Reddit Bans Subreddits about Making Fun of Fat People, Neogaf, and others.

[BloatedGuppy]

And BloatedGuppy, if you're just going to post "their site, they can do what they want, not censorship" repeatedly, then what is your point? The idea is to discuss whether they're doing the right thing or not.

Did I post that repeatedly? I don't remember doing that. Maybe someone created a bot with my avatar to do that for me.

Naturally I would assume my point in that circumstance would be "it's their site, they can do what they want". It's a fact that is lost on a great many people when they start babbling about censorship. You assume that because you and I understand what free speech and censorship entails that everyone does, and that there are no catastrophically stupid people who right this second are insisting their rights were violated because they got moderated on an internet forum. I can assure you that this is not the case.

As to it being the "right thing" or not, that will depend entirely on their reasoning, and at the moment it's just he said she said. Do I take the word of Pao and the admins of Reddit, about whom I know nothing? Or the word of some random internet mushrooms, about whom I also know nothing? What a delightful conundrum to be in. At the end of the day it's going to rely on how cogent the arguments are. So far the "Pao is an ideological maniac" arguments haven't been particularly compelling, but I've been assured this is because I am a moron, damned by the gods. So I have that working against me.

 

[Areloch]

Including those monstrosities that like to go whale watching as a hobby. Truly the most detestable of pastimes.

Are you kidding!?

It's horrible!

They're objectifying those poor whales!

I laughed harder than was probably necessary.

 

[Josh123914]

A LOT of people don't seem to grasp what the First Amendment is all about, or what is and isn't free speech.

It means the government can't stop you from saying what you want. That's it. It doesn't mean private business are forced to give you a platform, it doesn't mean everyone has to be forced to listen to you or take you seriously, it doesn't mean you're immune to the consequences of whatever you do, and it doesn't mean that people can't use THEIR right of free speech to shout you down.

So yeah, good on Reddit for becoming slighly less of a sewer.

Reddit became the monolith it is today because of its laissez-faire attitude towards subreddits and moderation. The users of the site are angry that Reddit has abandoned those principles. This is a userbase revolting against a change they do not want, and its completely fair for them to do it.

Yes what they are doing doesnt technically violate free speech in an american-centric first amendment view, but saying users are in the wrong for rallying against this change is missing the point so hard you're on another continent from it.

Nope. Not gonna feel sorry for shitheads finally facing consequences for being shitheads.

Even the most easygoing homeowner is eventually gonna lose it if you keep shitting on the floor enough times.

But they didn't even remove the shitheads, they just repo'd their apartment in a way that the lease never said they could. Now these shitheads are hanging around and sleeping the couches of other people's houses.
At least when they were dealing weed before it was in their own little zone. Now they've been hauled out in a way that nobody knew was allowed to happen before, and many other subs are afraid they'll be next. Going so far as to set up a new apartment in that place Voat.co across the street.

 

[Somekindofgold]

Nope. Not gonna feel sorry for shitheads finally facing consequences for being shitheads.

Even the most easygoing homeowner is eventually gonna lose it if you keep shitting on the floor enough times.

I just..I..I cant do this. Congratulations you just fucking landed in antartica and the point was in New York. An entire site founded on the ideals of free discussion, that has gone against governments for trying to censor the internet, has just started censoring subreddits due to the ideas behind their content and all you can say is 'good, I didnt agree with them so I'm glad the website is betraying their userbase'.

So only one of them broke the rules, and the rest were just slipped in under the radar. Why those ones specifically? Just a sample? Just testing the waters? When she has to start in on the next 500 offensive reddits, will she use the same reasoning? Whoops these ones were all breaking the rules too, honestly! I look forward to it happening. We shall reconvene here to discuss it when the great culling of Reddit begins in earnest. How long do you think it will be until all the offensive subs are banned? A week? Two weeks? Could it take as long as a year?

I dont know Guppy all I know is that the admins havent stopped at the first ones.

So you are actually arguing that literal whales are one of Ellen Pao's many ideological targets?

No I'm arguing that the whale watching subreddit got caught in the crossfire because they thought whalewatching was a euphemism for mocking fat people and a trigger happy admin was following orders without checking.

