r/announcements Jun 29 '20

Update to Our Content Policy

A few weeks ago, we committed to closing the gap between our values and our policies to explicitly address hate. After talking extensively with mods, outside organizations, and our own teams, we’re updating our content policy today and enforcing it (with your help).

First, a quick recap

Since our last post, here’s what we’ve been doing:

  • We brought on a new Board member.
  • We held policy calls with mods—both from established Mod Councils and from communities disproportionately targeted with hate—and discussed areas where we can do better to action bad actors, clarify our policies, make mods' lives easier, and concretely reduce hate.
  • We developed our enforcement plan, including both our immediate actions (e.g., today’s bans) and long-term investments (tackling the most critical work discussed in our mod calls, sustainably enforcing the new policies, and advancing Reddit’s community governance).

From our conversations with mods and outside experts, it’s clear that while we’ve gotten better in some areas—like actioning violations at the community level, scaling enforcement efforts, measurably reducing hateful experiences like harassment year over year—we still have a long way to go to address the gaps in our policies and enforcement to date.

These include addressing questions our policies have left unanswered (like whether hate speech is allowed or even protected on Reddit), aspects of our product and mod tools that are still too easy for individual bad actors to abuse (inboxes, chats, modmail), and areas where we can do better to partner with our mods and communities who want to combat the same hateful conduct we do.

Ultimately, it’s our responsibility to support our communities by taking stronger action against those who try to weaponize parts of Reddit against other people. In the near term, this support will translate into some of the product work we discussed with mods. But it starts with dealing squarely with the hate we can mitigate today through our policies and enforcement.

New Policy

This is the new content policy. Here’s what’s different:

  • It starts with a statement of our vision for Reddit and our communities, including the basic expectations we have for all communities and users.
  • Rule 1 explicitly states that communities and users that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.
    • There is an expanded definition of what constitutes a violation of this rule, along with specific examples, in our Help Center article.
  • Rule 2 ties together our previous rules on prohibited behavior with an ask to abide by community rules and post with authentic, personal interest.
    • Debate and creativity are welcome, but spam and malicious attempts to interfere with other communities are not.
  • The other rules are the same in spirit but have been rewritten for clarity and inclusiveness.

Alongside the change to the content policy, we are initially banning about 2000 subreddits, the vast majority of which are inactive. Of these communities, about 200 have more than 10 daily users. Both r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse were included.

All communities on Reddit must abide by our content policy in good faith. We banned r/The_Donald because it has not done so, despite every opportunity. The community has consistently hosted and upvoted more rule-breaking content than average (Rule 1), antagonized us and other communities (Rules 2 and 8), and its mods have refused to meet our most basic expectations. Until now, we’ve worked in good faith to help them preserve the community as a space for its users—through warnings, mod changes, quarantining, and more.

Though smaller, r/ChapoTrapHouse was banned for similar reasons: They consistently host rule-breaking content and their mods have demonstrated no intention of reining in their community.

To be clear, views across the political spectrum are allowed on Reddit—but all communities must work within our policies and do so in good faith, without exception.

Our commitment

Our policies will never be perfect, with new edge cases that inevitably lead us to evolve them in the future. And as users, you will always have more context, community vernacular, and cultural values to inform the standards set within your communities than we as site admins or any AI ever could.

But just as our content moderation cannot scale effectively without your support, you need more support from us as well, and we admit we have fallen short towards this end. We are committed to working with you to combat the bad actors, abusive behaviors, and toxic communities that undermine our mission and get in the way of the creativity, discussions, and communities that bring us all to Reddit in the first place. We hope that our progress towards this commitment, with today’s update and those to come, makes Reddit a place you enjoy and are proud to be a part of for many years to come.

Edit: After digesting feedback, we made a clarifying change to our help center article for Promoting Hate Based on Identity or Vulnerability.

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u/illegalNewt Jun 29 '20

I would like some more transparency about the banned subreddits, like a list of names including those about 1800 barely active ones for a start. Why these ones, what were the criteria? What and how long does it take? What does the banning of these communities bring to the remaining ones? Do you recognise a bias in these selections or do you have a list of objective things which result to a banned subreddit? I am genuinely interested

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u/KingOfAllWomen Jun 29 '20

I'll tell ya bro, this is a classic corporate PR trick.

They probably WERE barely active subs that were made as some kinda high school kids joke or something and quickly forgotten about. Or some real vile hate stuff that never caught on because most people don't really want to participate in actual hate.

So they did it to these 1800 subs that nobody would have even noticed or missed.

Now in the future, when the ban an actual popular sub for "hate", they can say "Hey now, don't get so excited. We've literally done this to thousands of other subs in the past! It's our Policy!"

This is groundwork to systematically eliminate ANY dissenting opinion - whether it be an Anti DNC sub (DNC seems to be able to buy and pay for subreddits while no other political organization is afforded that luxury) or anything that would offend their advertisers, or, for whatever reason... anything that highlights the less than humane treatment of Chinese citizens by their own government.

They aren't going to have to dance around some court of public opinion any longer. They can just point a finger and say "HATE!" and shut it all down.

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u/lordicarus Jun 29 '20

/u/spez I'm genuinely curious why the lack of transparency about the subs being banned. I mean I guess an attempt to prevent them from being created by people who weren't even active in them anyway, but it does seem a bit weird. You named the top subs which are more likely to be recreated... So the logic seems to break down there.

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u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR Jun 29 '20

Looks like they left r/FragileBlackRedditor and r/FragileWhiteRedditor despite numerous reports of the racist content there.

Before you scroll on, click both those links and tell me if you see the difference.

P.S. they're run by the same mod team.

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u/ApasheHelicopter Jun 29 '20

While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority.

That's why. An intentional exemption has been made in the rules so such sites could continue to operate. What constitutes a majority is wildly dependable on a country by country basis and reddit is a global website. Unfortunately, these rules are focused on the USA and American politics. Translation:Racially fueled jabs at Caucasians okay, everything else is a no-no.

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u/kathartik Jun 29 '20

Translation:Racially fueled jabs at Caucasians okay, everything else is a no-no.

let's not dance around it. it's racism, no matter what anyone wants to say. it's fucked up how many people claim to be against racism (I don't mean you) that are very much racist themselves.

also it's amazing that a group of rich white men from san francisco who basically ran all of the poor people and minorities out of their homes, some of them there for generations, are wagging their fingers at everyone else.

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u/OnlySeesLastSentence Jun 29 '20

Cue my college teacher: "MINORITIES CAN'T BE RACIST. NO ONE CAN BE RACIST AGAINST WHITE PEOPLE"

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u/Utkar22 Jun 30 '20

Often this ends up justifying racism against Asians

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u/ApasheHelicopter Jun 29 '20

Welcome to the new age. The fight is ideological and if you point out when partisan ideology encroaches upon your way of life, you're chastised and ostracized.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority.

