1731 upvotes, 27 direct replies (showing 25)
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Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 10:04 UTC*
147 upvotes, 7 direct replies
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Comment by PfalzDIII at 07/09/2014 at 08:58 UTC
1139 upvotes, 18 direct replies
Have you checked out this: https://imgur.com/a/f4WDf[1] Basically during the Gaming-Journalism Reddit Admins participated in heavy censoring and lying. But hey "Free Speech". Here is the related reddit-thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2fdcm7/censorship_on_reddit_shadowbanning_and_drama/[2] Funny how all the censoring resulted in a full-on Streisand effect.
Comment by Pancakes1 at 07/09/2014 at 08:53 UTC
610 upvotes, 6 direct replies
Seriously. I'd rather reddit represents itself honestly rather than antagonize their reader base by thinking were morons.
Comment by Gorbzel at 07/09/2014 at 14:14 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I've thought about this a lot since reading the first blog post, and I've come up with what I believe is the answer:
Reddit is using the DMCA as a way to have their cake and eat it too: Remove the offending comment that clearly is proving ethically problematic to the admins, while claiming to uphold the virtues of free discussion that matter to the community.
Now before anyone jump on me, I'm not saying that this stance is a deliberate or even a conscious one (or that the admins are bad people, or that nudes/child imagery is okay…) But it is worrisome. As one of the few legal schemes that ~~justifies~~ requires takedown of content already in circulation, Copyright law is always at odds with the free exchange of expression.
Given this, it's obvious that anyone who wants to prevent the free exchange of content is going to send out DMCA takedowns like it's going out of style, just like they would use any law at their disposal to do so. Since the requests are likely to come in at a rapid-fire pace in response to something like this, are they being taken at face value? Are redditors allowed to request them? Do they meet the statutory requirements of 17 USC 512? Or are we just supposed to trust that this carte blanche tool for removing content will never be used incorrectly?
Maybe we could,but we probably shouldn't. As Brandeis once said, "sunlight is the best disinfectant" and it is entirely true here. Note, for example, that Google releases all their takedown notices and associated data for public review and scrutiny, and the implications are even larger for reddit given the community and other ideals that /u/yishan indicates the admins are passionate about. It's time for them to stop steamrolling right past the "we took it down because it was copyrighted" and instead bring some transparency to reddit's DMCA process.
Comment by wmcscrooge at 07/09/2014 at 12:35 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
But I thought that was the point? "tight moderation to stop nefarious links, underage content and other content that breaks reddits rules" is *impossible*. Considering that the amount of traffic to /r/TheFappening was record high, I don't see how they could possible monitor all that activity without (as another user said) hiring a whole dedicated team for just that subreddit which is frankly just ridiculous)
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 14:36 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It wouldn't, because they were legally threatened.
My issue is that I thought Reddit was a "middle man" to provide content. *Users* are uploading content and *users* are posting them to Reddit. Reddit's argument with all these legal issues should be that *they* are not hosting anything. Their *users* are doing this and they are the ones who should be approached.
This is why I thought that while bestiality and dead baby pic subreddits were morally wrong, they were allowed. Now that Reddit gets public exposure, they cover their tracks and intervene. They don't have their stance that *users* are who we should tell to remove content.
So, if Reddit is going to take down nude pics, they should take down the subreddits that are much much worse than this. But they won't ... at least until those subreddits gets public negative media.
It needs to go one of three ways - Reddit needs to defend itself with the media and tell them to go after users and hosting companies, acknowledge that free speech doesn't matter and they'll only step in when negative media hits or start to police subreddits that are much worse than /r/TheFappening
Comment by The_Alex_ at 07/09/2014 at 13:44 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I believe when they state that they take down links that they are "required by law" to take down, he simply is referring to the specific submissions that the reddit staff recieves a specific DMCA complaint for. Anything that doesn't have a legit DMCA complaint on it AND does not violate reddit's own rules seems to be fair game.
However, it is a fair point to say that if thumbnails were simply disabled for these subreddits with DMCA'd submissions, then it would no longer fall to Reddit to get rid of those links themselves, but the website being linked to. This solution honestly seems simple enough. I'm not sure why this course wasn't taken if the real reason such submissions got deleted was because of DMCA complaints on the thumbnails.
Comment by Aardshark at 07/09/2014 at 09:10 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I'm not alienth, but I think he made reddits position pretty clear.
It would be allowed if they weren't getting loads of DMCA requests that they have to comply with.
Pretty much the only reason /r/TheFappening exists is to break reddits rules (don't link to content we've recieved DMCA requests for).
Comment by MegaWolf at 07/09/2014 at 17:28 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Didn't you read his post? The decision to remove the subreddit was because it was taking too much time and resources to deal with the illegal material being posted there.
