39 votes

Reddit suspends user for posting CEO’s position on hate speech

23 comments

  1. [7]
    starchturrets
    Link
    Redditor PMs spez, asks him to ban hate speech. Spez replies by saying that that’s covered by their violent speech policy. Redditor argues that hate speech should have it’s separate rule. spez:...
    • Redditor PMs spez, asks him to ban hate speech.

    • Spez replies by saying that that’s covered by their violent speech policy.

    • Redditor argues that hate speech should have it’s separate rule.

    • spez: hate speech is tricky to define, they are not the thought police, and such a policy would be impossible to enforce.

    • redditor posts screen caps to r/stopadvertising

    • redditor is suspended from the site.

    Spez’s position seems inconsistent to me, considering all the subs they banned in 2015.

    39 votes
    1. spctrvl
      Link Parent
      Take action when you start to get enough bad press to threaten profitability, and not a second before.

      Spez’s position seems inconsistent to me, considering all the subs they banned in 2015.

      Take action when you start to get enough bad press to threaten profitability, and not a second before.

      32 votes
    2. rodya
      Link Parent
      Regardless of your views on reddit's content policy this is hilariously petty. I doubt it's even a political thing on Spez's part, remember a while ago he was caught literally editing the_donald...

      Regardless of your views on reddit's content policy this is hilariously petty. I doubt it's even a political thing on Spez's part, remember a while ago he was caught literally editing the_donald users' comments in the database?

      23 votes
    3. acr
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      You have to understand how things work when you contact a moderator or an admin. You contact them, they get back to you, you follow up because they don't clearly understand, they get back to you...

      You have to understand how things work when you contact a moderator or an admin.

      You contact them, they get back to you, you follow up because they don't clearly understand, they get back to you saying that you are "arguing", you then follow back up to explain you're not arguing you have a genuine concern over some issue like being banned by mistake or whatever, they get more hostile and tell you that you don't think the rules apply to you and then they just ban you to be done with it. At that point there's nothing you can do because if you try to appeal to another mod or admin they're just going to stick it to you harder.

      17 votes
    4. [3]
      Parliament
      Link Parent
      Not defending the hypocrisy, but I'm pretty sure that took place during Ellen Pao's tenure.

      Spez’s position seems inconsistent to me, considering all the subs they banned in 2015.

      Not defending the hypocrisy, but I'm pretty sure that took place during Ellen Pao's tenure.

      12 votes
      1. [2]
        Gaywallet
        Link Parent
        It absolutely did and she caught a ton of flack for it, from racists.

        It absolutely did and she caught a ton of flack for it, from racists.

        16 votes
        1. Parliament
          Link Parent
          Right there with you. I've wondered in the past how that move would have been received had Steve been in charge. You just know Ellen being a woman and person of color made the backlash...

          Right there with you. I've wondered in the past how that move would have been received had Steve been in charge. You just know Ellen being a woman and person of color made the backlash exponentially worse.

          5 votes
  2. Pilgrim
    Link
    This is no surprise. The /r/the_donald (and many of it's sister subs) regularly dox people, organize brigades, threaten violence, etc and has been in flagrant violation of Reddit's rules since...

    This is no surprise. The /r/the_donald (and many of it's sister subs) regularly dox people, organize brigades, threaten violence, etc and has been in flagrant violation of Reddit's rules since it's inception.

    36 votes
  3. [6]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. Parliament
      Link Parent
      It's kinda funny how they started out with reddit as a "platform for free speech", eventually began mass banning subs under a new violent speech policy when they realized free speech was a bad...

      It's kinda funny how they started out with reddit as a "platform for free speech", eventually began mass banning subs under a new violent speech policy when they realized free speech was a bad idea at critical mass, then come out and say, "we're not the thought police" when someone complains about bad behavior in an infamous subreddit.

      No one is accusing you of being the thought police, Steve, but the line between "violent speech" and the behavior allowed to continue in T_D is practically indistinguishable at this point.

      16 votes
    2. Klame
      Link Parent
      Yeah all major phases of decline in the recent years could be fairly precisely summarized as "optimizing reddit as a mainstream media platform".

      Yeah all major phases of decline in the recent years could be fairly precisely summarized as "optimizing reddit as a mainstream media platform".

      6 votes
    3. [4]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. [3]
        Parliament
        Link Parent
        I wish I could know more about who Ellen Pao was behind the scenes. I thought she got a bad rap at the time, but public opinion was so overwhelmingly negative that it was almost impossible to...

        I wish I could know more about who Ellen Pao was behind the scenes. I thought she got a bad rap at the time, but public opinion was so overwhelmingly negative that it was almost impossible to discern what kind of leader she was.

        3 votes
        1. [2]
          danjac
          Link Parent
          Listened to a podcast interview with her the other day (forget which one unfortunately). She seemed a very calm and reasonable individual given the shit she had to put up with. It was all part of...