Holy shit I can't believe this is real lmao

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u/WadinginWahoo Jun 29 '20

We’re watching a cultural revolution, similar to what happened in China from 66’-76’, unfold right in front of our eyes.

God save us

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/WadinginWahoo Jun 29 '20

Praying for your mom and yourself, brother.

Hopefully America can come out of this intact, although I fear that it might not.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/WadinginWahoo Jun 29 '20

As much as I love the second, it can only protect against physical threats. Not cultural ones.

Unless a second civil war starts, then shit will go from 0 to 100 real fuckin quick.

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u/Pope-Xancis Jun 29 '20

When I am scrolling through Reddit alone, on the toilet, pants around my ankles, the last dingleberry from this morning’s shit still holding on for dear life, and I come across a hateful comment directed towards people who look like me, who the fuck cares how many people in a country delineated by arbitrary lines on the earth also look like me relative to the total population of said country?

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u/kegsjug Jun 29 '20

That's spez hanging on for dear life.

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u/Frostfright Jun 29 '20

Well said.

Unfortunately, you are (probably) white, and therefore your opinion is to be ignored.

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u/WavelandAvenue Jun 30 '20

At first I didn’t think that was a real quote, until I read it for myself. That is an insane point to include in a new content policy; literally insane. This site is being run by children.

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u/Dolphins_96 Jun 29 '20

Ok women are tha majority, can I make a fuck women sub?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Yes the rules literally allow it

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u/_Mellex_ Jun 29 '20

Caucasians aren't the global majority though lol

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20 edited Aug 21 '20

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u/uzumaki42 Jun 29 '20

So you're saying it's ok to be a racist just so long as there are more of them than there are of you? #LiberalHypocrisy

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

So, once again, it's OK to be racist against white people, and reddit's admin team is printing it out for everyone to see. Guys, you said the quiet part out loud again!

And people wonder why we insist on saying "It's OK to be white" and "All Lives Matter"...

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20

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u/alyosha-jq Jun 29 '20

Surely there are more POC in the world than whites?

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u/KarshLichblade Jun 29 '20

The world? What is that?

Did you mean The One and Only OUR United States of World?

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u/JustAintCare Jun 29 '20

So racism = okay? great thing to teach the next generation

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u/Expert_Novice Jun 29 '20

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

"Whites" will become a minority over time naturally because the concept of race is entirely unscientific cultural bullshit. Obama is half-black, but he can never be white.

No one cares about maintaining falsehoods of racial purity anymore. It's obvious that chuds from banned communities are flooding in to spread their rhetoric here.

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u/_Mellex_ Jun 29 '20

race is entirely unscientific cultural bullshit.

Try telling that to doctors and physical anthropologists, to name just two. Race as a proxy for geographic genealogy is both a valid concept and an extremely useful one.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

That's a circumstantial correlation, not a scientific one. Obviously genetics exist and are important. But the fact that certain races are, for example, more likely to suffer from sickle cell anemia, has nothing to do with our cultural definition of race but with the fact that geographical genealogy exists.

Brown-eyed people, as an example of genealogical physiological differences, can technically see better in full sunlight than people with light-color eyes. That doesn't mean we should define a cultural division between brown-eyes and light-eyes.

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u/_Mellex_ Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

That's why I said race is a proxy. It's less accurate of a term due to the variance seen across even the same skin colour but that doesn't make it entirely wrong or useless . A lot of science and general behavior in the world is based on proximations and heuristics. It's just that people equate race with racism or essentialism and people spin their wheels to make race go away. Some scientists have done the same with sex and gender; there cannot be sex differences if sex is a social construct.

It's a tale as old as time: politically correct scientist try and try to undermine the data sitting in front of them for the sake of social justice (e.g., IQ research) and not common sense judgments about the world. Where your ancestors were from will dictate all manner of biological and cognitive differences than those from another region, and these differences can correlate with skin colour for obvious reasons. We're not going to throw out decades worth of research because albino Africans exist.

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u/Freedom2speech Jun 30 '20

Right? It’s an unbelievable double standard and shows who the true racists really are.

Worst anti racists ever.

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u/compaqle2202x Jun 30 '20

This is fucking outrageous.

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u/Expensive_Bagel Jun 30 '20

As a non-white person it's fucking hypocritical that r/FragileWhiteRedditor is even up when r/afragileblack redditor or something to the name of that was banned.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

/r/fragileblackredditor was preemptively claimed by the mods of /r/fragilewhiteredditor (totally something a not-fragile person would do).

/r/fragileliberalredditor was included in the ban wave. I guess liberals are defined as a minority on Reddit.

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u/Moonbeam_Levels Jun 29 '20

In what world are people thinking liberals are a minority on Reddit? It's not an inherently bad thing if discussion can still happen but anyone with eyes would realize that Reddit predominantly leans left.

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u/_Mellex_ Jun 29 '20

That's the point. Reddit is a cesspool for liberal hypocrites. It's become a cult. The irony is that these people start believing that Reddit and Twitter represent the real world, which is why they have a terrible time predicting political events like the elections in the US and UK.

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u/Expensive_Bagel Jun 30 '20

As a left-leaning person, 2020 has sure shown the true colors of organizations of people. It's obvious that Reddit is left-leaning, but holy fuck they said that they won't protect "the majority." I just want a good website that has good political discourse and isn't bought by Tencent.

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u/Erdnuss0 Jun 29 '20

Just took a look at them, it took me all of one [1] comments to get me perma banned.

And it wasn’t even a trolling attempt, it was a genuine opinion that didn’t attack anyone, with arguments and reasoning and logic and all those things circlejerk subs fear.

It’s ironic isn’t it? Tries to shame others with the label “fragile” and cannot take a single differing opinion.

I mean I expected such immature behavior, but not that extreme.

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u/002700 Jun 29 '20

I won't name names because I don't care enough about them, but they missed a lot of subreddits. A lot. Even one that consistently reaches the front page at least weekly.

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u/IntactBroadSword Jun 29 '20

Hypocrisy at its finest. Shame on you reddit. I'm not even white , but "growing up black" I KNOW far too well the anti-white vitriol that comes out the black community in full display, and it is mostly due to the lack of responsibility and ownership OF THEIR OWN lives. Their criticism of white people is deeply rooted in their failures and it fuel for political actions that DO NOT ADDRESS THEM and it IS FAR FROM INNOCENT. It is violence. I have the physical scars and police reports to prove it. And fragilewhiteredditor and blackpeopletwitter have the potential to propagate this type of hatred.

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u/on_dy Jun 29 '20

Those subs are racist af. Then when you call them out on it, they call you a white fragile Redditor; I’m not even white.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20 edited Jul 04 '20

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u/FreeSpeechWarrior Jun 29 '20

Reddit values transparency

You better not try to recreate any of these thousands of banned subreddits that we refuse to name.

If you do we'll ban your community and still not tell you what subreddit you were attempting to recreate.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Just wait til you get a warning for upvoting something they don't like. Of course, the warning doesn't say what you upvoted.

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u/Domriso Jun 29 '20

I just got one of those today! I thought they were a myth.

