I took a look at their sub. I couldn't find any hate speech (though I ignored heavily downvoted comments). I'm also suspicious of "coded hate speech" since that concept grants license to attach racist connotations to just about any sentence.
Is there a post on r/The_Donald that stands out to you as being hate speech?
It's typically the commenters. /r/The_Donald has rules which are supposed to stop hate speech (and typically they delete posts which are). However, with remarkable consistency, if you find someone spouting bigotry and hatred in another subreddit, they are almost always regular /r/The_Donald posters.
To save others the trouble, the title of the post is "Amy Schumer And Lena Dunham Are Finally Leaving The Country" and the image is of two orca whales being prepared for transport. The very non-coded message is that these two women are "as fat as whales" and furthermore that they deserve to be derided based on physical appearance because of their expressed political opinions.
I'm no lawyer, but I think that's treading awfully close to "hate speech".
Its a fine line between protecting the oppressed and being oppressive. When you misapply "hate speech" by using it to describe satire, or humor in bad taste, you run the risk of losing the "hate speech" tool to devaluation, blow-back and more satire. Some things deserve a response and others really are best ignored.
Agree completely. Where I have a problem with r/The_Donald is more than any one post, there are patterns that have emerged over time. Hence others calling out "coded hate speech", a concept which I am even more uncomfortable with than "borderline" hate speech.
That said, the very colloquialism they use to refer to the opposition ("cuck") is merely a shortened form of a term ("cuckold") with a very long history of being a base insult with rather heavy connotations of misogyny.
(i.e. Being "cuckolded", a man whose female partner has exhibited infidelity, is taken as a sign of weakness whereas being a woman whose male partner sleeps around is just de rigueur to the point there's not even a special term for it.)
You are reaching for some quite indirect logic here. As someone regularly frequenting 4chan I can assure you that the sole target of the cuck insult is the male's pride.
Of course it being a sexul insult it is practically unavoidable that values and the female partner are indirectly involved in how the insult works.
Well, technically homosexual couples can also cuck each other, and I have seen the term occasionally used in discussion about homosexual manga. So it really is not about the female.
Hell, even the fairly juvenile "ur mom" is more negative towards females than "cuck".
When women are attacked you will notice. Slut and whale are still the go-to insults.
So please do not shoehorn gender issues into everything. Sure, some assumptions are encoded into it. But it's a goddamn insult, not some friendly disagreement in a debate club. Please adjust your context sensitivity.
> I'm no lawyer, but I think that's treading awfully close to "hate speech".
How about caricature of public figures? Note that they do not have to be tasteful or respectful. Just look at bankers depicted as pigs.
I am neither american nor a lawyer, but as I understand it hate speech has a fairly narrow definition over there. It requires imminent danger of inciting violence. Merely expressing racist or other kinds of -ist viewpoints is not hate speech.
Profession is not a "protected group" (those are traditionally race, gender, age, religion, disability, and depending on the jurisdiction, sexual orientation).
I'm no lawyer either, but I think you are likely to have a very hard time finding someone who is, yet imagines "hate speech" to be a concept with any existence in the law of the United States.
Of all the principles we've ever espoused in this country, we have perhaps been most consistent in our national conviction that the answer to wrong speech is right speech - not less speech but more speech.
That is, until recently. We've lately seen the rise of a strain of thought in which not only is it acceptable to answer mere words - however cruel - with the full and mighty force of law, but to suggest such a course might reasonably inspire trepidation is itself worthy at best of contempt, and the many examples in history of why such trepidation might be justified are ignored in unseemly haste to crush those who speak in a fashion deemed insufficiently satisfactory.
In such a strain of thought, the problem with McCarthyism is not McCarthyism in its own right, but rather that the direction in which it was pointed was wrong - the weapon should not be put down and never picked up again, but merely wielded against a different target than last time.
Is that really the lesson to draw from such an unsavory example? Is there really any practical benefit in such a lesson for the causes such a strain of thought claims so loudly to espouse? The left has fought to silence its opponents for decades, more or less by whatever means fell to hand. The result thus produced, this very month, is remarkable, but not for its loveliness. It will not grow more lovely with time. Does it really seem likely that the tactics which have brought us to such a strait are blameless, and that only more energy is required?
Is it illegal to call people fat in this country now? Serious question. At first I was inclined to ridicule your position, but I have to wonder how far the 'hate crime' legislation has progressed.
This is a good way to acrue massive, immediate backlash on HN. Calling alt-righters out for being neonazis and reminding people that hate speech isn't free speech is apparently over the line for a subset of users here.
Arrant falsehood does tend to gravel people, I suppose.
I'm not sure what anyone expects to gain by doubling down on the goodthink echo chamber that's just lost them an election. Emotional comfort, perhaps? I'm not without sympathy for the need - but that's a private matter. Governance in the US is public, and refusing to engage in the process merely cedes the field. Demonizing one's political opponents not only cedes the field but energizes them with just resentment, and I should think the events of this past month should suffice anyone as a lesson in why that might not be the best of all available tactics - but perhaps I extend more credit than due.
What falsehoods are you referring to? I'm not that familiar with what's going on on Reddit; but alt-right is in fact just a stupid name for neo-Nazi (as recently codified in the AP style guide).
The idea that the other side has a valid opinion just because they won is stupid. A lot of believes don't deserve any respect at all. The constant posts of "You lost because you didn't listen" are silly. The left lost because Donald lied about important things to a lot of people who are desperate for his lies to be true. The only way he holds support is by continuing to lie and blame it on others once he takes power.
Spencer was being deliberately provocative. He knows the media will only play a handful of sound bites to spin their tales, so he gave it to them on a platter to achieve maximum coverage. And it worked. He is now the Great Satan, which apparently means lots of long interviews with major television and radio stations.
For clarity, that quote is referring to journalists and the media. Not Jews, as some have been heavily implying.
I'd like to remind people here that this is exactly Trump's playbook. You infuriate people, they are eager to take you out of context or extrapolate wildly, then curious passersby figure your accusers are not credible.
It's not a high moral ground tactic, but it sure works.
>For clarity, that quote is referring to journalists and the media. Not Jews, as some have been heavily implying.
This absolutely false. The word "zombie" is what people go to when they think of a mindless being. The word "golem" is what a nazi would say as a dogwhistle to let people know he's down with hating (((Jews))).
We Jews said we would never forget, and we haven't.