Also people keep using the other awful subreddits as an example of why removing /r/TheFappening was hypocritical but those subreddits didn't and still don't get the amount of traffic that thefappening was getting. They are getting Takedown notices on a subreddit that was flooded with users (to the point that its breaking the site) spamming the illegal images in retaliation.
Comment by Pudgekip at 07/09/2014 at 08:51 UTC
-1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Wouldn't a picture of you be personal information though?
And it's pretty fucking clear that these pictures were stolen. It's not like they're being given up freely like the ladies of /r/gonewild .
These were private property that is stolen.
This isn't about morality, it's about legality. I'm not sure how removing the thumbnail would help much, given the fact that it is still stolen content. It seems like the thumbnail removal was a quick fix for a bigger problem in hopes to avoid legal backlash.
Which is pretty fucking understandable. The admins are there to keep the website alive. It's their job.
Comment by awesomeness1498 at 07/09/2014 at 17:35 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You are completely wrong. The point is that "It became obvious that we were either going to have to watch these subreddits constantly, or shut them down. We chose the latter." Reddit chose to ban that subreddit because it would have been too much work to constantly remove content that was illegal or a response to a DMCA. We shouldn't create reddits that by their own nature are producing content that will require lots of attention and policing by reddit admins. The time wasted doing this would hurt the development of reddit as a whole.
Comment by the1mike1man at 07/09/2014 at 11:39 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
He never said there was any moral component. The amount of bs that the company had to deal with as a result of people attaching their own moral viewpoint to the situation would have been a factor, but that's not something Reddit can control. A lot of time and money is wasted in trying to make everyone happy (including those who had no moral obligation to not look at the images), so the simple solution - and often the best one; Ockham's razor - was to just put the site back to the way it was before all this went down.
Comment by FroodLoops at 07/09/2014 at 12:28 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I also want to hear the answer to this question. According to the post, the only reason they were being subject to acting on the DCMA notices was the hosting of the thumbnails. If they had a way of temporarily turning off thumbnails for that sub, it seems like they could have avoided being legally required to censor their site, something that they claim to the community they avoid at all costs.
Comment by alienth at 07/09/2014 at 09:40 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I answered a similar question over here[1].
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/2fpdax/time_to_talk/ckbgpnv
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 12:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There is a moral component. It's a moral, legal and technical issue. There is more offensive material on reddit but it would be impossible to get rid of all of it. It makes sense to remove the high profile stuff and just hope the worst subreddits stay small.
Comment by Xeuton at 07/09/2014 at 21:19 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You should actually read it. They took it down when it turned out some of those images counted as child porn. They resisted the urge to take it down as long as they could, but at that point even 4chan stops and turns around.
Comment by UbinBan at 07/09/2014 at 18:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So i created a subreddit /r/CelebFappening. Its a NSFW subreddit so no thumbnails therefore reddit does not need to worry about any DMCA issues since none of the images submitted in that sub will be hosted by reddit.
Comment by getintheVandell at 07/09/2014 at 13:25 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It depends on the activity of the DMCA requests, obviously. If none are ever made, safe harbour rules apply and Reddit isn't legally obligated to take them down.
Comment by fabulous_frolicker at 07/09/2014 at 12:21 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To me it seems like the tipping point was images containing minors. They've taken a stance on it before and should continue to.
Comment by LacquerCritic at 07/09/2014 at 09:09 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Did you read the whole post? It was the DMCA requests - which they got regardless of thumbnails, and they would still have to respond and redirect to imgur or whatever other actual host was being used - combined with constant reposts of child porn, combined with malicious links being posted, combined with massive traffic that was causing site wide problems.
It sounds like short of hiring a second set of staff to just manage the above issues, they were overwhelmed and banned the subs because they couldn't manage it otherwise.
This seems like it had little to do with morality and more to do with the human limitations of the website.
Comment by DarkReaver1337 at 08/09/2014 at 05:43 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It isn't even like reddit is hosting it. It isn't their responsibility it is imgur and other Ostia sites.
Comment by cfl1 at 07/09/2014 at 13:07 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
All I got on my app were NSFW tags anyway... I figured it was a way to avoid thumbnailing. Guess not?
Comment by CoinValidator at 07/09/2014 at 20:46 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
/r/TheFappenLives had thumbs disabled. Was banned anyway.
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 17:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Every man is responsible for his own spacedicks
Comment by therique at 07/09/2014 at 09:07 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You also realize that the offensiveness of the pictures isn't the issue why the pictures were taken down? It's the unlawfulness.
Reddit is simply an instrument being used by us and the admin's are here to make sure it keeps working and isn't doing anything illegal.