Having a free speech platform means that it is going to be subjected to people with shitty things to say.
Reddit is legally allowed to do whatever they want, and the issue isn't so much that they are trying to control abusive users/subs, but that they are trying to control the conversation. That's not just Ellen Pao, that's a large portion of mods as well. The current crowd that is slowly becoming the reddit majority has a habit of shutting down conversation they deem offensive. But what's offensive is ultimately subjective.
It's no lie that there are genuinely mean and bigoted people on reddit. But guess what? As this community grows here those people will start showing up here too. Reddit did its best to deal with this issue in the same way society does: by encouraging a culture that didn't hold those people in high regard. Instead of giving them a voice, they were sort of naturally weeded out from the general reddit community and confined to their individual subreddits.
The reason we allow these speech in society is not just because we are upholding free speech, but because shutting them down doesn't necessarily work. Shutting down the conversation doesn't change attitudes, and trying to live in a world absent of shitty people is like asking water to not be wet. If we outlawed the KKK, would it get rid of the racism associated with the KKK? No, they'd make a new organization, or just disperse and bring their racism out into the general society.
Reddit tried to create a system where free speech was allowed and tolerated within the confines of the law. If it necessarily worked is another issue entirely. The Internet can bring out the absolute worst in people and maybe we're just starting to look at that as a society and go, "holy crap, is this how people really are?" I'm never really sure. Frankly I try to stick to better corners of the Internet because seeing a lot of that ugliness can be depressing.
Having a free speech platform means that it is going to be subjected to people with shitty things to say.
Reddit is legally allowed to do whatever they want, and the issue isn't so much that they are trying to control abusive users/subs, but that they are trying to control the conversation. That's not just Ellen Pao, that's a large portion of mods as well. The current crowd that is slowly becoming the reddit majority has a habit of shutting down conversation they deem offensive. But what's offensive is ultimately subjective.
It's no lie that there are genuinely mean and bigoted people on reddit. But guess what? As this community grows here those people will start showing up here too. Reddit did its best to deal with this issue in the same way society does: by encouraging a culture that didn't hold those people in high regard. Instead of giving them a voice, they were sort of naturally weeded out from the general reddit community and confined to their individual subreddits.
The reason we allow these speech in society is not just because we are upholding free speech, but because shutting them down doesn't necessarily work. Shutting down the conversation doesn't change attitudes, and trying to live in a world absent of shitty people is like asking water to not be wet. If we outlawed the KKK, would it get rid of the racism associated with the KKK? No, they'd make a new organization, or just disperse and bring their racism out into the general society.
Reddit tried to create a system where free speech was allowed and tolerated within the confines of the law. If it necessarily worked is another issue entirely. The Internet can bring out the absolute worst in people and maybe we're just starting to look at that as a society and go, "holy crap, is this how people really are?" I'm never really sure. Frankly I try to stick to better corners of the Internet because seeing a lot of that ugliness can be depressing.
Bogdan mentioned that he sees it as casting away the "rotten" userbase, which is a sentiment a lot of people share. But the issue in the end is that the wrong people are getting to decide who is "rotten" and who isn't. Social justice proponents are deciding what is an isn't acceptable, and then that goes back to the age-old discussion of "how do we deem language offensive?" I grew up on George Carlin, so I have some pretty strong feelings on the ideas of restricting language and political correctness. Of course, a lot of people may not agree with me and that's fine, but I should still be able to have the discussion without having my character called into question. I should be able to question certain ideologies and claims without being thought of as a bigot.
And for anyone who's been on tumblr, you know that people who subscribe to social justice ideologies aren't always the most friendly people themselves.
So in the end the issue is with objectivity. The people making the calls of who gets trimmed out have their own ideology of right and wrong, and though they might strip out some of the worst users from reddit, they will also strip out users trying to have legitimate discussions. And as those people take over reddit, they will bring the worst extremists of their philosophies that will eventually make it just as toxic, just in the other direction.
Having a free speech platform means that it is going to be subjected to people with shitty things to say.
Reddit is legally allowed to do whatever they want, and the issue isn't so much that they are trying to control abusive users/subs, but that they are trying to control the conversation. That's not just Ellen Pao, that's a large portion of mods as well. The current crowd that is slowly becoming the reddit majority has a habit of shutting down conversation they deem offensive. But what's offensive is ultimately subjective.
It's no lie that there are genuinely mean and bigoted people on reddit. But guess what? As this community grows here those people will start showing up here too. Reddit did its best to deal with this issue in the same way society does: by encouraging a culture that didn't hold those people in high regard. Instead of giving them a voice, they were sort of naturally weeded out from the general reddit community and confined to their individual subreddits.
The reason we allow these speech in society is not just because we are upholding free speech, but because shutting them down doesn't necessarily work. Shutting down the conversation doesn't change attitudes, and trying to live in a world absent of shitty people is like asking water to not be wet. If we outlawed the KKK, would it get rid of the racism associated with the KKK? No, they'd make a new organization, or just disperse and bring their racism out into the general society.
Reddit tried to create a system where free speech was allowed and tolerated within the confines of the law. If it necessarily worked is another issue entirely. The Internet can bring out the absolute worst in people and maybe we're just starting to look at that as a society and go, "holy crap, is this how people really are?" I'm never really sure. Frankly I try to stick to better corners of the Internet because seeing a lot of that ugliness can be depressing.
Bogdan mentioned that he sees it as castin...
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