These people are trolling. This is classic trolling. They know this causes people to react and how the media works. For instance The Atlantic in their video on the NPI conference showed apparently 'dozens' of people doing the 'Heil' salute, but if you examine the footage closely you'll notice Richard Spencer is in fact holding up a water glass in one hand and the camera is being positioned multiple times in such a way to make the same three people look like six or nine people. There are classic camera tricks in that video actually to form your opinion (e.g. selective blurring), I'm sure you'll see them too if you go and look.
This is also trolling with a purpose in order to attract the right enemies.
As I said, this is not the high moral ground. Nonetheless they are not Nazis. You'll need more than some Jewish boys and an Asian pornstar for that to have merit.
The existence of trolls doesn't mean that neonazis can't exist. Your doubletalk isn't fooling anyone. The words and actions in Spencer's talk were beyond explicit. Wake up.
Who the hell is Richard Spencer? I had never heard of him until a couple weeks ago. No one I know who claims the label "alt-right" had heard of him until a couple of weeks ago. No one anywhere had heard of him until the media dug him out from under his rock and started shooting arrows into the big bull's eye he helpfully painted on his idiot forehead for them. Were I conspiratorially minded, I'd imagine he might be a false-flag plant. But I'm old enough to know better.
The people I know who claim "alt-right" are not. They're young and full of piss and vinegar. They're also largely quite intelligent and not less well supplied with humanity than anyone else their age. They were quite receptive to the idea that nothing in the world is simple, and that demonizing any group of people en masse is a cheap, lazy, stupid shortcut past a lot of hard thought and the careful application of empathy toward the acknowledgement that compromise and negotiation are necessary toward any modus vivendi that's satisfactory to everyone, or as nearly so as can be managed in the imperfect world we inhabit.
I've been at this for a year now, more or less. It's been slow, difficult, complex, and anything but heroic, as teaching always is. But I'd capitalized on a couple of early successes, favorably impressing some of those among this group who are themselves generally looked up to by most others, and I was having a real effect. I had them thinking, or starting to - critically analyzing the contradictions between the left's claims and its behavior, and distinguishing the desirability of a lot of progressive goals from the counterproductive ways in which the modern progressive movement operates. I had them getting toward ready to start using the brains and the hearts God gave them to work toward a genuinely better world - for everyone - rather than the mirage of the progressive millennium whose pursuit has brought us to the pretty pass whereat we stand.
Of course, that was before the whole godforsaken world started calling them Nazis, sight unseen. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that? They're good kids, but they're kids. If you think it's easy, over a purely textual medium, to outdo "fuck you, you're not my dad", then by all means I invite you to try. And if you want to write them off, fine. That's easy and it's comfortable and it feels good. I get that. I
don't even blame you, although I'd like to, because that would be easy too. But I am going to tell you you're making a mistake.
Not that it matters, at this point. In the last few weeks, I've seen my influence go from considerable to just about none. They aren't listening to me any more, because there's nothing in the world as exciting as to fight against injustice - which is exactly how they see it, and considering the way I'm seeing them slandered I don't even think they're wrong. Certainly one bookish old homosexual who counsels analysis and empathy over rash action can't live up to that! So they're going to go their way, and you are going to go yours, and I guess I've wasted a year's worth of the hard work with which the actual left, for whom I hold no love, can't be bothered. Perhaps I should have done better, but for the life of me I can't see how. There's only so much shit you can expect people to eat, and the left long ago passed that mark with those whom it makes its enemies. Little wonder they're starting to sick it up now, and we all have to live with the mess.
(And I see the post's been flagged, which means even the time I've spent writing this comment was wasted, because no one will see it. So it goes. May God and history judge us all more kindly than we deserve.)
You clearly did not watch the video. I don't care what your cohort of "alt-right" kids are up to or what outmoded lessons you vainly try to impress upon them. There are real, living, breathing, human beings who now feel empowered to throw out the Nazi salute, single out Jews and Muslims, and claim that America was created by and for white europeans. This isn't some false-flag rabble-rousing propaganda. This is a danger to the foundation of our society. Ignore it at your (and my) peril.
There is no rise of neo-nazism in the US. Real neo-nazi groups are run by the feds, if you don't know this already you are purposefully ignorant. The so-called Alt-Right and their memes are just a reaction to decades of liberal browbeating and name-calling (xenophobe... etc).
I'll stick my neck out and tell you I'm a quasi-neoreactionary, which more or less is to the alt-right what a Marxist is to communism. FWIW I'm not a white supremacist (or nationalist) and many NRX and alt-righters are Jews (including the inventor of neoreaction).
Actually read some of the material and see if 'it checks out' that we're all nazis. Scott Alexander has a essay called 'Reactionary Philosophy in a Planet sized nutshell' which is a good synopsis.
Scott is definitely not a reactionary of any kind, so this is a neutral take.
Otherwise we can just call each other names and strawman each other all day.
Please don't come out with "I don't need no... or somebody on the internet said...". That is just lazy. I don't imagine all socialists subscribe to SJWism, since a lot of them are vehemently against it. Same goes here.
I'm no Trump supporter but this piece is brutal in its implicit bias. Essentially, "free speech should not be enjoyed by those that hold the wrong opinion!"
It was stuff like idiots accusing everyone that didn't support trump of working for CTR that has lead to such a backlash.
> sunlight is the best disinfectant
What do you think that disinfectant looks like? It is rarely people changing ideas it is more often society excluding people. Which is what is happening here. You don't have to give every idiot a platform to believe in free speech. You don't have to give them anything but the right to speech which they can use on their own sites.
it's not free speech if you restrict thoughts and ideas. I am not saying reddit is required to be a free speech site, it's not, but you can't be free speech and still censor.
Regardless, reddit claims to be about free speech and still censors. So... irony?
I think that Reddit will be throwing away one of its most essential contributions to the internet if it resorts to servicing just one side of this debate.
If you're not confronted with the best arguments of your adversaries, you won't understand, learn, or prevail.
It's hard to be a fair judge when you disagree with someone so deeply. Rather than take the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it might be prudent to turn this into a teaching moment instead.
Teach our side of the isle.. don't engage with idiots.. engage only with well formed arguments. We could learn something and become better people rather than becoming reactionary because we're unequipped to deal with alternate views. In the end, it's really not that hard to ignore the worst of it on Reddit, it would be even easier if people on our side didn't freak out about every tidbit.
I think a lot of people are happy to engage with well formed arguments. And the people that want to make them will continue to not associate themselves with the worst elements of their side of the political spectrum. There are lots of people on the left I refuse to support because of their ideas and comments. So I go out of my way to avoid associating myself with them. If you play in the muck though you're going to get dirty.
