...
[+] [-] effingwewt|4 years ago|reply
Eventually you may find yourself on the receiving end, will you think censorship is good then?
[+] [-] CheezeIt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mandeepj|4 years ago|reply
The platforms are public and used by millions.
[+] [-] abstractbarista|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Asraelite|4 years ago|reply
Hating the site is fair, but honestly what you're doing is really shitty. Thank god Pushshift exists.
[+] [-] hn-jw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaysea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ipspam|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kinghajj|4 years ago|reply
I know this conversation has happened numerous times on HN by now, but at times like this I can't help but speak up. Although I have matured over the past decade, no longer the "Ron Paul" libertarian of my college days, and I understand the nuances w.r.t large public platforms facilitating misinformation; there still exists a part in me that pines for the "old Reddit," and laments that all attempts to remake platforms with liberal free-speech policies have come from far-right extremists.
[+] [-] powerslacker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] h0p3|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] softwaredoug|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaysea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|4 years ago|reply
I’m not criticising the action. I support it. (The reasons are complex and difficult to articulate, though what I had to say ... on Reddit ... about limitations on speech some six years ago seems strongly appropriate. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2g8e8c/shoutin...)
It's the rationalisation which seems thin.
The more so as what I’d based that argument on at the time --- falsely claiming no harm where a harm clearly existed is precisely at the centre of current discussions of the topic. This also seems to be a major, though under-discussed mode, of deceptive speech, and more pointedly a mode in which the downplaying of risk accrues benefits and gains to the parties promoting that message.
That said, Reddit’s lack of principled leadership and very-late-to-the-party redress continues to erode trust in the platform among those who live in a reality-based world and support strong epistemic systems. Which is one of the key challenges the firm faces: neither of the two principle sides in this matter are or will be happy with how it aquits itself.
I’ll note as well that the principles of “free speech” are not synonymous with the US first amendment (which concerns only government limitations), that speech on a privately-operate platform is both not the same as government censorship, but also not dissimilar in many regards, and that in any regard, free speech itself is not an absolute principle but one existing in balance with other considerations. I’ve been thinking in terms of a set of related, though often conflicting principles as Autonomous Communication (or variously: "informational autonomy" or "communications autonomy" --- naming things is hard --- discussed in “Which has primacy?”). The rights to privacy, free-assocation (both positive and negative), against self-incrimination, of obligated disclosure, and to accurate information, all collide, though there are some common principles which might help in adjudicating amongst them. I’m not aware of others offering any similar construction.
See: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/622677903778013902fd002590d8e...
[+] [-] nescioquid|4 years ago|reply
I think this is the nub of the problem. There are common carriers like the phone company, and there are publishers. A publisher will be responsible for what they publish, whereas a carrier really just gives access to their infrastructure.
We have a situation now that seems like social media companies want it both ways (none of obligations and all of the prerogatives), so we get something like a phone service that censors your calls when convenient to the phone company.
I really think this requires a political solution, though one often sees technological solutions suggested (peer-to-peer, federation).
> ...free speech itself is not an absolute principle but one existing in balance with other considerations...
Yes, political speech is the most protected variety. Curiously, money can be considered political speech. So while I think the only kind of real solution here is a political one, I don't expect that to ever happen.
[+] [-] garaetjjte|4 years ago|reply
I don't think basing your argument on Schneck does it any good. It doesn't seem to be considered good decision nowadays. That case would fall well within First Amendment protections by standards established in later cases.
[+] [-] ipspam|4 years ago|reply
https://patriots.win/p/12kFPq7oFY/recap-on-how-rnonewnormal-...
[+] [-] tablespoon|4 years ago|reply
I'm surprised that works, and that the Reddit admins let it work.
If I were Reddit, I'd probably cave, but then make a code change so that "very large and influential subreddits" cannot implement those settings changes without admin approval. I wouldn't want to cede so much power to a few users. If done at the right time (e.g. when there's no big meta controversy), it might not even cause that much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I doubt most Reddit users care that much about mod powers.
[+] [-] seattle_spring|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xqcgrek2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pope_meat|4 years ago|reply
Big yikes. That is not a good place.
[+] [-] fho|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unvaxxxed|4 years ago|reply
I've been collecting some alternatives to NNN https://unvaxxxed.com/alternatives-to-reddits-nonewnormal/
[+] [-] 6510|4 years ago|reply
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/949048
Fascinating read.
[+] [-] thepasswordis|4 years ago|reply
Oh, and wouldn't you know: those more permissive platforms are also where actual white nationalists, racists, and violent extremists hang out.
Just an absolutely pathetic, counterproductive, downright stupid decision on behalf of reddit.
[+] [-] ithkuil|4 years ago|reply
You may be right, but your choice of words make me wonder why some people feel so sure of being right as to claim somebody else incapable of getting something right when it's so obvious what to do. But is it?
Perhaps the decision is sad as it would be better for the world that they stand their ground. But perhaps it was the only rational choice that reddit could do (game theory and all that). Or perhaps they did intentionally choose what they thought was the better option for everybody, and letting people radicalize in their ghettos (and stand out as radicalized groups) instead of normalizing the radical positions.
In any case, I wouldn't be so sure we're dealing with downright stupidity.
[+] [-] mint2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cinntaile|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Blikkentrekker|4 years ago|reply
The boycotts by several popular subreddits were hurting them, and that is all. — r/legaladvice is a known hotbed of misinformation of potentially drastic consequences that is allowed to stay, as that misinformation does not run enough across political tribalist lines to make people care.
[+] [-] whymauri|4 years ago|reply
I'm actually more concerned about Facebook.