          Listened to a podcast interview with her the other day (forget which one unfortunately). She seemed a very calm and reasonable individual given the shit she had to put up with. It was all part of the whole Gamergate controversy. It seems in retrospect that the toxic sludge pouring out of a thousand basements overran the sewers and now we're all knee-deep in it.

          And yeah, just shut down T_D already. They've always got Voat.

          3 votes
  4. [2]
    aphoenix
    Link
    Banning hate speech is hard, but that certainly does not mean we should just do nothing about it. Allowing people to write their hate speech on a site that you own makes you complicit in that hate...

    Banning hate speech is hard, but that certainly does not mean we should just do nothing about it. Allowing people to write their hate speech on a site that you own makes you complicit in that hate speech.

    With a subject like this, you need to make a best effort to stop the things that need to be stopped. If that's too hard then maybe you should concentrate on it instead of pushing the alpha redesign down the throats of every logged out user.

    21 votes
    1. sublime_aenima
      Link Parent
      But banning hate speech doesn’t put ad money in his pocket as quick as the redesign.

      But banning hate speech doesn’t put ad money in his pocket as quick as the redesign.

      4 votes
  5. what
    Link
    Assuming the user was suspended because he posted the conversation, that was handled poorly, but I’m also not that surprised. Shouldn’t spez have been fired when he edited people's comments a few...

    Assuming the user was suspended because he posted the conversation, that was handled poorly, but I’m also not that surprised.

    Shouldn’t spez have been fired when he edited people's comments a few years ago? Stuff like this only degrades Reddit’s reputation. I agree that freedom of speech and hate speech are tough subjects to tackle, but this probably isn’t the best way to handle it.

    9 votes
  6. [2]
    SourceContribute
    Link
    Kinda weird that this wasn't posted earlier; Steve Huffman was at RightsCon in Toronto which I attended in May. I guess I just got scooped by HuffPo because I have a blog post that I was ready to...

    Kinda weird that this wasn't posted earlier; Steve Huffman was at RightsCon in Toronto which I attended in May. I guess I just got scooped by HuffPo because I have a blog post that I was ready to publish on https://sourcecontribute.com/ that noted that Huffman said similar things at the fireside chat at the conference:

    That outrage prompted Huffman to kinda-sorta walk back his initial statement, adding soon after that “while the words and expressions you refer to aren’t explicitly forbidden, the behaviors they often lead to are.”

    That's pretty much what he said at the fireside chat in response to questions from the audience as well.

    Huffman also said that it's good to be vague in the boundary of what constitutes good/bad speech/behaviour. Not sure I agree with that, but it might make it easier for them to deal with any legal issues around account suspensions.

    muddying the waters is a useful tool for frustrating would-be critics of Reddit

    It's also a useful tool to punish bad actors on the site as well is how that was positioned by Huffman.

    As Gizmodo has pointed out, though, defining and limiting hate speech very much is done. Some of the companies that officially ban hate speech include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn ― the list goes on.

    Huffman addressed this too at the RightsCon fireside chat. I wish there was video of it somewhere because it pretty much responds directly to this article. Defining and limiting hate speech is done but it's not done effectively as evidenced by all the Facebook groups and Twitter bots whose hate speech isn't limited at all and who are allowed to continue to exist.

    Wish I had posted my article earlier and I also wish the reporter had attended RightsCon and asked Steve Huffman about these issues surrounding hate speech on Reddit.

    8 votes
    1. SourceContribute
      Link Parent
      For anyone that's paying attention; I'm going to polish up a few blog posts over the weekend and post them, maybe I'll turn this part of my notes into a separate post that references this article...

      For anyone that's paying attention; I'm going to polish up a few blog posts over the weekend and post them, maybe I'll turn this part of my notes into a separate post that references this article...

      1 vote
  7. [2]
    Mumberthrax
    Link
    Sounds like spez being spez. I probably hold different opinions than the suspended user regarding hate speech and/or its prevalence on the site, but we probably both could agree on, "fuck /u/spez"

    Sounds like spez being spez. I probably hold different opinions than the suspended user regarding hate speech and/or its prevalence on the site, but we probably both could agree on, "fuck /u/spez"

    7 votes
  8. [2]
    joelthelion
    Link
    Is there any evidence evidence that his account got suspended for posting that conversation? While it seems like a possibility, we might be lacking context.

    Is there any evidence evidence that his account got suspended for posting that conversation? While it seems like a possibility, we might be lacking context.

    7 votes
    1. Parliament
      Link Parent
      None. And reddit admins have declined to comment on the explanation for the suspension (standard policy).

      None. And reddit admins have declined to comment on the explanation for the suspension (standard policy).

      10 votes
  9. nich
    Link
    Not sure what's surprising about any of this. The user went fishing, got a bite, and ran to the tabloids telling us to read all about it. He was banned as a result. The dirt he dug up wasn't even...

    Not sure what's surprising about any of this.

    The user went fishing, got a bite, and ran to the tabloids telling us to read all about it. He was banned as a result. The dirt he dug up wasn't even that good, but I guess any response is better than no response so he ran with it anyway. What else are the admins to do?

    5 votes