I don't see what I conceded exactly? The post I responded to claimed that reddit was claiming to be about free speech when spez has openly stated on many occasions that it wasn't originally and isn't now and that it only became more open to it because they were lazing about policing. That has nothing to do with my other statements nor does it contradict any of them.
So we are talking about free speech then? It sounds like you have already forgotten that the comment I replied to said "no one is talking about free speech."
In that specific comment no. It was about reddit's core beliefs. The fact that the word free speech was used in the sentence doesn't make that a central point of that conversation.
In the general case also no because a private platform not promoting someones speech isn't a free speech issue.
Umm, you're very clearly and plainly talking about censoring speech, and many people in the topic thread are talking about free speech. And you are responding by insulting people?
Like I said I can see you argued this same argument with people in the other thread and then quickly conceded it.
I haven't conceded anything. I have maintained the whole time that it isn't a free speech issue because it is a private platform. I've also not responded by insulting people. I honestly have no clue which discussion you're reading but it's not one I'm participating in by your description of it.
> The idea that the other side has a valid opinion just because they won is stupid. A lot of believes don't deserve any respect at all.
> You don't have to give every idiot a platform to believe in free speech.
> There is a lot of worthless hate speech in the world. Nothing is learned from it except that the speaker is ignorant.
> The stuff people are taking about blocking and removing from their services is far from the best arguments or adversaries. It is the trash.
Conceding your argument in the other thread:
> Reddit stopped claiming to be about free speech years ago.
Let's take a step back. What you responded to was this:
> I think that Reddit will be throwing away one of its most essential contributions to the internet if it resorts to servicing just one side of this deba
That is about reddit being about free speech.
You said:
> There is a lot of worthless hate speech in the world. Nothing is learned from it except that the speaker is ignorant.
I said:
> Historically speaking, moral righteousness has always been the primary argument for curtailing free speech.
And you said:
> No one is talking about curtailing free speech they are talking about a private platform not wanting to promote that speech anymore.
You are trying to redefine the words "Free speech" to have a specific meaning that is taken out of context (the context was plainly a discussion about reddit allowing both sides of the debate, not about government retaliation--your argument against that was today's foremost argument against free speech: that the world already has too much hate speech), and I do not find that argument constructive because (a) free speech being defined as speech without censorship is a perfectly correct definition (it is not necessary for their to be a direct or indirect government actor as you seem to believe--this is why I said it was ignorant), and (b) this is not a direct rebuttal but instead what it does is redirect the debate to be about what exactly free speech is which I do not find that useful in contributing to the conversation thread.
This same general idea proceeded in another thread then you conceded in the other thread that the issue was reddit "stopped being about free speech," so there, you use that language with the same definition yourself, substantiating point (a).
> If you're not confronted with the best arguments of your adversaries, you won't understand, learn, or prevail.
That's a very strange defense of a subreddit that had an explicit policy of banning any and all dissenting opinion. Or the vote brigading. Or doxxing, death threats, vandalism, or assault.
T_D was the very antithesis of what you're advocating for throughout this whole thread.
> Every sub is allowed to moderate itself how it chooses.
But they cross over into other subs and start interfering there. A small enough sub with a small team of moderators can find it difficult to deal with someone crashing their party.
> Plus, there wasn't a similar outcry when Correct The Record, swamped the site with its paid advocacy before the election.
I didn't see that, but I mostly visit non-political subs. And in any case, Person B doing something bad doesn't excuse Person A doing it.
> Either you believe in free speech, that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that good ideas will prevail in the end -- or you don't.
But it can be hard to filter out the good ideas when they're buried under a hundred good ones; and an artificial UV light being beamed into your eyes isn't sunlight.
I don't believe correct the record was ever as pervasive as the_donald.
I don't believe the_donald constant spam (pre and post election) is based on legitimate interest.
I am very confident, and slightly embarrassed that Reddit hasn't been able to stop this, that the_Donald has been able to maintain it's presence with technical vote manipulation. I can detect it's effects, and I am shitty data scientist.
To associate this issue with free speech is a gross over statement of the problem. This is one of the most effective trolls in social media history.
Another possible comparison: cities are composed of mostly private entities. The free speech limitations in private businesses are comparable to those on line. How does that play out? Is the comparison faulty? Honest question. I'd like to figure out a more real-world comparison that matches our intuitions.
Good point. Any ideas on how to create similar spaces online? And how they should be policed? Should we have some government created forums? I'd be concerned they'd succumb to the same issues we're discussing now. One idea that comes to mind is forbidding anonymous posts, but then again, anonymous speech is also protected.
Hosters and DNS providers can kick you out. This doesn't happen often, but occasionally it does, without court order, when a customer becomes too inconvenient. Some don't even want to deal with DMCA notices, so even when they get fake ones they kick you out after a few.
That's a good point - so even my own website is not as free as standing on the street corner and shouting. But if my hosting company did kick me out it might be (haven't checked) a breach of contract; and in any case I could be on a new host in a couple of hours.
I hear this argument a lot. From what I've seen, it's clear that ISPs are common carriers. I haven't seen informed legal opinion that this extends to websites. I'd be very interested in learning of some. Do you have any?
As someone who champions a re-decentralization of the Internet and remembers the era of peer to peer communications, I am saddened by the assumed centralization behind your statement.
A decentralized internet still needs its pipes and some people will want to colo servers and not operate server farms from home. That means you still need to buy services from private entities.
universal service obligations are not enshrined everywhere.
"Free speech" as enshrined in the US Constitution is designed to prevent the government from making laws against free expression. Any interpretation applying "free speech protections" to private entities hosting other private entities on their private property is either ideological, or an intense misunderstanding of the law.
I think reasonable people can agree that technology has paved the way for few exceptions which require special protections to free speech; i.e. Google should not be permitted by law to filter and censor search results for speech, no matter how disagreeable it is to you or the Google CEOs. Edit: In other words, no matter whether I like or dislike the 4chan community, an entire community of various forums such as that should not be filtered by Google.
> I think reasonable people can agree that technology has paved the way for few exceptions which require special protections to free speech
Do you think it should have been unlawful for Reddit to ban Coontown? What would you think to be an appropriate punishment for this proposed crime? A fine? Jail time?
Before moving on to another site (which is a logical move to determine the bounds of the exceptions), what do you think of your parent's suggestion regarding Google? Easier to work from some point of common ground (if there is some).
Google also arguably is approximating a public good. Search is free to use, and you actually have to rely on it and use it to compete in the modern marketplace for educational resources.