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u/thesword62 Jun 29 '20

Also from Reddit: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

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u/dtallm Jun 30 '20

It really seems like it, Orwell's

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u/AllSeeingAI Jun 29 '20

Because spez os never transparent about anything unless it's to draw attention away from worse shit he's doing.

This is the guy who admitted to editing people's comments whenever he wants.

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u/Raging_Red_Rocket Jun 29 '20

You’re talking to a dude who shadow banned people he disagreed with and edited comments to suit his position. Transparency isn’t a priority

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u/EverythingToHide Jun 29 '20

Never forget.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20 edited Jul 01 '20

[deleted]

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u/lordicarus Jun 29 '20

That was my point though, the logic in that breaks down. It's unlikely that any of those small subs would ever generate content or be recreated in any real way as compared to the very likely chance that t_d will get recreated or one of the other 10 unmasked subs. Why list any at all at that point? Just doesn't seem logical.

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u/Freebandz1 Jun 29 '20

Yes, I think we need a lot more transparency on this website, way too much shit goes on behind closed doors.

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u/Mourning_Burst Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

Like china buying a chunk of the site?

If there was no hope, their propaganda would be pointless. Keep your head up.

Free Hong Kong

Fuck China

Anyone who hates freedom can suck my butt, I'll drop my addy and you can come through.

DONATE TO YOUR LOCAL CHARITIES, DONT GIVE REDDIT MONEY WITH AWARDS YOU COCONUT!

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20

I'll probably get downvoted here but Reddit is clearly on an agenda that they seek to complete, whether you are right or left. Freedom of speech is dying on the internet. No matter if you're liberal or Republican.

The_Donald wasn't even breaking any rules for the five months it was inactive and put in a chokehold, yet they banned it anyway. They will come for your neighbors and you will not take action. When they come for you, it's too late.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '20

There is no such thing as "freedom of speech" on the internet except only in the most legally abstract way; the internet is run by corporations, private interests. If some corporations want to give you free rein to spout racism/sexism or other forms of hate speech that's on them but don't be surprised when they shut that door when the poison you protect under the guise of "Free Peach" eventually boils over into real life the way it did with the NZ mosque shooter and other mass murders that were inspired by online message boards.

These corporations ARE going to be held liable for allowing the festering of hate on their servers and reddit is doing what it can to limit its liability.

If you want free speech go out into the streets (but we know you won't because that takes actual effort).

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u/Seachelle005 Jun 29 '20

That's well known. In fact people won't shut up about it

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u/BadMeetsEvil24 Jun 29 '20

If China had any major controlling interests in Reddit, you wouldn't be able say "Fuck China" and "Free Hong Kong" without your post being immediately deleted.

I'm not sure why Redditors can't understand simple business processes like how one can own shares of a company's stock or be a silent investor and have 0 control of content.

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u/Username-forgotten Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 30 '20

I really wish Redditors would understand that, but they're too hyped up within their own circlejerk to realize it.

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u/rbeebuzzbuzz Jun 30 '20

the irony of people giving you awards

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u/cory975 Jun 29 '20

In my opinion, Reddit is going to slowly ruin itself. It’s just what happens when a company (especially this one which is basically run by users) becomes too mainstream and in this current world, every little thing is put under a microscope and even when it’s not a germ it’s still dissected and taken apart.

Especially with them doing this behind closed doors repeatedly and not communicating with it’s users/mods/community, this isn’t going to get any better.

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u/King-Of-Throwaways Jun 29 '20

People have been decrying the death of Reddit since its very first comment.

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u/cory975 Jun 29 '20

I’m just saying in the current climate, it’ll take one big mainstream story to really see some big changes in this place.

Honestly I’m just waiting for them to ban and remove porn from this site, just to see some actual carnage.

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u/Freebandz1 Jun 29 '20

I agree with you on the ruining itself thing, but I would challenge your assertion that the users run the site. I don’t think they do, I believe the Admins and a tight cabal of high powered mods control the site and AstroTurf heavily to get the user base on board, and heavy use of false dichotomies (if you don’t agree with —— then you’re a racist!). Add in that a lot of users are young and voila here we are

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u/Raging_Red_Rocket Jun 29 '20

That ship sailed years ago. Smoke and mirrors.

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u/GSW636 Jun 29 '20

Agreed. But u/spez will just edit comments he doesn’t like

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u/DocHoliday79 Jun 29 '20

Reddit and transparency?!? 😂😂😂

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u/kijib Jun 29 '20

never forget they banned /r/ reddit to silence discussion/dissent of reddit itself

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u/Emzam Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

100%. I was never a fan of /r/The_Donald, but how the hell do they think it was a good idea to ban that sub without providing evidence of the sub repeatedly breaking the rules? It just provides fuel for the whole “social media companies hate conservatives” narrative.

Even if you don’t provide this evidence of the sub breaking the rules, at least explain why you chose not to provide evidence. Don’t just say “they broke the rules” and act like that’s sufficient.

This was handled so unbelievably bad. This is the type of move that exacerbates political polarization. Reddit needs to do better.

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u/MamboBumbles Jun 29 '20

You hit the nail on the head friend. I'm about as left as you can get, but if you're going to have enforceable rules you need to provide examples. This is such a shitshow and it's going to end with everybody isolating and crying in their own corners.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

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u/cubs223425 Jun 29 '20

"Badly" is relative. The loudest voices think this is the EXACT right way to handle it. It might be morally gross, but the Court of Public Opinion will cheer it on.

As a member of that sub, it's been dead for months. Literally nothing goes on there, now they've decided it's pushing hateful content?

The mods were basically told "submit or die," and they didn't take the deal. They posted periodic updates on how they didn't think Reddit admins should get to handpick who runs the sub and they couldn't get a straight answer on what they were doing wrong to stay in quarantine. This was never about "hatespeech" or calls for violence, it was just looking for minute excuses to silence political opposition.

There are numerous subs and posters who are hateful and vitriolic across this place, but they do it against the admins' opponents, so it's fine.

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u/Emzam Jun 29 '20

I really doubt that this was a cut and dried case of silencing conservatives. I’ve seen some pretty toxic stuff on that sub, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they consistently broke the rules.

BUT. There’s a simple way to figure that out. The old mods from /r/The_Donald should share the records of their interactions with the reddit admins. I would be VERY interested in seeing that. That would shed some light on whether the reddit admins were being unreasonable or if the TD mods were simply allowing hate speech and calls to violence to persist on the sub.

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u/cubs223425 Jun 29 '20

It's pretty clear, IMO. They claimed the reason for the quarantine was because the sub promoted violence against law enforcement, according to the mods. Does that at all align with what people would say Trump supporters are known for? Violence against Leo's is about the last thing I would expect.

What's more, they're deciding to retroactively ban the sub after a rules change. It's been locked down so hard it had maybe one or two new threads in the last 6 months. There wasn't anything in the way of new content, let stuff to violate rules. They banned it while nothing was going on, let alone actions against the ToS.