Out of curiosity, do her personal politics = mental illness? Does one's occupation of a particular pole on the political spectrum make them more or less likely to engage in conspiratorial behavior? Discuss!

When a far right person takes over a company and suddenly all the marxist subreddits start disappearing under the excuse of 'harassment', when even ones that are being targeted have no history of harassment, and even ones about Groucho Marx are being deleted because admins just see 'Marx' and go nuts, you'd be suspicious that the new CEO has had a say in policy. Especially when in previous interviews with the press said CEO had bragged about how they refused to hire anyone who did not agree with traditional values.

Pao let her political persuasion affect her business decisions as CEO before, its not a stretch to see her doing it again.

So is your issue with the methodology or the ideology? I thought users weren't doxxing, and that the doxxing thing was just a smokescreen for Pao-Brand ideological strongarming?

I have an issue with subreddits being deleted because some users engage in activity that are against the rules, that has been my issue with this since it started. I also said that the doxxing did happen on FPH, but it was an issue that did not require the complete destruction of an entire subreddit, and that Pao took the doxxing as a chance to just get rid of it all.

Once again. Vietnamese village set on fire to try and remove the vietcong. All you've done is make the innocent villagers homeless.

 

[Silence]

And BloatedGuppy, if you're just going to post "their site, they can do what they want, not censorship" repeatedly, then what is your point? The idea is to discuss whether they're doing the right thing or not.

Did I post that repeatedly? I don't remember doing that. Maybe someone created a bot with my avatar to do that for me.

Naturally I would assume my point in that circumstance would be "it's their site, they can do what they want". It's a fact that is lost on a great many people when they start babbling about censorship. You assume that because you and I understand what free speech and censorship entails that everyone does, and that there are no catastrophically stupid people who right this second are insisting their rights were violated because they got moderated on an internet forum. I can assure you that this is not the case.

As to it being the "right thing" or not, that will depend entirely on their reasoning, and at the moment it's just he said she said. Do I take the word of Pao and the admins of Reddit, about whom I know nothing? Or the word of some random internet mushrooms, about whom I also know nothing? What a delightful conundrum to be in. At the end of the day it's going to rely on how cogent the arguments are. So far the "Pao is an ideological maniac" arguments haven't been particularly compelling, but I've been assured this is because I am a moron, damned by the gods. So I have that working against me.

So you're just writing against the perpetually outraged to stop being perpetually outraged? I mean, it's their posts, they can do what they want, and be as stupid and illogical as they want, what do you care?

That's the exact same logic you use.

 

[McMarbles]

A LOT of people don't seem to grasp what the First Amendment is all about, or what is and isn't free speech.

It means the government can't stop you from saying what you want. That's it. It doesn't mean private business are forced to give you a platform, it doesn't mean everyone has to be forced to listen to you or take you seriously, it doesn't mean you're immune to the consequences of whatever you do, and it doesn't mean that people can't use THEIR right of free speech to shout you down.

So yeah, good on Reddit for becoming slighly less of a sewer.

Reddit became the monolith it is today because of its laissez-faire attitude towards subreddits and moderation. The users of the site are angry that Reddit has abandoned those principles. This is a userbase revolting against a change they do not want, and its completely fair for them to do it.

Yes what they are doing doesnt technically violate free speech in an american-centric first amendment view, but saying users are in the wrong for rallying against this change is missing the point so hard you're on another continent from it.

Nope. Not gonna feel sorry for shitheads finally facing consequences for being shitheads.

Even the most easygoing homeowner is eventually gonna lose it if you keep shitting on the floor enough times.

But they didn't even remove the shitheads, they just repo'd their apartment in a way that the lease never said they could. Now these shitheads are hanging around and sleeping the couches of other people's houses.
At least when they were dealing weed before it was in their own little zone. Now they've been hauled out in a way that nobody knew was allowed to happen before, and many other subs are afraid they'll be next. Going so far as to set up a new apartment in that place Voat.co across the street.

Their site, their server, the lease is what they say it is.

Of course, if Reddit was mine, I'd probably burn it down for the insurance money.