There are many things we all rely on to compete and succeed. We need to drink water, and we need to be able to trust that the water is safe to drink. If a private company is in charge of water, they should be heavily regulated for that very reason. While you won't die without search engines, you obviously need to use them to reasonably compete for economic survival.
Google has a majority market share, while Bing and Yahoo trail behind, but they could all easily collaborated with or without government to censor, and it would have extreme consequences for the possibility of free expression, giving these corporations a lot of power. Do we want private corporations to have this much power over free expression?
They can also do this without announcing to you that they are currently filtering search results for political reasons (I would be most people don't realize they are already doing this).
To both. I was just expounding on the distinction I see b/w reddit and Google -- the point was trying to make was that I don't think it's completely appropriate to make Google analogous to reddit.
Of course not. Everybody relies on Google (or at least, 1 of Google, bing or yahoo) and an argument can be made that they should be regulate because if they do not operate in good faith that can have severe consequences (i.e. effectively eliminating dissenting opinion). Private companies being regulated in the best interest of the public good is nothing new, Sinclairs The Jungle was written in 1906, technology changes but human nature has not and we should adapt regulation to new technology if we're interested in the public's welfare and future.
As someone who tried to compete with Google in search, I'm all for Google being permitted to filter anything they like; it's only censorship when a government forces or encourages them to do it. I'm also all for Google having an editorial opinion.... I have my own, and if you like mine better than Google, so be it.
This is the way that free speech has always worked in the US; if you own a printing press, you can print what you like.
Of course. But then advertise yourself as such, not as a bastion of free speech and authentic conversations. To me that is admitting your side of the argument is weak and fearful.
This is what drove me nuts. HN doesn't at all claim to be a free-speech area. And that's fine. In fact, I'd argue that it's a great way to keep everyone focused, and helps keep the trolls out.
But I've never seen anywhere that HN claims to be about free speech. Reddit claimed that title for a long time, even when they were clearly censoring things. Feel free to tell people to fuck off. There's nothing wrong with doing that on your private site. But don't turn around and tell people you are a free-speech site while doing so.
If Centipede Central is the chat Reddit is referring to — a chat room within the Slack-like Discord program, the one linked in the sidebar of The_Donald and one of the largest servers on Discord — its users have encouraged the harassment of other moderators, artificially inflated the vote count on posts, rigged off-Reddit polls, and posted John Podesta’s personal Netflix login information for the chat’s 1000+ members to use at will.
It reads to me like they're critiquing the behavior of the people running the subreddit, as opposed to their opinions. As I don't use Reddit much, could you add some context? For example, are the objectionable behaviors described int he article actually common across the political spectrum, or common in every election season? I would certainly accept your claim if bias if I knew that such behavior was widespread but only one flavor of it were being called out.
The_Donald was infamous for it's brutal and violent opposition to free expression. Harassment, online and in real life, were the order of the day. Free speech is the very reason that The_Donald should have been put down. The chilling effect is very real.
As someone who reads reddit fairly frequently, this doesn't reflect my experience on the site. In reality there is no unified reddit. I've taken a gander at /r/The_Donald a couple of times (mostly out of morbid curiosity) but other than those few times I've experienced very little impact of whatever it is they are doing.
I read some sports subredits. I read some culture subredits. I read some of the bigger basic entertaining but silly subreddits like /r/AskReddit and /r/TodayILearned. And, to be honest, I really haven't noticed much impact by these nefarious elements (or whatever you want to call them).
I'm sure others have had different experiences from me, but from my point of view whatever "crazy shit" is going down is mostly confined to certain sub-sections of the site that are easily avoided.
I don't see this on my own view of the site. But I click /r/all every so often just to get some variety and that's where you see this in effect. It seems an r/The_Donald post has been in one of the top two spots for the last few months with others in the queue.
The average front page Reddit post is thought to require about 323,500 views says... the internet.
Trump got about 13,000,000 votes in the primary election, which is relevant because its though primary voters are more active in the political participation.
The point being, I'm not sure given current headlines and the recency of the US election, that the front page stats are out of line.
Looks like it's a bigger problem for moderators than for users:
>“There have been unquestionably instances [where] moderators of other subreddits were targeted by users in The_Donald,” Reddit told Gizmodo, and the leaked chatlogs reveal the extent.
>Some moderators had been flooded with constant harassing messages. “One threatened to kill my fucking dog,” a moderator pleaded in the leaked Slack chat. A The_Donald user hacked r/politics and booted half of the moderation team, another told Gizmodo in an email.
>“We have had multiple moderators doxxed and sent death threats, we had one moderator who had his truck broken into and vandalized,” an r/politics mod told Gizmodo over Reddit private message.
Yeah, this is what was REALLY shitty about /u/Spez's debacle.
Profanity, hate speech, bullying, harassment aren't protected by free speech. And you see PLENTY of it coming out of the_donald. You don't have to tolerate that shit, you have every right to shut it down. But no, lets degrade ourselves by trolling the trolls.
What a strategic waste.
non-edit: greglindahl below me makes an excellent point on my choice of vocabulary. I won't edit my post, I'll just concede that I chose poorly while trying to articulate my point.
You're being sloppy with terms. In the US, obscenity isn't protected by free speech, but non-obscene profanity is. Hate speech? Threats of violence aren't free speech, but a lot of odious hate speech is. Court cases about bullying frequently fail.
Of course Reddit, being private, has the right to do whatever it wants. But it's important to realize where the lines are drawn for public discourse.
I agree. I wasn't talking about private messages in my comment. One nice thing about public discourse is that it's public, i.e., it's easy for everyone to debate how odious it is. Private messages are very different, and should be filtered quite differently.
From a sunlight point of view, being able to make private messages public is quite effective, albeit a feature which should be disclosed in advance.
Given that Reddit's business model relies on volunteer moderators (which is why I'm not shedding any tears over its problems - that's what you get for building a business on free labor), I'd say it's gonna be a big problem for their shareholders as ad revenue drops and then for the remaining users as it sinks past the threshold of tolerability.
Would it be fair to say that the subs you visit are not typical targets for political discussions? The problem has been the chilling effects that T_D has had within its sphere of influence. The brunt of which has been felt by the mod teams in toeing the line between free speech and preventing civil unrest.
Yes, definitely. I don't really read anything at all related to politics on reddit. Perhaps the influence of /r/The_Donald is confined to those subreddits.
This all amounts to a lack of imagination on the part of Reddit's management.
-- If the issue is doxxing, which was occurring to some degree in sites with cross-membership with r/the_donald, then enhanced auto moderation is needed. The tools are out there.
