Very juvenile and unprofessional way of dealing with the situation, really erodes trust in the platform (simply deleting the comment would have been a better response).
Would maybe expect this from the founder of a young fledgling startup, but the 33 year old CEO of a company like Reddit ought to know better.
It is much more honest and within reason to take steps like deleting posts, suspending or even outright banning users.
It's Reddit. It's an Internet forum run by a private corporation. The users in question abusing spez have zero right to their speech on the platform. You have zero recourse if Reddit edits your comments.
Nuke /r/the_donald, nuke the users and hellban their IPS of those who sent abusive messages, and let's move on. Bask in the irony when I say, "Drain the swamp"
Free speech ends when it's become harrasment. What happened to spez calls for digitally curb stomping the offenders.
This is no different from Twitter having to cull accounts harassing others.
Oh God, this tired distraction again? We know they have no "right to free speech" on a private platform. We know. Everybody knows. Reddit is not the government and can do what it wants. It could replace every instance of "/u/spez sucks" with "/u/spez is great!" and be absolutely within its rights. What we're saying is that such behavior would not be in the spirit of free speech and would raise questions about Reddit's claimed commitment to that principle, not that it's actually illegal.
> Nuke /r/the_donald, nuke the users and hellban their IPS of those who sent abusive messages, and let's move on. Bask in the irony when I say, "Drain the swamp"
Try to prevent the people whose views you don't like from speaking, eh? That certainly worked out well in the last election.
This is one of the most bizarre statements I have ever read. You don't understand why people are outraged over abuse of power? Seriously?
> It's Reddit. It's an Internet forum run by a private corporation.
A forum used by users who are pretty much famous for taking a strong dislike to censorship.
> You have zero recourse if Reddit edits your comments.
Zero legal recourse. Plenty of recourse to make a big deal out of it online and damage Reddit's reputation and make others aware when the CEO makes it clear there are additional risks that people didn't expect with using their platform.
It would be like you posting a Twitter message that says "I hate Donald Trump" and Twitter transparently changing that message to "I hate Tim Cook" so that anybody reading your timeline thinks you're someone you aren't. See the problem now? Now imagine if Twitter's management was taken over tomorrow and this actually happens.
Would you not be a little bit outraged?
I don't see it either when something happens on reality TV (direct analog). It's fine and dandy that reddit mods post about liberal values, which is purely political posturing, not technical or legal limitation. That kind of lip-service doesn't mean anything to me...insofar as I'm not counting on it being true any more than a politician making promises about their platform. I'm certainly not surprised (or outraged?) when there are cries for forgiveness after acting against those political statements.
The only real problem I can see is that people (at least, here in the UK) have been charged with crimes relating to something they've posted on reddit. Clearly, that's ridiculous if there can be no expectation of proof of authorship.
If it doesn't care about the principles of free speech (principles, not the amendment) then it should stop giving fake lip service to it.
Also, what you say isn't really true. 4chan does a good job of not censoring anything that isn't obviously illegal.
Any chat system built on top of the blockchain for that matter would actually be impossible to censor.
Or even just a simple email list, is in some sense an uncensored chat room.
Or text messages. Or phone calls.
All of these are in some sense, technology assisted chat services, run by private parties. And I'd describe them all as "bastions of free speech".
What if, to prevent harassment, your phone company listened to all of its customers phone calls and selective moderated them whenever you said a bad word? That is the equivalent.
What I am pointing out is that the let's strategy in this election was suppression and abuse, and it resulted in President Trump. Maybe try a different approach next time!
These platforms are not just a playground anymore. Politicians come on and make on-the-record statements on them, the news sources stories off them, etc. Integrity of the record is critical. Reddit jeopardizing that platform is very bad for them and erodes their credibility enormously. I can see major figures declining to perform AMAs anymore based on the uncertainty that someone at the company will get triggered, jump in, and change their stuff.