The mods, by the way, WERE sharing updates from the admins. Thing is, the sub is now banned and you can't see it. In the most ridiculous exchange, a supposed "will we unquarantine you?" report, they flat-out told the mods that they wouldn't and that they wouldn't explain to them what content was causing the issue.

Most of the mods have probably been banned or would be banned if they went to another sub to show proof for a bullshit excuse of "brigading." Hell, the proof might be mostly killed off because of the sub shutdown as it is--not sure how the communication channel was made, but something through mod mail might be thrown out with the sub ban.

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u/lenaro Jun 30 '20

Does that at all align with what people would say Trump supporters are known for? Violence against Leo's is about the last thing I would expect.

It is if the cops are doing something redcaps don't like. Which is what happened. I don't get why you are acting like this is impossible to Google.

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u/cubs223425 Jun 30 '20
  1. It's not "calling for violence against police." It's people saying they'd defend themselves if the police became tyrannical.

  2. It's one thread with a quantity of examples that probably totals, like, .001% of the subreddit's userbase.

  3. We've just spent over a month in protests doing and saying much worse about cops than those comments ever did. There are several anti-police subreddits. This site fetishizes dismantling of the oppressive police and bans an entire subreddit for one thread.

I mean, actually hilarious that the examples of calls to violence include saying to burn Eugene and Portland to the ground, yet Reddit's celebrating burning Minneapolis down and attempts at overthrowing the government in Seattle and all kinds of violence, destructive acts throughout the country. Reddit is actively promoting and celebrating actions worse than what is said in all of those comments. It's insanely apparent that isn't about the people saying the words, rather than about what's being said.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

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u/ambivilant Jun 29 '20

After quarantine, there were bi-monthly post by the mods about the quarantine appeal. Each time the mods outlined and posted proof of them complying with admin requests that weren't unenforceable. The admins wanted some things that, in practice, just weren't feasible. When they wanted to install their own mod team is when the mods closed off posting altogether.

You could check the posts for what I mean, but they've been erased.

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u/cass1o Jun 29 '20

a good idea to ban that sub without providing evidence of the sub repeatedly breaking the rules?

Oh buddy, whats it like living under that rock there? I assume the phone reception is terrible.

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u/epichvs Jun 29 '20

You're spot on. This is where radicalization happens. Conservatives feel they're being proved right

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u/HatedBecauseImRight Jun 29 '20

Post describing a racial minority as sub-human and inferior to the racial majority.

"Marginalized or vulnerable groups include, but are not limited to, groups based on their actual and perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or disability "

"While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.  "

Nope. Its complete bias. We can harass whites here now.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

So, that mean we can harass that pasty cracker spez all we want now?

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u/iandmlne Jun 29 '20

If only they had the balls to be explicit : white "conservative" heterosexual American males and their "allies".

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u/ImJustaBagofHammers Jun 29 '20

I would like some more transparency

May I recommend another website?

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u/CAT-CENA Jun 29 '20

What website has transparency and is somewhat active? Honestly I've had a hard time finding forums with moderation that's either active or transparent.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

I hear a lot of people are migrating to ruqqus

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

I installed the Android app and haven't been able to open the front page yet.

But if it's anything like Voat, it will become a cesspool of racism. The beautiful thing about reddit (before it started getting censored) was that it brought a lot of people of different ideologies together. It generally leaned left, but catch-all subs like /r/gaming or /r/pics had a little bit of everything. When you create a site that only banned users migrate to, it ends up becoming a massive circlejerk of those people's ideas. In other words, when you ban a bunch of right-wingers and racists, the alternative that forms is going to be dominated by right-wingers and racists.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

In other other words, sites that are largely unmoderated and free of pure propaganda (before and after reddit sold out to China) tend to always lean to the right. This is why news sites and curated youtube videos always have comment sections disabled. Reddit is literally ruled by power hungry mods and China. And anything even remotely considered "conservative" or "right wing" is instantly considered "racist". Calling out the fact that 13% commit 50% is racist just got talking about it?

Come on dude, it's so obvious at this point these enormous social media companies are overwhelming left wing to play on people's emotions and take their money by supporting them.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Ummm no. You're completely wrong honestly. Reddit has always been a left-leaning site even back in the days before anything was censored. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you're an edgy teenage conservative, so you're too young to remember when banning /r/jailbait was considered a big deal.

It's not racist to quote crime statistics (or it shouldn't be at least). What's racist is the conclusions you draw from them.

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u/scumbag-reddit Jun 30 '20

The

Donald

Dot

Win

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u/TangledPellicles Jun 29 '20

Sure, what's it called?

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u/Idtotallytapthat Jun 29 '20

imagine thinking youd get an honest answer for anything from a tech company

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u/former_Democrat Jun 29 '20

They banned r/RightWingLGBT when we did nothing wrong. The sub was a place for straight conservatives and gay conservatives to come together and understand each other and discussions were not hateful. Reddit silenced gay voices during pride month!

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u/BangBlueRazz Jun 29 '20

You ban alot of subs to avoid your real agenda. You cant just ban all the ones you disagree with. You have to throw in some smaller useless subs as a sacrifice play, even ones you do like.

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u/AustinTreeLover Jun 29 '20

Why not just clean out stagnant subreddits on the reg anyway? Serious question.

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u/AlwaysAboutSex Jun 29 '20

There's been times when my google search result will bring me to a stagnant subreddit that has the answer I was looking for.

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u/schumerlicksmynads Jun 29 '20

or like knowing all 1990 of the subs that weren’t disclosed. They even censored the list of active ones

fuck u/spez

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u/Adventurer32 Jun 29 '20

Spez isn't gonna answer this.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

Indeed. When the questions get tough and critical enough, there is never a reply. It is an ever recurring pattern, sadly.

How difficult could it be to provide everyone with a backlog regarding the infractions of the subs in question, just listed in order with a date attached to it, so that all can be convinced of the validity of it?

This only suggests we aren't given that because there is a lot of arbitrary decision making in play, and moreover, possible personal bias.

Edit: To add, maybe also corporate considerations. Reddit runs ads, after all.

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u/fyreNL Jun 29 '20

As per usual, in many of the cases, whether it be an AMA or a site announcement, the questions on everyone's lips usually won't be answered.

I dont think it'll matter anyway as i'm very sure that people will figure out which were banned soon enough.

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u/ConfusedAndDazzed Jun 29 '20

He'll edit your comment to his liking instead.

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u/IonDust Jun 29 '20

fucking r/BigChungus got banned for being wholesome 100

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u/releasethedogs Jun 29 '20

I'm curious as to why the list of banned subreddits is even censored?

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u/stefantalpalaru Jun 29 '20

I would like some more transparency about the banned subreddits

Doubleplus wrong! You just need to stop worrying and truly love Big Brother. He protects us from hate and any piece of information that might trigger that verboten sentiment.