-- If the issue is so-called "hate speech" then give users the ability to filter content they find distasteful.
-- If the issue is click-bait to offensive or illegal content, then again, there are ample techniques and 3rd party resources for warning about, reporting, filtering and discouraging user click-through.
What concerns me is that Gizmodo and Reddit can only think in terms of banning speech. Combined with the recent pile-on over "fake news", I worry that expression on the internet is vulnerable to shill pollution, coercion and overly zealous social equality advocacy.
The irony of not applying innovative technology to problems at Reddit is thick, almost suffocating.
The "hate speech" filter would have to be turned on by default for offline users, or else it's sort of pointless. Not sure if that would affect their reputation for being content neutral.
Reddit isn't a technology company, they're a media company. They were owned by one of the largest media companies, Conde Nast, for a while. Their goal isn't to solve social network problems, their goal is to increase their reach as much as possible. Reddit is the center of attention right now, their reach is huge, why would they change anything and risk losing that?
>these two women are "as fat as whales" and furthermore that they deserve to be derided based on physical appearance because of their expressed political opinions.
Comedic body shapes paired with comedic political views and philosophies.
What's wrong with it? They tried cheap virtue signaling and lost the bet. Boo hoo my sympathies.
To deride the visual and linguistic imagination of cognitive entities as "hate speech" is stupid.
"Oh no cognitive entities can generate from a set of infinite propositions and not those that fit within my limited range of experience and thinking ability"
The question at the crux of it, and this is where it gets complicated, is would the same joke be made if they were men? Or a bit simpler of a question would be: were there overweight male celebrities that denounced Trump and claimed they would move to Canada should he win, and have any jokes been made at their expense related to their weight?
If the answer to either question is "no", then this post qualifies as hate speech by the Wikipedia definition:
> Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation. In the law of some countries, hate speech is described as speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it incites violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group.
i.e. The speech was intended to "disparage or intimidate a protected individual or group" where the "protected individual or group" is these two women as the post "attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender".
Women are teased for physical defects, men for mental defects.
Deal with it. Literally. Deal with it. Men and women have actual differences.
And just because there's a term paired with a definition doesn't mean that the term isn't ridiculously stupid, in so far as it seeks to pass judgment on the natural tribality of apes.
You should read up on the impact of sex and gender differences in pharmacology. Or just observe everyday interaction.
For what it's worth, from a quick Google search they make occasional jokes about Chris Christie despite him being on the right team. I can only imagine they would give him similar treatment to the ladies if he were on the wrong side.
"Hate speech" is a bit of an Orwellian term. It includes things that aren't really hateful. For instance, if somebody had the belief that all members of a certain race should be sterilized for their own good, I would guess it would be considered hate speech, despite that it is rooted in a sickly paternalistic sort of sympathy. That's just a specific example. My point is that the vagueness of the term leaves it open to interpretation, which I think many would agree causes problems.
"Do you want ants? Cause this is how you get ants." is really appropriate here.
/r/the_donald is one of the few major subreddits that isn't anti-Trump (for example, see side of /r/jokes). When you confine half of your politically active user base to one sub, it's bound to become a monster. Calling it "problematic" and inventing a "hate speech" "code" doesn't somehow make it any less legitimate than any other Reddit community.
There was an article complaining about the main stream media for criticizing Trump's saying that flag burners should have their citizenship revoked and be jailed, when Hillary Clinton said exactly the same thing in 2005, and citing the Flag Protection Act of 2005, which Clinton co-sponsored.
I'd never heard of that, so took a look at it. It did indeed make flag burning illegal (possible fine and jail time, no stripping of citizenship)--in two specific circumstances.
1. When the primary purpose and intent was to incite or produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace, or
2. When the flag was stolen from the US or from US lands. E.g., if you stole the flag from a government building and burned it, that flag burning would be illegal. Bringing your own flag to burn, fine (unless the primary purpose and intent was to produce imminent violence).
I posted that information, and noted that this seemed to be written to try to stay within the bounds of allowed restriction on speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). I noted that this was not anywhere near "exactly" the same as what Trump said, which appeared to be just blatantly unconstitutional. That earned the ban.
I asked the moderator that banned me what rule I had violated, since it was not at all apparent to me. Here are their rules:
• Do not violate Sitewide Content Policy
• No Trolling/Concern Trolling
• No Racism/Anti-Semitism
• No Releasing Personal Information or Doxxing
• No Vote Manipulation, Brigading, or Asking for Votes
• No Dissenters/SJWs, this is a pro-Trump subreddit
• No Posts About Being Banned From or Linking To Other Subreddits
• Ban appeals, suggestions, concerns (including sticky choices) go to modmail
• No Posts About Trump Assassination Threats (Send screenshots + Archive.is link to the FBI).
• Please do not behave in a way outside of the subreddit that would reflect poorly on it.
The moderator's answer: "The President Elect's.". I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, and cannot ask because he slapped a 72 hour ban on messaging the moderators on me.
I frankly don't know what to make of /r/The_Donald. I've occasionally seen substantive discussion of Trump's proposed policies on there, including criticism, that was up voted and the critics were not banned. But it also seems to be full of complete and utter idiocy. I can't tell if it was supposed to be a serious group that got taken over by the trolls and idiots, or if it was supposed to be a trolling joke group from the start, and the substantive discussion was just from people who had not figured that out yet.
129 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadIs there a post on r/The_Donald that stands out to you as being hate speech?
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5fltt9/amy_schu...
To save others the trouble, the title of the post is "Amy Schumer And Lena Dunham Are Finally Leaving The Country" and the image is of two orca whales being prepared for transport. The very non-coded message is that these two women are "as fat as whales" and furthermore that they deserve to be derided based on physical appearance because of their expressed political opinions.
I'm no lawyer, but I think that's treading awfully close to "hate speech".
That said, the very colloquialism they use to refer to the opposition ("cuck") is merely a shortened form of a term ("cuckold") with a very long history of being a base insult with rather heavy connotations of misogyny.
(i.e. Being "cuckolded", a man whose female partner has exhibited infidelity, is taken as a sign of weakness whereas being a woman whose male partner sleeps around is just de rigueur to the point there's not even a special term for it.)
Of course it being a sexul insult it is practically unavoidable that values and the female partner are indirectly involved in how the insult works. Well, technically homosexual couples can also cuck each other, and I have seen the term occasionally used in discussion about homosexual manga. So it really is not about the female.
Hell, even the fairly juvenile "ur mom" is more negative towards females than "cuck".