 

[DrOswald]

Well it does seem someone had a personal agenda in which ones were banned. As has been pointed out in this thread, one of the ones banned you did not list was r/whalewatching. Sounds like it might be a fat hate sub, right? Nope, it is about actual whale watching. But that didn't matter, because the person doing the mass banning didn't bother even clicking into r/whalewatching before banning it for being a fat harassment thread.

Yep, that sounds like a pretty silly mistake. Or maybe Pao also hates whales. Can't be sure.

Someone is flexing muscles over at Reddit and arbitrarily banning topics they don't like without any real consideration of what they are doing. It is happening, someone is responsible for it happening. I don't know enough about reddit to make any call, but the purpose scenario by Somekindofgold seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation considering what is going on.

So in this scenario, the ideologically driven Pao or her lacky smote "transfags" from existence, but allowed beatingtrannies to remain? Or they just haven't gotten around to that one yet? Shitniggerssay bad, Coontown acceptable?

I must say Pao's sense of moral outrage is refined to a razor edge.

There are plenty of posters in the mega-thread arguing that there was evidence of harassment campaigns originating from at least a couple of those subs, but...we know that can't be true. The good people of those subs wouldn't have broken any of the sites few rules.

This Pao theory. That's the real deal.

I think the curiously exact nature of the banning supports the theory. Many known and dedicated harassment subreddits that are well known the be far worse were looked over for a very specific list. If it was about harassment, why these specific ones? Why not the one dedicated to slut shaming, that actually seeks out women users of reddit and bombs them with "you are such a slut!" messages over and over?

There are four possibilities as I see it:

First, as Somekindofgold suggested, this is testing the waters. All of the subreddits banned were smaller communities, only fatpeoplehate had more than 5000 members, but they were also well known. These were relatively safe subreddits to start with the test the reaction to major bannings as you piss off fewer redditors directly while still finding out the reaction the community at large would have.

Second, this was a targeted attack against people that had technically broken no rules but were seen as undesirable. Many of the mods and frequenters of the subreddits banned were also banned, and many of them we know were not directly engaged in harassment of any kind.

Third, the subreddits banned were banned more for personal reasons than for the harassment reasons stated. Maybe fatpeoplehate called her fat, I don't know. As an actual fat person, in my experience skinny people are way, way more sensitive about fat shaming than fat people.

Four, they want to be seen cleaning up but are unwilling to do it, so they ban a few smaller subreddits and hope that the community doesn't get to mad.

Unless you can provide an alternate explanation.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

There is a difference between making fun and harassing. If they were actually harassing people, then it's a good thing, if not, then it's not a good thing. We all love out freedom of speech, and the only way to have it is to allow assholes to be assholes.

 

[Josh123914]

A LOT of people don't seem to grasp what the First Amendment is all about, or what is and isn't free speech.

It means the government can't stop you from saying what you want. That's it. It doesn't mean private business are forced to give you a platform, it doesn't mean everyone has to be forced to listen to you or take you seriously, it doesn't mean you're immune to the consequences of whatever you do, and it doesn't mean that people can't use THEIR right of free speech to shout you down.

So yeah, good on Reddit for becoming slighly less of a sewer.

Reddit became the monolith it is today because of its laissez-faire attitude towards subreddits and moderation. The users of the site are angry that Reddit has abandoned those principles. This is a userbase revolting against a change they do not want, and its completely fair for them to do it.

Yes what they are doing doesnt technically violate free speech in an american-centric first amendment view, but saying users are in the wrong for rallying against this change is missing the point so hard you're on another continent from it.

Nope. Not gonna feel sorry for shitheads finally facing consequences for being shitheads.

Even the most easygoing homeowner is eventually gonna lose it if you keep shitting on the floor enough times.

But they didn't even remove the shitheads, they just repo'd their apartment in a way that the lease never said they could. Now these shitheads are hanging around and sleeping the couches of other people's houses.
At least when they were dealing weed before it was in their own little zone. Now they've been hauled out in a way that nobody knew was allowed to happen before, and many other subs are afraid they'll be next. Going so far as to set up a new apartment in that place Voat.co across the street.

Their site, their server, the lease is what they say it is.