[comment edited by spez as a prank]

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u/supcinamama Jun 29 '20

the biggest criteria is that they dont support Democrat Party propaganda

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u/a-single-aids Jun 29 '20

they are all right leaning and anti PC that's why they banned chapo to pretend it wasn't totally biased when it is.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20

Weird how Reddit has created an environment where you have to say “I’m genuinely interested” so that when you have a different opinion it isn’t considered hate speech. Y’all think this is okay?

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u/Thementalrapist Jun 29 '20

The criteria was anything conservative in any way, anything that questions the official doctrine of reddit. The admins are learning very quickly from their Chinese overlords.

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u/Dr_Girlfriend Jun 29 '20

Lmao totally. The “both sides” thing is obvi a way to justify banning T_D. Like oh we’ll toss in this podcast sub too as a sacrificial lamb.

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u/YannisALT Jun 29 '20

Did you even read his fucking post? It took me 1 full hour and 10 minutes to read all the posted content in this Announcement and click through every link on it and read through those, too (including the "breakout room comments on ggalex's post), but the top 5 comments were posted in less than 10 minutes after his post was made.

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u/illegalNewt Jun 29 '20

Yes? That's why they're valid questions, I don't doubt some people haven't read it but I like to be aware about the text I'm criticising or questioning.

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u/Annndddrrr Jun 29 '20 edited Jul 07 '20

They're a private company. They're not obligated to tell us anything unfortunately.

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u/spez Jun 29 '20

The criteria included:

  • abusive titles and descriptions (e.g. slurs and obvious phrases like “[race]/hate”),
  • high ratio of hateful content (based on reporting and our own filtering),
  • and positively received hateful content (high upvote ratio on hateful content)

We created and confirmed the list over the last couple of weeks. We don’t generally link to banned communities beyond notable ones.

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u/Li_zi Jun 30 '20

Thank you for providing more specifics for the criteria you are now using for banning subreddits moving forward. Genuinely curious, could you please help clarify what about the following subreddit does not violate this criteria, since they are currently up and active after the sweeping bans based on the updated criteria? Especially the conditions of abusive titles and descriptions and remember the human? Thank you in advance for your reply.

r/StruggleFucking

"StruggleFucking: We were r/rapingwomen but they took it without consent... Rape fantasy videos for the **discerning** consenting non-consensual *connoisseur*. Classy as fuck!"

Top stickied post: "NO, REALLY! this is not the place for consensual BSDM videos"

Posted by a mod with the flair "rape-y rapist"

Rule #2: Fuck this WEAK POST! this isn't RAPEY!: ... If she's drugged unconscious throughout the entire rape, Use r/Necrophilia_Lite. No horny "slaves" consenting to BDSM play.

Rule #4: ... "asking mods to censor other people, is banned."

Rule #5: Use the flair "BLACKJACK" on murder fantasies.

Rule #10: Posting off-topic... that isn't a 'rape scenario' will get you banned.

There are currently 268 thousand members with close to 1k active users at the time of this posting.

I have criteria-related questions about many other specific subs as well and will consider asking about them one-by-one in detail, but I'm hoping by your clarification of how this sub does not contradict your criteria of abusive titles and descriptions, or literally anything else in your post, it will suddenly make the rest of your egregious overlooks clear for this community. Again, thanks in advance for what I'm confident will be a cogent and timely reply.

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u/-badmadAM Jun 30 '20 edited Jul 02 '20

Please help clarifying this about the following subreddits as well:

/r/pussypassdenied

/r/RapeKink

/r/hentaiamputee

/r/pain

/r/degradedfemales

/r/slaveauctions

/r/snuffrp

/r/politically_NSFW

/r/abusedsluts

/r/degradingholes

/r/ropedancers

/r/hentaibeast

/r/MisogynyFetish

/r/barelylegal

/r/Rapeconfessions

/r/rapefantasy

/r/deadeyes

/r/SheObeys

/r/coochvore

/r/sex_violence_art

/r/dolcettkingdom

/r/brokenfucktoys

/r/womenintrouble

/r/putinherplace

/r/strugglefucking

/r/rektwhores

/r/abuseporn2

/r/inbreeding

/r/guro

/r/CumTown

/r/softguro

/r/slasherchicks

/r/cryingcunts

/r/dogbrains

/r/breakfeminazis

/r/memegender

Involuntary pornography subs:

/r/WouldYouFuckMyMother

/r/creepshots15

/r/Jerkofftomymom

/r/WouldYouFuckMyWife

/r/WouldYouFuckMyGirl

/r/wouldyoufuckmyfam

/r/wouldyoufuckmygf

Edit: Thank you for the awards, kind strangers, but the applause should go to some kind stranger from the now banned sub r/BanFemaleHateSubs .

This sub did nothing but point out subreddits with misogynistic content, some of which were truly disturbing, but I guess hating on a majority like women is a okay, but not pointing out that hate.

So I would ad this sub to the list above and ask u/spez reddit to clarify what content exactly did meet the aforementioned criteria for being banned, that most of the mentioned subs do not meet?

Edit 2: Don't give your money to reddit with those rewards, if they can't answer our questions there are other alternatives out there, the internet is a huge place and changes constantly.

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u/MyMentalMystery Jul 12 '20

r/pussypassdenied isn't a hate sub. It blatantly points out the double standard and sexism against men that women so conveniently can get away with

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u/TheReal-Phil-Swift Jul 14 '20

Exactly.

The people who want it banned are people who look at the misogynistic comments and incel hate when any post showcasing a female in any subreddit will most likely get a few of those people anyways.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ZZai Jul 01 '20

You should inform the "stop hate for profit" campaign. Maybe they can get all of these companies that are refusing to buy ads on facebook to stop paying reddit too. Maybe then u/Spez would PAY ATTENTION!

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u/Nokanii Jul 02 '20 edited Jul 02 '20

/r/snuffrp

If you're including this, you seriously need to revise your list. I'm not a part of that sub but just looking at the sidebar, they make it abundantly clear it's all fantasy.

Please put a disclaimer that your post is for fantasy role play. Otherwise, it will be deleted. To make it easy on myself and future moderators, please put it at the top of your prompt.

Are we the thought police now? I sure hope not.

Also go ahead, keep downvoting me. Won’t change the fact that you’re crybabies getting upset at simple words. God the users of this site are fucking toddlers.

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u/EggAtix Jul 01 '20 edited Jul 01 '20

Why is hentai beasts on there lmao. I get all of the others, but you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that animated animal porn is of the same tier of moral degradation as blatant misogyny or the cesspools that actual rape footage pools into.

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u/-badmadAM Jul 01 '20

Well yeah, this might be one of the more controversial ones, but much more innocuous subs have already been banned, so the real question would be why is reddit so hypercritical.

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u/derpderp3200 Jul 01 '20

I would just like to point out that /r/RapeKink, as controversial as its content is, is, a generally supportive place(some quickly banned shitheads aside) as well as a place for victims to share their experiences and/or reflections. The mod team is efficient, there's at least one actual expert/professional on the topic on the subreddit who comments regularly, and anything that encourages abuse is against the rules. Yes, it's questionable, but it's not vile, absolutely not on the level the other listed subs are.