When women are attacked you will notice. Slut and whale are still the go-to insults.
So please do not shoehorn gender issues into everything. Sure, some assumptions are encoded into it. But it's a goddamn insult, not some friendly disagreement in a debate club. Please adjust your context sensitivity.
jballanc, your comments are offensive to me... now, I'm no lawyer, but I think your comment is awfully close to hate speech.
How about caricature of public figures? Note that they do not have to be tasteful or respectful. Just look at bankers depicted as pigs.
I am neither american nor a lawyer, but as I understand it hate speech has a fairly narrow definition over there. It requires imminent danger of inciting violence. Merely expressing racist or other kinds of -ist viewpoints is not hate speech.
Of all the principles we've ever espoused in this country, we have perhaps been most consistent in our national conviction that the answer to wrong speech is right speech - not less speech but more speech.
That is, until recently. We've lately seen the rise of a strain of thought in which not only is it acceptable to answer mere words - however cruel - with the full and mighty force of law, but to suggest such a course might reasonably inspire trepidation is itself worthy at best of contempt, and the many examples in history of why such trepidation might be justified are ignored in unseemly haste to crush those who speak in a fashion deemed insufficiently satisfactory.
In such a strain of thought, the problem with McCarthyism is not McCarthyism in its own right, but rather that the direction in which it was pointed was wrong - the weapon should not be put down and never picked up again, but merely wielded against a different target than last time.
Is that really the lesson to draw from such an unsavory example? Is there really any practical benefit in such a lesson for the causes such a strain of thought claims so loudly to espouse? The left has fought to silence its opponents for decades, more or less by whatever means fell to hand. The result thus produced, this very month, is remarkable, but not for its loveliness. It will not grow more lovely with time. Does it really seem likely that the tactics which have brought us to such a strait are blameless, and that only more energy is required?
In Ireland we have foolishly installed laws that made criticism of Mohammad or Jesus illegal.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/apr/11/why...
I don't enjoy their humour but I think this would prevent something like Charlie Hebdo from operating in my country.
looks like hate speech to me.
I'm not sure what anyone expects to gain by doubling down on the goodthink echo chamber that's just lost them an election. Emotional comfort, perhaps? I'm not without sympathy for the need - but that's a private matter. Governance in the US is public, and refusing to engage in the process merely cedes the field. Demonizing one's political opponents not only cedes the field but energizes them with just resentment, and I should think the events of this past month should suffice anyone as a lesson in why that might not be the best of all available tactics - but perhaps I extend more credit than due.
The rise of neonazism in the US is real. To claim otherwise, to imply that it is an "arrant falsehood," is to be purposefully ignorant.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq-LnO2DOGE
For clarity, that quote is referring to journalists and the media. Not Jews, as some have been heavily implying.
I'd like to remind people here that this is exactly Trump's playbook. You infuriate people, they are eager to take you out of context or extrapolate wildly, then curious passersby figure your accusers are not credible.
It's not a high moral ground tactic, but it sure works.
This absolutely false. The word "zombie" is what people go to when they think of a mindless being. The word "golem" is what a nazi would say as a dogwhistle to let people know he's down with hating (((Jews))).
We Jews said we would never forget, and we haven't.
You're probably not aware fnovd, then many of the attendees were themselves Jewish, including those of 'Heiling' fame.
http://www.thewrap.com/tila-tequila-jewish-friends-nazi-sieg...
These people are trolling. This is classic trolling. They know this causes people to react and how the media works. For instance The Atlantic in their video on the NPI conference showed apparently 'dozens' of people doing the 'Heil' salute, but if you examine the footage closely you'll notice Richard Spencer is in fact holding up a water glass in one hand and the camera is being positioned multiple times in such a way to make the same three people look like six or nine people. There are classic camera tricks in that video actually to form your opinion (e.g. selective blurring), I'm sure you'll see them too if you go and look.
This is also trolling with a purpose in order to attract the right enemies.
As I said, this is not the high moral ground. Nonetheless they are not Nazis. You'll need more than some Jewish boys and an Asian pornstar for that to have merit.
The people I know who claim "alt-right" are not. They're young and full of piss and vinegar. They're also largely quite intelligent and not less well supplied with humanity than anyone else their age. They were quite receptive to the idea that nothing in the world is simple, and that demonizing any group of people en masse is a cheap, lazy, stupid shortcut past a lot of hard thought and the careful application of empathy toward the acknowledgement that compromise and negotiation are necessary toward any modus vivendi that's satisfactory to everyone, or as nearly so as can be managed in the imperfect world we inhabit.
I've been at this for a year now, more or less. It's been slow, difficult, complex, and anything but heroic, as teaching always is. But I'd capitalized on a couple of early successes, favorably impressing some of those among this group who are themselves generally looked up to by most others, and I was having a real effect. I had them thinking, or starting to - critically analyzing the contradictions between the left's claims and its behavior, and distinguishing the desirability of a lot of progressive goals from the counterproductive ways in which the modern progressive movement operates. I had them getting toward ready to start using the brains and the hearts God gave them to work toward a genuinely better world - for everyone - rather than the mirage of the progressive millennium whose pursuit has brought us to the pretty pass whereat we stand.
Of course, that was before the whole godforsaken world started calling them Nazis, sight unseen. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that? They're good kids, but they're kids. If you think it's easy, over a purely textual medium, to outdo "fuck you, you're not my dad", then by all means I invite you to try. And if you want to write them off, fine. That's easy and it's comfortable and it feels good. I get that. I don't even blame you, although I'd like to, because that would be easy too. But I am going to tell you you're making a mistake.
Not that it matters, at this point. In the last few weeks, I've seen my influence go from considerable to just about none. They aren't listening to me any more, because there's nothing in the world as exciting as to fight against injustice - which is exactly how they see it, and considering the way I'm seeing them slandered I don't even think they're wrong. Certainly one bookish old homosexual who counsels analysis and empathy over rash action can't live up to that! So they're going to go their way, and you are going to go yours, and I guess I've wasted a year's worth of the hard work with which the actual left, for whom I hold no love, can't be bothered. Perhaps I should have done better, but for the life of me I can't see how. There's only so much shit you can expect people to eat, and the left long ago passed that mark with those whom it makes its enemies. Little wonder they're starting to sick it up now, and we all have to live with the mess.
(And I see the post's been flagged, which means even the time I've spent writing this comment was wasted, because no one will see it. So it goes. May God and history judge us all more kindly than we deserve.)
