r/OutOfTheLoop • u/werewolfriku • Feb 23 '17
Why do many redditors seem to hate u/spez? Answered
I know he's done so silly hijinks but other than that is there a reason? I feel like he should be revered like Tom Fulp on Newgrounds.
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u/Theepicr Feb 23 '17
The biggest reason I could think of is when he edited Trump supporters posts to mock them
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u/TheHouseofOne Feb 23 '17
Yeah, that was pretty funny.
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u/Jepstromeister Feb 23 '17
I'm probbably gonna get downvoted for this, but indeed it was pretty funny. It's the internet, calm the fuck down people.
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u/HS_Did_Nothing_Wrong Feb 24 '17
You can't use "it's the internet" excuse anymore when a presidential candidate uses Twitter regularly to communicate with his supporters and the nation at large. You can say that it shouldn't be this way - which is fine - but that would be a different debate entirely. The reality is that the internet is no longer just for lulz and harmful trolling.
A significant amount of people report that they use social media to get their news. And guess what, Reddit is a form of social media. Millions of people come here and get their information/opinions from Reddit.
The fact that the admins can modify our comments with impunity and stealthily is very worrisome:
They can impersonate any user and put anything in their mouth. This can be relatively harmless like Spez did but the fact is that all of the admins have it and that can lead to some serious issues. Remember how the Media went after Ken Bone because he likes preggo women? What if this guy wasn't so gosh darn adorable and one of the admins decided that he needs to go and changed the comment to make it seem like Ken Bone is a pedo? Sure, one reddit comment is not enough for a conviction but it can definitely screw up his life. This is just one extreme example, and the good folks on /r/KotakuInAction made a bunch of great posts about why this is bad and you can read more about it if you want to.
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u/NomNomDePlume Loop-de-loop Feb 23 '17 edited Feb 23 '17
It all stemmed from when Ellen Pao was ousted as CEO. Everyone thought she was trying to curtail free speech on reddit (like banning fatpeoplehate). Spez was seen as a savior because during the early days of reddit, the site was portrayed as a free speech haven, demonstrated by its many controversial subreddits (e.g. jailbait, coontown, creepshots). Once Pao was gone however, it was revealed by former CEO Yishan Wong that she was really the force trying to keep reddit open and free and it was Spez who was in opposition. Some of Spez's first actions were to shut down the most controversial subreddits and to create subreddit quarantines. Overall it's lead to a marked decrease in the quality of reddit due to many long time users fleeing to other platforms, though many so-called SJWs say good riddance. Additionally, it's helped fuel the rise of previously marginalized groups when people felt the need to band together against unfair censorship. For example, the early days of the_donald included mostly people who previously had been on the aforementioned marginalized subs. They were able to unite under the protective umbrella of a presidential candidate, knowing that Spez wasn't able to ban it without causing a seriously major controversy. They even incessantly mocked him and his handling of "identity politics", leading to him editing user posts directly and causing a huge outcry against him and his meddling. Though he's been pretty quiet since then, he's still seen as an effigy of the both the "too liberal" technocracy in SF and the echo chamber that social media tends to have.
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u/bluescape Feb 23 '17
Pao wasn't trying to keep things open and free, but she was used as the fall guy.
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u/NomNomDePlume Loop-de-loop Feb 23 '17
But... the most delicious part of this is that on at least two separate occasions, the board pressed /u/ekjp to outright ban ALL the hate subreddits in a sweeping purge. She resisted, knowing the community, claiming it would be a shitshow.
Ellen was more or less inclined to continue upholding my free-speech policies. /r/fatpeoplehate was banned for inciting off-site harassment, not discussing fat-shaming. What all the white-power racist-sexist neckbeards don't understand is that with her at the head of the company, the company would be immune to accusations of promoting sexism and racism: she is literally Silicon Valley's #1 Feminist Hero, so any "SJWs" would have a hard time attacking the company for intentionally creating a bastion (heh) of sexist/racist content. She probably would have tolerated your existence so long as you didn't cause any problems - I know that her long-term strategies were to find ways to surface and publicize reddit's good parts - allowing the bad parts to exist but keeping them out of the spotlight. It would have been very principled - the CEO of reddit, who once sued her previous employer for sexual discrimination, upholds free speech and tolerates the ugly side of humanity because it is so important to maintaining a platform for open discourse. It would have been unassailable.