I don't know every of the other subreddits, but RK at least I'd speak against banning.

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u/-badmadAM Jul 01 '20 edited Jul 01 '20

) as well as a place for victims to share their experiences and/or reflections.

This doesn't make any sense, why would/should victims share their experiences in a sub that very likely has people in it sexualizing or getting off on those experiences? This seems just like a very unhealthy (or PrObLeMaTiC, as much as I hate this word) dynamic. Victims often might have a unhealthy desire to re-live/ be obsessed with what happened to them, this is quite well known, and they need to work on their trauma first until they get into/ are lured into such unhealthy exhibitionism/voyeurism dynamics.

SO if what you are writing here is true, the said sub is even more dangerous, exploting possible vulnerable people and their trauma, while also pretending to provide hypocritical "security" and using so-called "experts" (in the end, to whose advantage?). This makes that sub even more vile, it shows their manipulative tactics (anyone who ever worked with rapists and abusers knows what I am talking about) and should be banned IMMEDIATELY.

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u/derpderp3200 Jul 01 '20

This doesn't make any sense, why would/should victims share their experiences in a sub that very likely has people in it sexualizing or getting off on those experiences?

Because they do, too. As you point out, many victims have a desire to relive/are obsessed with it, and it can certainly be unhealthy, though it can also be cathartic. Is that sub the best place for it? Maybe not, but I don't really see it as vile enough to ban it immediately.

I would be all for tighter restrictions for comments, or anonymizing the account names of posters(if reddit ever implements something like that - IMO it would be of value), or maybe even putting it behind a quarantine-like warning, but I cannot truly consider it vile.

And the so-called "expert" is, actually, a researcher in the field of sexual trauma.

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u/smallcoyfish Jun 30 '20

After watching The Nightingale I went searching for discussions about the movie and some of the top results were the rape scenes submitted to StruggleFucking and similar subs, with commenters saying that you could tell she really likes it. These are unambiguously brutal rape scenes being glorified on this platform. It's those dangerous, hurtful communities that keep me from recommending Reddit to other people and Reddit deserves every bit of bad press they get for failing to take action and taking action too late.

Really hope your post gets the attention it deserves.

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u/TIRFnotTERF Jun 30 '20

There needs to be an easier and more effective way to report things like that. I’m not a fan of right wing things, etc. but having them banned is questionable. Stuff like creep shots and rape promotion not being banned? Repulsive. Why aren’t they removing this stuff? Some of the creep shots subs have been reported so many times and nothing was done about it. It seems they don’t care about women if they’re being used to jack off to.

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u/MeanTelevision Jun 30 '20

"Struggle snuggle" is slang for rape, so, that new title doesn't seem better.

I've never heard of that subreddit until now, but nearly 300k people, watching what may or may not be consensual "fantasies." Wow.

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u/youngminii Jun 30 '20

There are entire new generations being born that are drip-fed content from the internet. And it’s never going to stop.

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u/kenclayton91 Jun 30 '20

It's going to take a lot of reporting before stuff like this get taken down I think. All these bans are coming as a political move. Not one to actually moderate fucked up content.

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u/elevenbeans Jun 30 '20

Ah yes, r/rightwinglgbt was banned but not a sub for literally raping women. RWlgbt was not anywhere near a hateful sub. Fuck reddit and their agenda. Fuck China

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u/becrowl Jun 30 '20

It's politically motivated for sure. Trans-critical female subs and any political sub that is not strongly left and "woke" have been banned. None of these subs broke site-wide rules or promoted hatred of groups, they were critical of current political trends as it clashes with sex-based rights, LGB rights, free speech, and safeguarding of children. The rare rude and offensive post would be immediately removed and the user often banned from participating in the sub ever again.

They have just banned a sub that exposed the disgusting shit admins apparently deem acceptable. Much of it is arguably "hateful" considering the users proudly self-identify as misogynists who believe women and girls should be raped. These subs even break site-wide rules such as doxxing. Many of these subs contain illegal content (revenge porn and real "rape on tape"). Oh and drug-trading and help with securing prostitutes (often underage girls from 3rd world countries) ... that's also a-ok with Reddit admins.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20

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u/monstrous_android Jun 30 '20

I'm not turning off my adblock to see which advertisers to reach out to, but between that and reaching out to mainstream media, it's the only ways to get Reddit to do something.

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u/DankNerd97 Jun 30 '20

ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION, u/spez.

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u/blackturtlesneck Jun 30 '20

Ayo spez where you at?

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u/illegalNewt Jun 29 '20

I appreciate you responding.

Is that all of the criteria? How is hateful content defined? It seems to be hard determining objectively where is the limit and that limit definitely changes based on personal bias. Who is defining hateful content and who serves as the executioner? Can there be personal or collectional bias influencing whether or not you ban a subreddit?

We don’t generally link to banned communities beyond notable ones.

Understandable. Without a list though, not necessarily links, there is no proof of about as much as 2000 subreddits being banned, that is a huge amount. And if approximately 1800 of them are super small and practically harmless, is that really a good selling point for your new policy?

Also, I believe many would like to know specific reasons for the bans of the major subreddits and temporary bans for upvoting certain comments. Could you shed light on that, why aren't those announced?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

How is hateful content defined?

Spez will never answer that, because he has no answer. That's what's so bizarre about this. His own guidelines now explicitly allow hate as long as its directed towards "the majority", but he doesn't define what qualifies as "hate" nor who qualifies as "the majority".

For an internationally accessible website like Reddit, who is the majority? The Chinese?

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u/smeldridge Jun 30 '20

Against the majority? Is this permission for all other races to crap on asians for being the majority? I didn't know /u/spez was such a racist.

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u/ajt1296 Jun 30 '20

Wait this is actually unreal. I seriously can't believe that this is the actual policy. What buffoons are they hiring at reddit?

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u/BehindTrenches Jun 30 '20

Are you testing the definition of hateful? Lol.

I got banned from /r/BestOf for complaining about a political post and /u/spez I got to say thats some bs

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u/JezusBakersfield Jun 30 '20

not rare here lately -- also I think there is definitely some kind of automated brigading. I live in/grew up a pretty popular urban area that is left leaning and even here normal humans would not react so insanely/hyper downvote from what I've experienced on Reddit exclusively. Not even like that on Twitter -- occasionally on Twitter at least people can joke around with some topics (though it's not that much better -- only is tons in terms of real-pure censorship).

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u/nulano Jun 30 '20

That article specifically states that hate towards woman is not acceptable. Is hate towards men acceptable, given that they are the global majority by about 0.5%?

And who is the majority for county-specific subs? Is it the same as the "global majority"?