Actually read some of the material and see if 'it checks out' that we're all nazis. Scott Alexander has a essay called 'Reactionary Philosophy in a Planet sized nutshell' which is a good synopsis.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-...
Scott is definitely not a reactionary of any kind, so this is a neutral take.
Otherwise we can just call each other names and strawman each other all day.
Please don't come out with "I don't need no... or somebody on the internet said...". That is just lazy. I don't imagine all socialists subscribe to SJWism, since a lot of them are vehemently against it. Same goes here.
There are rules about mobbing other subs with garbage. No one would care If they kept to their own sub.
Plus, there wasn't a similar outcry when Correct The Record, swamped the site with its paid advocacy before the election.
Either you believe in free speech, that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that good ideas will prevail in the end -- or you don't.
> sunlight is the best disinfectant
What do you think that disinfectant looks like? It is rarely people changing ideas it is more often society excluding people. Which is what is happening here. You don't have to give every idiot a platform to believe in free speech. You don't have to give them anything but the right to speech which they can use on their own sites.
I mean, technically, you do.
Regardless, reddit claims to be about free speech and still censors. So... irony?
Reddit stopped claiming to be about free speech years ago.
If you're not confronted with the best arguments of your adversaries, you won't understand, learn, or prevail.
The stuff people are taking about blocking and removing from their services is far from the best arguments or adversaries. It is the trash.
Teach our side of the isle.. don't engage with idiots.. engage only with well formed arguments. We could learn something and become better people rather than becoming reactionary because we're unequipped to deal with alternate views. In the end, it's really not that hard to ignore the worst of it on Reddit, it would be even easier if people on our side didn't freak out about every tidbit.
Edit: This user already had this debate in another thread and conceded, then brought it up here again.
Here are some comments from this user to show you what I mean: > It was stuff like idiots accusing everyone that didn't support trump
> There is a lot of worthless hate speech in the world. Nothing is learned from it except that the speaker is ignorant
> You're not restricting thoughts or ideas you are simply not agreeing to promote it.
And finally, when he conceded it really is about free expression:
> Reddit stopped claiming to be about free speech years ago.
I don't appreciate the ad hominen attacks, and I'm not going to debate whether or not this is about free speech with this user.
In the general case also no because a private platform not promoting someones speech isn't a free speech issue.
Like I said I can see you argued this same argument with people in the other thread and then quickly conceded it.
> The idea that the other side has a valid opinion just because they won is stupid. A lot of believes don't deserve any respect at all.
> You don't have to give every idiot a platform to believe in free speech.
> There is a lot of worthless hate speech in the world. Nothing is learned from it except that the speaker is ignorant. > The stuff people are taking about blocking and removing from their services is far from the best arguments or adversaries. It is the trash.
Conceding your argument in the other thread:
> Reddit stopped claiming to be about free speech years ago.
Let's take a step back. What you responded to was this:
> I think that Reddit will be throwing away one of its most essential contributions to the internet if it resorts to servicing just one side of this deba
That is about reddit being about free speech.
You said:
> There is a lot of worthless hate speech in the world. Nothing is learned from it except that the speaker is ignorant.
I said:
> Historically speaking, moral righteousness has always been the primary argument for curtailing free speech.
And you said:
> No one is talking about curtailing free speech they are talking about a private platform not wanting to promote that speech anymore.
You are trying to redefine the words "Free speech" to have a specific meaning that is taken out of context (the context was plainly a discussion about reddit allowing both sides of the debate, not about government retaliation--your argument against that was today's foremost argument against free speech: that the world already has too much hate speech), and I do not find that argument constructive because (a) free speech being defined as speech without censorship is a perfectly correct definition (it is not necessary for their to be a direct or indirect government actor as you seem to believe--this is why I said it was ignorant), and (b) this is not a direct rebuttal but instead what it does is redirect the debate to be about what exactly free speech is which I do not find that useful in contributing to the conversation thread.
This same general idea proceeded in another thread then you conceded in the other thread that the issue was reddit "stopped being about free speech," so there, you use that language with the same definition yourself, substantiating point (a).
That's a very strange defense of a subreddit that had an explicit policy of banning any and all dissenting opinion. Or the vote brigading. Or doxxing, death threats, vandalism, or assault.
T_D was the very antithesis of what you're advocating for throughout this whole thread.
But they cross over into other subs and start interfering there. A small enough sub with a small team of moderators can find it difficult to deal with someone crashing their party.
> Plus, there wasn't a similar outcry when Correct The Record, swamped the site with its paid advocacy before the election.
I didn't see that, but I mostly visit non-political subs. And in any case, Person B doing something bad doesn't excuse Person A doing it.
> Either you believe in free speech, that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that good ideas will prevail in the end -- or you don't.
But it can be hard to filter out the good ideas when they're buried under a hundred good ones; and an artificial UV light being beamed into your eyes isn't sunlight.
I don't believe the_donald constant spam (pre and post election) is based on legitimate interest.
I am very confident, and slightly embarrassed that Reddit hasn't been able to stop this, that the_Donald has been able to maintain it's presence with technical vote manipulation. I can detect it's effects, and I am shitty data scientist.
To associate this issue with free speech is a gross over statement of the problem. This is one of the most effective trolls in social media history.
Some plazas are larger than all but the largest private gathering places.
universal service obligations are not enshrined everywhere.
"Free speech" as enshrined in the US Constitution is designed to prevent the government from making laws against free expression. Any interpretation applying "free speech protections" to private entities hosting other private entities on their private property is either ideological, or an intense misunderstanding of the law.
Do you think it should have been unlawful for Reddit to ban Coontown? What would you think to be an appropriate punishment for this proposed crime? A fine? Jail time?
Google also arguably is approximating a public good. Search is free to use, and you actually have to rely on it and use it to compete in the modern marketplace for educational resources.
There are many things we all rely on to compete and succeed. We need to drink water, and we need to be able to trust that the water is safe to drink. If a private company is in charge of water, they should be heavily regulated for that very reason. While you won't die without search engines, you obviously need to use them to reasonably compete for economic survival.
Google has a majority market share, while Bing and Yahoo trail behind, but they could all easily collaborated with or without government to censor, and it would have extreme consequences for the possibility of free expression, giving these corporations a lot of power. Do we want private corporations to have this much power over free expression?
They can also do this without announcing to you that they are currently filtering search results for political reasons (I would be most people don't realize they are already doing this).
This is the way that free speech has always worked in the US; if you own a printing press, you can print what you like.