Of course, if Reddit was mine, I'd probably burn it down for the insurance money.

I've seen enough Judge Judy to know that you can't change the lease unless either A) both parties agree to change it, or B) It's time for the lease to be renewed, in which case the owner can tweak it. Neither of these things happened, but then again /r/FatPeopleHate isn't paying physical money for the server space (that I know of).

And you made me laugh. What's been theorized is that Pao's restructuring is a bid to attract users and advertisers to Reddit and make it a more profitable enterprise. Reddit has never been profitable on its own two feet, and I think the idea of generating more ad revenue and stuff is something the site has been trying to do for years.
Unfortunately, the people that use Reddit like that its this comprehensive one stop shop for all the subjects and information they wish to read and discuss. To remove subreddits like FatPeopleHate means those people are going to either find another site to do all the stuff they once used reddit for (see: the jump from Digg to Reddit in 2010) and also make people that want to hate on fat people talk about it in other subreddits, since they no longer have a sub of their own.

Short of banning thousands of people at once (which I would like to see them do just to watch the consequences) the admins cannot prevent these things from being discussed, just where they are discussed.

In short, these bannings go against the principles that made Reddit popular with its users in the first place, and shake people's confidence in the site's staff.
If an exodus were to happen, I believe it will parallel Digg 2010, or even last year with 4chan when Moot nuked /pol/.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

It seems like Paoism [http://www.reddit.com/r/paoyongyang] has started to become a hit. Not in the least bit surprised.

Now I'm worried about subreddits like KotakuInAction or TumblrInAction, as they seem to offend the SJW admins' and Pao's "sensibilities" for some reason or another. Neogaf criticism-related subreddits was step 1. Not exactly looking forward to step 2.

 

[Politrukk]

In a surprising move, Ellen Pao, Reddit's particularly unpopular new CEO has banned 5 "Harassing" subreddits today. One of which "Fat people Hate", a section dedicated to the mockery of fat people which had over 150,000 subscribers.

As is completely unsurprising, this move is particularly unpopular, as reddit's community has always prided itself on the freedom of speech, a notion the owners of the site have often said they support in interviews, but rarely actually act that way in practice.

What exactly constitutes "Harassment" is entirely unknown, the announcement came out of the blue and without any explanation.

Despite the closure of "Fat People Hate" various subreddits, such as "Coontown", a subreddit dedicated towards the mockery of black people in light of the recent police shootings remains open.

Other subreddits are also unaffected such as;

CuteFemaleCorpses - A subreddit dedicated to images of dead girls.
HurtingAnimals - A subreddit dedicated to images of animal abuse.
SlutJustice - A subreddit dedicated to finding people posting in the relationship section and calling them out for being sluts.
ShitRedditSays - A subreddit dedicated to harassing anyone who isn't a fat lesbian genderfish.

And so on, and so forth.

The reason why these sections are spared the sword and others are not is particularly confusing.

Another subreddit which was banned was "Neofag" a subreddit dedicated to the discussion of Neogaf, a video game forum, mostly infamous for it's terrible rules and often quoted "If you're a fan of any console other than the PS4, you're more likely to get banned" statement.

And so, whilst I'm sure we can all agree, the people of "Fat people hate" weren't particularly nice, there are much worse things on Reddit, so, the question is, given Reddit prides itself on Free Speech, do places like this have a right to exist on a free speech platform?

Finally, a quote from Yishan Wong, who was the Reddit CEO before Pao.

[sub]We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. - Yishan Wong[/sub]

Spoiler: is this serious?

DILDOS AND DILDON'TS

1. RULE X: SRS is a circlequeef and interrupting the circlequeef is an easy way to get banned. For instance, commenters are not allowed to say "This post is not offensive" or "This is not SRS worthy."

2. ShitRedditSays is not a downvote brigade. Do not downvote any comments in the threads linked from here! Pretend the rest of Reddit is a museum of poop. Don't touch the poop.

3. No "ironic" or "satirical" use of slurs.

4. To our readers: consider this entire sub to be labelled with one gigantic trigger warning.

what in the name of?.... jaysus is nothing sacred anymore?

