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Reddit Finally Bans Hate Speech, Removes 2,000 Racist and Violent Forums (variety.com) 334

Reddit first launched as an online discussion site in June 2005. Now, 15 years later, it has finally taken action to officially ban hate speech and groups that promote it. From a report: A revised Reddit content policy, announced Monday, explicitly states that groups or users that "incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability" are prohibited. "Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying and threats of violence," it says. With the updated content policy, Reddit is initially banning about 2,000 subreddits, most of which are inactive, the company said. Included in the purge is The_Donald, a pro-Donald Trump forum notorious for users posting racist, misogynistic, anti-Islam and anti-Semitic content. In 2015, Reddit adopted a new content policy and banned several blatantly racist subreddits. But until today, the official rules still did not explicitly forbid hate or racist forums. Reddit CEO/co-founder Steve Huffman, in an post about the new policy, said "I admit we have fallen short" in supporting the site's communities and moderators with respect to adopting a comprehensive anti-hate policy.
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Reddit Finally Bans Hate Speech, Removes 2,000 Racist and Violent Forums

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  • Nothing says hate like failing to adopt a character set that only works for Western Europeans and Americans.

    • by hawk ( 1151 )

      We allow you lower case, instead of the pure and true six bit ascii.

      Stop complaining, and pray that we do not alter you to Baudot . . .

      doc "six bits should be enough for anyone" hawk

  • by ardmhacha ( 192482 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:17PM (#60242572)

    The_Donald was not active any more. The users took their nuanced, well reasoned political analysis and reputation for tolerance to thedonald.win

    • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      Won't someone think of the bots?

    • How did they break the rules when there were no posts? Spez is a lying coward.

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Wait, are you telling us that you're not buying the official story? That chest thumping blue lives matter conservatives at the_donald threatened cops?

        What a tinfoil hatter you are. Next you'll be telling us that Spez has a history of editing posts of other users or other such crazy right wing conspiracy theories.

    • by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @02:43PM (#60243636)

      The excuse for quarantining The_Donald was that it was attacking the police. That was laughable at the time, and it got airbrushed out about a month ago when about half of reddit became explicitly about attacking police.

      The now, chapotraphouse says that it was banned for promoting hate. The_Donald now says that it was banned for breaking rules 1, 2 and 8. I don't know what the hell 2 is doing in that list, or even how it could be possible to ban a board for not following its own rules.

      Looks like the big one was rule 8 - "Don't break the site or do anything that interferes with normal use of Reddit." I guess it is now clear that any right-leaning content that isn't token controlled opposition "breaks the site".

  • Best of luck (Score:4, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:19PM (#60242582)
    I'm sure this time it won't devolve into a purity spiral where more and more people are pushed out over time as their options are deemed hateful.
    • Re:Best of luck (Score:5, Informative)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:27PM (#60242632)

      I'm sure this time it won't devolve into a purity spiral where more and more people are pushed out over time as their options are deemed hateful.

      "The answer to 'where you draw the line' is literally always 'somewhere.' You draw it somewhere!" -- John Oliver [vulture.com]

    • I'm sure this time it won't devolve into a purity spiral where more and more people are pushed out over time as their options are deemed hateful.

      Have you been on reddit recently? It could do with some thinning of the herd.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It worked well for them last time. All the toxic stuff went to Voat. In one fell swoop they got rid of a lot of undesirable content and destroyed a competitor.

      Similar thing happened to Gab. Seems like setting yourself up as a free speech haven is suicide. Meanwhile Twitter is bigger than ever.

      • If it worked so well then why were there two thousand different subreddits that still remained to be banned? All content is undesirable to someone there are some who will always seek to find some new undesirable thing that they might satisfy their need to crusade against it. I'm sure eventually you'll get burned by it yourself and your speech will become unpopular enough to be deemed undesirable content or even get the hate speech label.

        But it's Reddit's website and they can do whatever they want.
  • To say they're banning it, but then to point out how most are inactive says it all. They're going where the wind blows them.

  • It makes fun of trans people and a suicidal obese youtuber despite reddit banning /r/fatpeoplehate years ago.
  • by bettodavis ( 1782302 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:34PM (#60242684)
    Truth is reddit can ban whatever they want, it's a private service and the owners can turn it into a safe space, or a shrine to Marx if they like.

    And it's also your freedom not go there anymore.