But I've never seen anywhere that HN claims to be about free speech. Reddit claimed that title for a long time, even when they were clearly censoring things. Feel free to tell people to fuck off. There's nothing wrong with doing that on your private site. But don't turn around and tell people you are a free-speech site while doing so.
It reads to me like they're critiquing the behavior of the people running the subreddit, as opposed to their opinions. As I don't use Reddit much, could you add some context? For example, are the objectionable behaviors described int he article actually common across the political spectrum, or common in every election season? I would certainly accept your claim if bias if I knew that such behavior was widespread but only one flavor of it were being called out.
I read some sports subredits. I read some culture subredits. I read some of the bigger basic entertaining but silly subreddits like /r/AskReddit and /r/TodayILearned. And, to be honest, I really haven't noticed much impact by these nefarious elements (or whatever you want to call them).
I'm sure others have had different experiences from me, but from my point of view whatever "crazy shit" is going down is mostly confined to certain sub-sections of the site that are easily avoided.
Trump got about 13,000,000 votes in the primary election, which is relevant because its though primary voters are more active in the political participation.
The point being, I'm not sure given current headlines and the recency of the US election, that the front page stats are out of line.
If people are on ranty subreddits they will hear ranty posts.
I'm happy with reddit. Its a pleasant diversion that I get to tune to my liking.
>“There have been unquestionably instances [where] moderators of other subreddits were targeted by users in The_Donald,” Reddit told Gizmodo, and the leaked chatlogs reveal the extent.
>Some moderators had been flooded with constant harassing messages. “One threatened to kill my fucking dog,” a moderator pleaded in the leaked Slack chat. A The_Donald user hacked r/politics and booted half of the moderation team, another told Gizmodo in an email.
>“We have had multiple moderators doxxed and sent death threats, we had one moderator who had his truck broken into and vandalized,” an r/politics mod told Gizmodo over Reddit private message.
Profanity, hate speech, bullying, harassment aren't protected by free speech. And you see PLENTY of it coming out of the_donald. You don't have to tolerate that shit, you have every right to shut it down. But no, lets degrade ourselves by trolling the trolls.
What a strategic waste.
non-edit: greglindahl below me makes an excellent point on my choice of vocabulary. I won't edit my post, I'll just concede that I chose poorly while trying to articulate my point.
Of course Reddit, being private, has the right to do whatever it wants. But it's important to realize where the lines are drawn for public discourse.
From a sunlight point of view, being able to make private messages public is quite effective, albeit a feature which should be disclosed in advance.
I could imagine someone seeing this if they stick to the default front page.
-- If the issue is doxxing, which was occurring to some degree in sites with cross-membership with r/the_donald, then enhanced auto moderation is needed. The tools are out there.
-- If the issue is so-called "hate speech" then give users the ability to filter content they find distasteful.
-- If the issue is click-bait to offensive or illegal content, then again, there are ample techniques and 3rd party resources for warning about, reporting, filtering and discouraging user click-through.
What concerns me is that Gizmodo and Reddit can only think in terms of banning speech. Combined with the recent pile-on over "fake news", I worry that expression on the internet is vulnerable to shill pollution, coercion and overly zealous social equality advocacy.
The irony of not applying innovative technology to problems at Reddit is thick, almost suffocating.
Comedic body shapes paired with comedic political views and philosophies.
What's wrong with it? They tried cheap virtue signaling and lost the bet. Boo hoo my sympathies.
To deride the visual and linguistic imagination of cognitive entities as "hate speech" is stupid.
"Oh no cognitive entities can generate from a set of infinite propositions and not those that fit within my limited range of experience and thinking ability"
If the answer to either question is "no", then this post qualifies as hate speech by the Wikipedia definition:
> Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation. In the law of some countries, hate speech is described as speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it incites violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group.
i.e. The speech was intended to "disparage or intimidate a protected individual or group" where the "protected individual or group" is these two women as the post "attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender".
Deal with it. Literally. Deal with it. Men and women have actual differences.
And just because there's a term paired with a definition doesn't mean that the term isn't ridiculously stupid, in so far as it seeks to pass judgment on the natural tribality of apes.
You should read up on the impact of sex and gender differences in pharmacology. Or just observe everyday interaction.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
/r/the_donald is one of the few major subreddits that isn't anti-Trump (for example, see side of /r/jokes). When you confine half of your politically active user base to one sub, it's bound to become a monster. Calling it "problematic" and inventing a "hate speech" "code" doesn't somehow make it any less legitimate than any other Reddit community.
There was an article complaining about the main stream media for criticizing Trump's saying that flag burners should have their citizenship revoked and be jailed, when Hillary Clinton said exactly the same thing in 2005, and citing the Flag Protection Act of 2005, which Clinton co-sponsored.
I'd never heard of that, so took a look at it. It did indeed make flag burning illegal (possible fine and jail time, no stripping of citizenship)--in two specific circumstances.
1. When the primary purpose and intent was to incite or produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace, or
2. When the flag was stolen from the US or from US lands. E.g., if you stole the flag from a government building and burned it, that flag burning would be illegal. Bringing your own flag to burn, fine (unless the primary purpose and intent was to produce imminent violence).
I posted that information, and noted that this seemed to be written to try to stay within the bounds of allowed restriction on speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). I noted that this was not anywhere near "exactly" the same as what Trump said, which appeared to be just blatantly unconstitutional. That earned the ban.
I asked the moderator that banned me what rule I had violated, since it was not at all apparent to me. Here are their rules:
• Do not violate Sitewide Content Policy
• No Trolling/Concern Trolling
• No Racism/Anti-Semitism
• No Releasing Personal Information or Doxxing
• No Vote Manipulation, Brigading, or Asking for Votes
• No Dissenters/SJWs, this is a pro-Trump subreddit
• No Posts About Being Banned From or Linking To Other Subreddits
• Ban appeals, suggestions, concerns (including sticky choices) go to modmail
• No Posts About Trump Assassination Threats (Send screenshots + Archive.is link to the FBI).
• Please do not behave in a way outside of the subreddit that would reflect poorly on it.
The moderator's answer: "The President Elect's.". I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, and cannot ask because he slapped a 72 hour ban on messaging the moderators on me.
I frankly don't know what to make of /r/The_Donald. I've occasionally seen substantive discussion of Trump's proposed policies on there, including criticism, that was up voted and the critics were not banned. But it also seems to be full of complete and utter idiocy. I can't tell if it was supposed to be a serious group that got taken over by the trolls and idiots, or if it was supposed to be a trolling joke group from the start, and the substantive discussion was just from people who had not figured that out yet.