Just lock it all up and throw away the key, I'm tired of the internet

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Well, I didn't say deported. I was drawing a direct parallel to "You could just go to a different internet community" and "You could just move to a different country". As I said, that feels like a weak argument for why one should just suck it up in the face of a possible censorship issue.

Awful analogy. The comparative burden placed is so different it renders the analogy completely ineffectual. One can literally find snother internet community without moving from their chair, nevermind the fact that there is zero financial burden placed on the internet community changer as well.

The relative cost is not the point. Besides, depending on WHAT you want to say, the cost could very well be prohibitive if no place wants to host one's terrible opinions and the only other option is to invest money into web and server hosting in order to broadcast one's inane dribble.

That, and what of the flipside? What if you're rich? Moving to a different country could potentially be incredibly easy.

Is the ROOT comparison of the analogy incorrect? The point of "Oh, you could just go elsewhere if you don't like it"?

Because potential costs aside, I'm fairly positive that part has weight.

Oh my god this is so simple. The reason that the country one seems absurd is because of the potential costs. You're essentially saying "Aside from the most obvious and glaring issue of moving to another country isn't this the same?!" The whole reason it's insane is because that's a ridiculous burden.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Interestingly, there's a petition to get Pao fired that has attracted a fair amount of support. https://www.change.org/p/reddit-remove-ellen-pao-from-her-job-as-reddit-ceo

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I dont know Guppy all I know is that the admins havent stopped at the first ones.

Beyond whale-watching, which sounds like a pretty hilariously inept admin error, what have you got in terms of continuing banishment? Work is busy, I'm not keeping up atm.

...when even ones that are being targeted have no history of harassment...

Are we in the best position to determine whether or not that is the case? It's not that I don't trust the amateur sleuths of the internet, it's just that...no wait that is it.

Also, what is this weird Marxist/Leftist conflation that's been making the rounds lately? When did that become a thing?

Especially when in previous interviews with the press said CEO had bragged about how they refused to hire anyone who did not agree with traditional values.

Are hiring practices not something that should be under a CEO's purview? I'm actually kind of confused about why that would be a point of contention. My business hires and fires people based on a perceived fit inside the "corporate culture". I imagine a vast majority of other businesses are the same. Is it your contention that this is somehow a disreputable practice, rather than a sensible one?

I also said that the doxxing did happen on FPH, but it was an issue that did not require the complete destruction of an entire subreddit, and that Pao took the doxxing as a chance to just get rid of it all.

Well again though, that sounds like you object to the methodology. Is this a methodology issue, or an ideological one? If it's just an ideological rampage, why do we have this one sub that WAS clearly breaking rules? If it's a methodology issue, why not frame the criticism as such? That's a lot easier to swallow than painting Pao as some kind of SJW Godzilla squashing subs randomly when Reddit is still a beehive of some of sub reddits so offensive I couldn't make them up if I tried.

 

[Alterego-X]

But they didn't even remove the shitheads, they just repo'd their apartment in a way that the lease never said they could. Now these shitheads are hanging around and sleeping the couches of other people's houses.
At least when they were dealing weed before it was in their own little zone. Now they've been hauled out in a way that nobody knew was allowed to happen before, and many other subs are afraid they'll be next. Going so far as to set up a new apartment in that place Voat.co across the street.

If I were a homeowner, then kicking out the shitheads and letting them ruin other people's houses, like Voat.co across the street, would be the PERFECT result.

They don't have to really censor assholes away from the Internet, just from reddit.

Let all the scum gather elsewhere, and leave reddit for normal people who have no fear of getting banned for harrassment.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So you're just writing against the perpetually outraged to stop being perpetually outraged?

Did I say that? Even paraphrasing aside, did anything I say translate into that?

Don't get me wrong, that would be AMAZING, but I'm not exactly holding my breath.

I mean, it's their posts, they can do what they want, and be as stupid and illogical as they want, what do you care?

That's the exact same logic you use.

Of course they can do what they want.

Ostensibly, it is easier for me to effect change in an individual I have direct access to than to effect change on the CEO of a completely different website by whining about her in here. That's one notable difference.

Unless you can provide an alternate explanation.

Reddit being a for-profit company, the likeliest explanation is something legally murky cropped up and they are covering their ass.