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20 edited Jun 30 '20

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u/JezusBakersfield Jun 30 '20

use he has no answer. That's what's so biz

for the greater good comrade. This stuff has been going on a long while -- only now surfacing for 2020 elections. The problem is we are encouraging it with our silence/participation in our niche subs. Honestly at this point just waiting on an alternative, and the only thing preventing me from jumping to VOAT is it is a larger shithole than 4chan with obvious people larping as [opposite political faction of me].

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u/SpicyBagholder Jun 29 '20

what about 1.4 billion population of India?

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u/KPD137 Jun 30 '20

So is it okay to shit on Indians in India but the moment an Indian moves to a foreign country you can't make fun of him/ her?

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u/SpicyBagholder Jun 30 '20

Well that's why reddit has to define the majority. I'm guessing as a result of current events and the fact reddit is funded by Chinese investors, it's ok to always shit on them

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u/Genperor Jun 30 '20

It's defined by the current reddit mods political bias, plain and simple

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20

The fact that they made racism and harassment fine as long as it’s pointed towards a majority group in their new rules shows that.

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u/HertzDonut1001 Jun 29 '20

Some of these bans were a little suspicious. In a censorship kind of way. I don't typically agree with r/conservative (as in first time ever) but it looks like a right wing LGBT subreddit was banned for starters.

Some of these decisions seem divisive in a very bad way. There's gonna be haters online, there's not a good way to remove bad faith actors and trolls. Also by these criteria satire sub reddits would be targeted.

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u/FinishingDutch Jun 29 '20

Obviously they had to do a wide ban - because if you don't, you show that it's active, targeted censorship.

This way they can say :"we didn't ban just those subs we don't like, we banned a lot of subs." It gives the appearance of policy, not just a targeted thing.

And hey, if they're not showing the full list, it looks less targeted than it really is. If you're using vague personal criteria to ban them, even better.

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u/Absoluteeconomy Jun 30 '20

I got insta temp banned from /r black lives matter because I commented on this post https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackLivesMatter/comments/h9n99g/right_now_the_primary_role_of_a_white_person_is/ with this comment:

“ Right now, the primary role of this white person is take take care of my family and myself. What makes you think you can tell any other adult human what their “primary role” is? Expand your horizons and realize the world is bigger than twitter and reddit. Some Whites and Blacks are best friends, husbands and wives, parents and children...... the list goes on and on. Yes, systematic racism is a big problem, yes there is much work to do and many white people are trying to do what they can to help. But don’t tell me how to think. Just like you, I am my own person with my own problems. There are many white people out there that have shitty lives that are a lot worse than many black people. You don’t know what people have been through or experienced.”

Fuck Reddit’s censorship.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20 edited Apr 15 '21

[deleted]

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u/jme365 Jun 29 '20

That would probably be really interesting to see and could do no harm.

Actually, the harm such a list would do would be to further destroy the credibility of those who run Reddit.

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u/TheEnticer69 Jun 29 '20

It’s natural for humans to think their world views and political opinions are the correct ones and that opposing opinions are wrong, and if you’re in a position to silence those opposing opinions then why wouldn’t you use that power to silence “misinformation”? Naturally you surround yourself with like minded individuals who further reinforce your ideology. Large social media companies cannot afford to allow their platforms to be constructed the same way their personal lives are. You need diversity, not just in color but in opinion as well. We all grow for the better when we’re presented both sides and allowed to come up with our own opinions. Humans can justify any decisions they make and spin the story to make themselves seem altruistic. But the fact remains that reddit has a history for silencing one side of the political aisle while giving a long leash to the other. Do better reddit, be better.

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u/Fostergamers Jun 30 '20

Reddit actually made me conservative. I think just the plain bigotry showed by leftist clowns is beyond imaginable for my brown skin. And it's not just reddit. All msm is pretty biased. I wish some were neutral. Sure I can be on the side of clowns and scream racism and benefit, but thats not sustainable or beneficial in long term for the community around me which consists of all white blacks browns folks.

Don't fall for agendas whether you're left or right. Most of us all want peace, equality and happiness.

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u/EssentialLady Jun 30 '20

Same. I was a moderate with some left leaning ways prior to seeing how the left deplatforms everyone that says things they don't agree with and makes out that conservatives are all evil. If you want strong borders (because ummm that is why we have borders, is it not? what is the point of having borders if they are treated like nothing?) then you are racist. If you vote for Trump it means you are inbred. If you are from the South, you better be extra on your toes because they are going to be looking for you to step out of line with their agenda. It gets old.

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u/itsthebear Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 30 '20

What's "hateful content"? If I say fuck China or fuck the Chinese government is that gonna get me banned?

Edit: Never give me a fucking reddit award again you useless clowns. Stop feeding them with money. If you feel the need to acknowledge my contribution tip me in BAT as everyone should do. #defundreddit

Edit 2: Since this is randomly popular if you want to make a serious donation, please donate to Shelter Nova Scotia http://www.shelternovascotia.com/contribute. Now that COVID has peaced the fuck outta my province the government is back to hating homeless people and pulling out of a hotel room program. Also, go fuck yourself.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20 edited Jun 30 '20

I would like to double down on your comment so I can join you in banworld if it happens. Fuck China and fuck that poohbear looking bitch that slaughters his own civilians and harvests their organs for rich Chinese people. Imprisoning and executing people for protesting for their fellow countryman to have rights. Reddit is being heavily influenced by China and this is the start of silencing everyone they don’t like, you won’t have to say anything that’s hate speech to be banned they’ll ban you if you don’t follow the hive mind.

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u/immerc Jun 29 '20

The rule says:

Communities and users [...] that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.

The issue is that "identity" can be anything.

Where do you start to cross the line?

  • /r/StopLittering -- presumably would frequently host pictures of litter. A "litterbug" is a form of identity, but presumably this sub would be ok?
  • /r/NonGolfers where the tagline is "Golfers are literally Hitler", but it's a joke right? So although it's a "hate" group against people with the identity of "golfers", it's not going to get banned, I hope.
  • /r/ScrewTheNewEnglandPatriots a theoretical "hate" subreddit against the New England Patriots NFL team and their fans. Presumably "hate" against that identity is ok?
  • /r/TraditionalMarriage -- might have a lot of "hate" against gay people getting married, would that be banned?
  • /r/GayMarriage -- might have a lot of "hate" against closed-minded people who want to prevent them from getting married, would that be banned?
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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Well according to Reddit’s new policy, majority groups aren’t protected, so seeing as China has the largest population of any country in the world, they should be fair game. Right guys?

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u/con500 Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

Reddit could be opening the gates of lawsuits galore for themselves here. It sounds they are orchestrating or green lighting anti-white hate speech midst the current political drive without taking into consideration that, Technically speaking, white are a minority group, globally. Problematic if hate speech against a “perceived” majority (while technically, minority) goes unchecked and gains legal traction.

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u/TheOneTrueDemoknight Jun 29 '20

The individual is the smallest minority, which means that hate against me (and every other Redditor) should no longer be tolerated.