    What can't be banned is freedom of speech from the public sphere and simply existing somewhere. That's what must be allowed. As long as having the wrong ideology is not a cause for your site to be closed, we're fine.

    When we place "offensive content" as the law defined limit of freedom of speech, then beware, because we turn what people is allowed to say into a purely subjective judgement by authority. And we end up without any freedom of speech at all, because everything can be offensive to someone.
    • And it's also your freedom not go there anymore.

      I just wish racist fuckwits would actually exercise this freedom rather than simply talk about it.

  • by duvel ( 173522 )

    Should we really celebrate yet another step on the slippery slope of political correctness?

  • I never really used my Reddit account anyway. But if they're going full potato and jumping on the 'hate speech' band wagon that's a good enough reason to abandon the site entirely. Because rules like this will always be applied with an eye towards the censorship of political ideologies that the owners and admins of the site do no like, even if they do not violent these new rules. And will also always give favored groups a pass even if they are observably violating the letter of these new rules.
    • I never really used my Reddit account anyway. But if they're going full potato and jumping on the 'hate speech' band wagon that's a good enough reason to abandon the site entirely.

      Well since you admit to rarely using your reddit account, maybe a thinning out of the number of fuckwits using the site may actually be reason to start using it.

      Because rules like this will always be applied with an eye towards the censorship of political ideologies

      Thank god. If we could eliminate political nonsense the world would be a better place.

  • I was an early redditor who liked and participated in a few subreddits. As I watched their defensive posture over the pedophilia being enabled and supported by their platform, I realized I could no longer be a part of it. I see this as proof that this leopard has not changed its spots at all.

    They eventually caved in to pressure (and maybe just a little fear of finding themselves regulated - my own non-omniscient pontification there), but it was clear that it was not out of any sense of responsibility to the

    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      What's with some people who see "pedophilia" everywhere? Where does that come from?
      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        One of the primary reasons for its continued existence is its huge fetish communities. Something reddit doesn't like to advertise. Pedophilia was tolerated for a very long time on reddit and had several active subreddits dedicated to things like pro-pedophiac politica activism (i.e. the LGBQTP movement, MAPs etc).

        Those got banned by reddit a couple of years ago after a massive campaign against them, which was the time when there was a massive influx of those same people on twitter where they currently resid

  • I've tried browsing Reddit many times in the past, but I never took the time to understand the format of the site because of the sheer amount of right wing trolls and garbage on the site. I'll certainly look into it again now to see if it's worth my time.
    • I use it to keep a tab on subjects of interest, but it doesn't get a lot of weight or priority. It's surprising how right-leaning it is, even for local/municipal groups/communities that are generally left-leaning (seems like mostly conservative-leaning people vocalize there).

      For example, in the /vegan subreddit one sure-fire way to get downvoted is to mention that the Impossible Burger or Just Egg were tested on animals by their 'vegan' companies.

      Seems like a defensible vegan position, right? Animal testing

  • Can discussing Bell Curve without dismissing it out of hand be non hate speech with enough hemming and hawing and prostrating, or is that hate speech period?

  • One detail. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:29PM (#60243024)

    They explicitly said that their new rules don't protect "majorities". [reddithelp.com]

    For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.

    I'd bet money this protects Islamists (23.2% of the world) but not Atheists (14.1%), Han Chinese people (19% of the world population, literally the largest ethnic group) but not Caucasian people (11%), and Asians (4,641,054,775 people) and Africans (1,340,598,147 people) but not Europeans (747,636,026 people) and North Americans (368,869,647) but lord knows that will apply to South Americans (430,759,766).

    Speaking of money, as written this also protects the rich and famous but not the massive quantities of people who live in poverty or paycheck to paycheck, AKA the demographic that everybody punches down on.

    They might actually run into a legal issue over that, companies in the past have suffered consequences for discrimination even under the shield of pRiVaTe BuSiNeSs.

    I would also like to point out that it is currently eerily difficult to find numbers on the racial demographics of the world.

    https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • The notion that any speech is "hate speech" in a society with supposed "free speech" is nonsensical. Just to specify for the ignorant; there is a difference between speech and incitement. To incite actions that would harm others (e.g., “[S]hout[ing] ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”) – is NOT protected under the 1st Amendment; Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). However, name calling, putting forth ideas, or general stupidity is not incitement. If it is incitement, t

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