 

[Josh123914]

But they didn't even remove the shitheads, they just repo'd their apartment in a way that the lease never said they could. Now these shitheads are hanging around and sleeping the couches of other people's houses.
At least when they were dealing weed before it was in their own little zone. Now they've been hauled out in a way that nobody knew was allowed to happen before, and many other subs are afraid they'll be next. Going so far as to set up a new apartment in that place Voat.co across the street.

If I were a homeowner, then kicking out the shitheads and letting them ruin other people's houses, like Voat.co across the street, would be the PERFECT result.

They don't have to really censor assholes away from the Internet, just from reddit.

Let all the scum gather elsewhere, and leave reddit for normal people who have no fear of getting banned for harrassment.

But many of these shitheads are still on the site, instead bringing their discussions to those houses /r/GetMotivated and /r/Funny. The tenants there are now also wondering why these guys were kicked out for "harassment", while SRS around the corner houses people that frequently shove bags of poop in other's letterboxes.

Besides, the new landlady has expressed her distaste for the people in /r/TumblrinAction & /r/Kotakuinaction for having different political views than her. Should we as tenants stand by if / when they are evicted?

 

[cleric of the order]

I cannot weight to see how this unfolds. I personally think Reddit bit off more then they could chew by doing this. Reddit is largely uninteresting and more then a bit insulated compared to other places but since Reddit authority seem unwilling to chew the fat over this. All it's really doing is plumping up the 8chan user-base as /fatpeoplehate/ has just exploded on to top board lists and I personally don't want 8chan to become filled with Ledditors that will only bloat the system.
Fat chance we'll actually see that subreddit, this Ceo has always explained how she plans to feed female salaries or something very political and I get the idea she's just trying to grease the political gears, consume what she can of Reddit and move to the next job.
Either way this is going to have some interesting consequences.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

But they didn't even remove the shitheads, they just repo'd their apartment in a way that the lease never said they could. Now these shitheads are hanging around and sleeping the couches of other people's houses.
At least when they were dealing weed before it was in their own little zone. Now they've been hauled out in a way that nobody knew was allowed to happen before, and many other subs are afraid they'll be next. Going so far as to set up a new apartment in that place Voat.co across the street.

If I were a homeowner, then kicking out the shitheads and letting them ruin other people's houses, like Voat.co across the street, would be the PERFECT result.

They don't have to really censor assholes away from the Internet, just from reddit.

Let all the scum gather elsewhere, and leave reddit for normal people who have no fear of getting banned for harrassment.

But many of these shitheads are still on the site, instead bringing their discussions to those houses /r/GetMotivated and /r/Funny. The tenants there are now also wondering why these guys were kicked out for "harassment", while SRS around the corner houses people that frequently shove bags of poop in other's letterboxes.

Besides, the new landlady has expressed her distaste for the people in /r/TumblrinAction & /r/Kotakuinaction for having different political views than her. Should we as tenants stand by if / when they are evicted?

They can just get shadowbanned. If they run around being stupid other places then they should be, should they not?

And is SRS that bad? I half suspect it's an ideological thing there. I hear all the complaints from *certain* corners.

And tbh I wouldn't give a damn about them. But short of some conspiracy theory thinking I doubt they will get the boot on a poltical basis, just like I doubt it was political to ban fph

 

[Alterego-X]

Besides, the new landlady has expressed her distaste for the people in /r/TumblrinAction & /r/Kotakuinaction for having different political views than her. Should we as tenants stand by if / when they are evicted?

I'm not saying what YOU should do, but if some people hear about fatpeoplehate getting banned, and their first thought is that they might be next, and migrate to voat, that's still better for reddit than them staying there, given what kind of people would think "wait, our politics are more similar to FatPeopleHate's than to Pao's! Better jump ship"

Worst case scenario, if sub bans become ideologically motivated, poli-reddit will become dominated politically leftist ideologues, while voat becomes a landfill for reactionaries and bigots. That would still affect an absurdly small fraction of reddit's overall audience, as most people are simply not there for the political circlejerks, and it would very likely save the site from a Digg-like ruination through right wing brigading.