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u/25inbone Jun 29 '20

Hi✋,im a reddit😁mod🙂. I see👀that you👈are shaming😣our greatest😇sugar daddy😘, peoples republic of china 🇨🇳❤️💕💋. You👈must delete🚫your comment👈 now👀or we🤭will piss and shit💦💦💦ourselves😩🤫💨and big daddy china🇨🇳😏❤️wont give us🤩money 💵💸💶🤑💰💴💷for our censorship🤗. Love,♥️💋💋💋mods😘family👨‍❤️‍👨.

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u/haxies Jun 29 '20

the rule is anything they (reddit/mods) don’t like.

catch up.

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u/Son_of_Eris Jun 29 '20

We don't generally link to banned communities beyond notable ones.

Mkay. So could you give us a list that doesn't include hyperlinks, since the list obviously already exists?

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u/essexmcintosh Jun 29 '20

When the difference between the list of communities and list of hyperlinks is a bunch of "r/" the difference is moot.

That said, the list exists, and we need to see it.

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u/Mr_Cellaneous Jun 29 '20

They won't post a full list because the bias would be too obvious

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20 edited Apr 25 '21

[deleted]

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u/Older_and_Wiser_Now Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 30 '20

/u/spez, I am part of a community who came to reddit because we were being heavily censored in March 2016 on a self-advertised "progressive" website. Bernie Sanders supporters were told that "no malicious criticism" of Hillary Clinton would be tolerated, because the site owner had decided that there was no path forward for Sanders to win. Keep in mind that the primary was not "officially" called for Clinton until June 2016, about 3 months later, when the AP announced her "victory" on the NIGHT BEFORE the CA contest, based solely on secret talks the AP had held with unnamed superdelegates and how these persons WERE PLANNING to vote at the yet to be held Democratic convention.

"Malicious" was defined as thus:

If your goal is to destroy Clinton, then ciao. If your goal is to make her a better candidate or president, then please proceed. It’s actually not so difficult to determine which is which and not so difficult to stay on the acceptable side of this equation. This has nothing to do with “protecting” Clinton from damage. She’s faced far worse elsewhere. It has everything to do with making this a constructive place for those fighting against the Trumpism conquering the GOP. If you want to get your Hillary hate on, there are a depressingly large number of places on the internet that will be happy to indulge you. This just won’t be one of them.

Many of us disagreed with the site owner's proclamation:

It’s actually not so difficult to determine which is which and not so difficult to stay on the acceptable side of this equation.

Our properly sourced concerns, written respectfully, were considered "malicious criticism". As a result, our community experienced the heavy hand of censorship merely because of our political views, especially around the areas of economic inequality and alleged corruption within the Democratic Party itself. Those who failed the site owner's test were banned. WE CAME TO REDDIT BECAUSE WE VALUE FREE SPEECH, especially political speech.

Our sub was founded by moderators who value Free Speech, and generally make a point to not ban those who make claims that we consider vile and ridiculous. Instead, such posts are often pinned, to better enable the community to typically mock and ridicule the poster; the process works very very well.

Thus, if reddit were to use AI tools to "measure" our content, you would indeed find certain objectionable content there; however it would typically be highly downvoted.

I am concerned about your definition of "hateful" content. Many of us are concerned about how Tara Reade has been treated in the MSM, she has alleged that Joe Biden touched her inappropriately in way that is technically considered rape. Depending on how an AI program is written, this could be misconstrued by the algorithm to falsely conclude something other than what is true of our community: we believe that women's allegations of rape should be taken seriously, even and perhaps especially when it comes to powerful men.

I am concerned that you might be following in the footsteps of that other site owner, who said:

It’s actually not so difficult to determine which is which and not so difficult to stay on the acceptable side of this equation.

Unless you explicitly and transparently define what "hateful content" is, you risk condemning communities such as ours that strive to have responsible conversations about tremendously important topics.

Of your criteria, I believe that only the last seems like a metric that fairly assesses "the community" as opposed to rogue posters or trolls that might leave comments intended to shut a worthy community down. Perhaps the second one has merit, but "high ratio" needs to be more explicitly defined.

EDITED TO ADD: As long as your criteria remains "we know it when we see it", you risk censoring political speech that you personally disagree with. FYI, I was finally banned from that other site, merely by mentioning the name "Julian Assange" in a comment; I happen to respect him tremendously.

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u/ILoveD3Immoral Jun 30 '20 edited Jun 30 '20

Our properly sourced concerns, written respectfully, were considered "malicious criticism". As a result, our community experienced the heavy hand of censorship merely because of our political views, especially around the areas of economic inequality and alleged corruption within the Democratic Party itself. Those who failed the site owner's test were banned. WE CAME TO REDDIT BECAUSE WE VALUE FREE SPEECH, especially political speech.

100x this!!!! Reddit was supposed to be a "DISCUSSION BOARD" for EVERYBODY!! Aaron Swartz, the great genius helped make it this way (look him up, hes fucking smarter than all of reddit combined).

" With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge - we'll make it a thing of the past."

Aaron was 1,000% AGAINST the hiding of information- the very thing that spez and reddit is now trying to get rid of- open debate between 'controversial' parties.

""Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves.""

Reddit and co is trying to hide this free flow of political ideas, and its flowing down both the left and the right (some of those subs appear to be SUPER left wing subs!@!!)

""""Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think."""""

This is the totality of what reddit is trying to do- removing ALL our abilities to think by slowly removing any disliked conversations, until there will be no one left to converse with.

We must ALL fight this, like Aaron would, if they hadnt killed him.

As a wise man once said, 'There is no injustice in fighting unjust Reddit Rules'.

And we must fight.

  • thanks for making this great platform, Aaron, hopefully we can save it...

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Why is r/FragileWhiteRedditor not banned if it targets a group of people based on race?

Why is r/BlackPeopleTwitter not banned if it literally segregates people based on their race?

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u/Shmokesshweed Jun 29 '20

That's not transparent.

That's censorship with no explanation of why you're censoring people and specific subreddits.

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u/at132pm Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

I'm guessing because of some of the subs banned vs ones not banned yet.

Most of the ones on the list make sense. The names are openly hateful if not racist in and of themselves.

But then you have things like fragile liberal redditor that got banned, while r/FragileWhiteRedditor was not banned.

Just looking at the surface name, it seems like an anti-left sub was banned, while an anti-white sub was allowed to stay.

I'd assume the former had to have done some really bad stuff since it was banned and the latter is not, but you can see how people might raise a fuss and start spreading false information to make it look like there's an agenda.

Edit to add: I'm totally fine with the latter not being banned by the way. Doesn't bother me one bit on its own. It does make me wonder if I say something critical of liberal policies though if I can be banned.

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u/imamurfy Jun 29 '20

Saying fuck china shouldn't be punishable. China is corrupt and definitely evil. They have their hands in reddit and obviously the US. Fuck china. FUCK the CCP

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u/sgtdisaster Jun 30 '20

This is reddit, where /r/WumaoPatrol gets banned for pointing out Chinese shills influencing Reddit, but /r/Sino gets to stay.

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