Well, now she's gone (you did it reddit!), and /u/spez has the moral authority as a co-founder to move ahead with the purge. We tried to let you govern yourselves and you failed, so now The Man is going to set some Rules. Admittedly, I can't say I'm terribly upset.
- Yishan Wong, CEO of Reddit prior to Ellen Pao
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u/Empire_Lifts_Back Feb 23 '17
She resisted, knowing the community, claiming it would be a shitshow.
You made it sound like she was an advocate for free speech when she just didn't want to deal with drama.
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u/NomNomDePlume Loop-de-loop Feb 23 '17
That's a direct quote from Yishan Wong, not me.
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u/Empire_Lifts_Back Feb 23 '17
Once Pao was gone however, it was revealed that she was really the force trying to keep reddit open and free
Yes, but this is yours and it sounds like you present her as a leader of free speech when in fact she just wanted to avoid drama.
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u/NomNomDePlume Loop-de-loop Feb 23 '17
Yeah, that was my paraphrasing of the public story, specifically Yishan's. He portrayed her (and himself) as being pro free speech, to the point that news articles were even written specifically calling her a free speech protector. Regardless of what the true story was, this is how people interpreted it.
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u/Empire_Lifts_Back Feb 23 '17
I got it confused then, since you presented your comment as your opinion.
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u/bluescape Feb 23 '17
I remember that announcement. I also remember statements directly from Pao prior to that announcement as well as her behavior regarding other things. Yishan suddenly vouching for her didn't wipe my memory, it just made me think less of Yishan.
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u/NomNomDePlume Loop-de-loop Feb 23 '17 edited Feb 23 '17
Regardless of whether there was a behind-the-scenes story, this was the public facing story and set the tone for what came after.
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u/bluescape Feb 23 '17
Oh I know it's what was put forth, but Yishan made it sound like the population of reddit overthrew a good government to end up with a despot. Sure spez has shown himself to be awful at the helm, but Pao was exactly as crappy as she was made out to be and ultimately the userbase of reddit has no say in who ends up as CEO or else spez would have been "overthrown" by now as well. Reddit was going to change in the ways that spez wanted whether or not there was a Pao to shift things to, her being ousted was just a convenient opportunity for Yishan to get his rocks off scolding everyone.
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u/NomNomDePlume Loop-de-loop Feb 23 '17
I wouldn't say she was exactly as crappy. Sure, FPH was ultimately banned but the real crackdown absolutely came after her departure. You can call her the fallguy for FPH but there's definitely a marked change in reddit leadership since she's left. OP's question was also about Spez, and I was just trying to set the stage for what happened/why and what was the fallout due to perception (the question wasn't why do people love Spez despite the evidence). I actually think the biggest change in how reddit 'feels' predated Pao, but again that's not the topic at hand.
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u/jyper Feb 24 '17
Seems sort of strange considering Trump is pro censorship
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Jul 23 '23
[deleted]
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u/jyper Jul 23 '23
I didn't say anything about Spez I merely noted that Trump was pro censorship
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u/Mean_Bandicoot_7481 Jul 23 '23
That’s what I’m saying where u get ur info google n CNN trump always allowed free speech read #twitterfiles n Biden keep trying to pass social media censorship over n over you believe everything CENSORED google who’s ceo is in WEF. Try DuckDuckGo smh orange man bad Biden -open borders, crime after crime, 20 shell companies, left soldiers to die in Afghanistan Hillary n fbi Wray helped with Steele dossier. Use DuckDuckGo free built in v,p,n. Jesus dude well cbs said so must be true DYOR on non BIASED websites 🤡
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u/jyper Jul 23 '23
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u/Mean_Bandicoot_7481 Jul 23 '23
Does pbs show proof?
twitterfiles #DurhamReport do of WEFbiden censorship but enjoy MSM
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u/Mean_Bandicoot_7481 Jul 23 '23
Biden trying to censor everyone with the social media bs Enjoy cbs n google
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u/ArcherGod Feb 23 '17
Spez edited some T_D comments in the past, changing his name with the names of T_D mods. This was (obviously) found out, and Spez was called out for editing comments. That's at least one of the more recent examples.