542 upvotes, 15 direct replies (showing 15)
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.
Comment by cgimusic at 07/09/2014 at 09:21 UTC
284 upvotes, 15 direct replies
Once thumbnails were disabled it doesn't seem that difficult to set up an auto-response for all DMCA requests with links to TheFappening that tells the content owners to contact the image host.
As an aside, are these really expensive lawyers really so incapable that they can't even work out what site they need to contact to have an image taken down?
Comment by sp0radic at 07/09/2014 at 09:15 UTC
125 upvotes, 7 direct replies
So... why should reddit have to play messenger to image hosts? If they disabled thumbnails, took a clear stance on the underage issue (which has been done afaik) I don't see why there has to be this huge deal about it. Definitely provided for an entertaining few weekends.
Comment by ZadocPaet at 07/09/2014 at 09:31 UTC
13 upvotes, 2 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
That could be automated pretty easily.
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 11:07 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This presents an interesting question to me: are you actually legally required to respond to a DMCA request that has no actual basis? Given what I've seen of the DMCA in the past it wouldn't surprise me, but that would be another thing about it that should be fixed.
Comment by aaronsherman at 07/09/2014 at 14:34 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
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.
And this is why our expectations of reddit in this case were unreasonable. We think of the admins and staff of reddit as some sort of idealized engine, but there not. They are constrained by resources such as time, bandwidth, storage, etc. Their actions, therefore will appear irrational or wrong when you ignore these factors.
But that doesn't actually make them wrong.
Comment by DonJunbar at 07/09/2014 at 10:20 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
constant reposts of child porn
I never saw any evidence of this. It's one of those "think of the children" excuses they can use, because they know it won't be argued against.
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 18:22 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
FYI- there was no child porn.
The "child porn" was a single image of Mckayla Maroney, age 18, in a thong.
Her lawyers claimed the pic was taken shortly before her eighteen birthday, however, technically making her underage.
Edit: completely unrelated, here is Miss Maroney at 16. This video is totally legal and was hosted internationally.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dgbaO5DUDeo
Comment by ThrustVectoring at 07/09/2014 at 13:19 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'd believe that if the post didn't also make a moral judgement about the leak. It's one thing to remove content in order to keep things running against administrative, site load, and legal issues - it's another to say that the content is morally reprehensible, and then claim those issues as why you're removing content.
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 17:41 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
No, they don't. Takedown requests are just *requests*. They bear no legal weight and are sent out in error more often than not. If you receive a request in error, you do not attempt to forward the request to the correct party, you destroy it. That's basic respect for confidentiality.
Comment by HImainland at 07/09/2014 at 16:10 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
yeah, i think a lot of people at reddit don't realise that a lot of "shortcomings" from businesses falls to lack of resources. When people yell WHY DON'T YOU DO XYZ THAT'S WHAT WE REALLY NEED. Do they ever think of the resources needed to create and run that? I don't think they often do.
Comment by UTF64 at 07/09/2014 at 14:40 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
They can legally ignore the DMCA requests if they're invalid. Which they were.
Comment by GavinZac at 07/09/2014 at 10:18 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
A thumbnail preview is basically the definition of fair use. If we can issue DMCA takedowns I'm on thumbnails then the majority of non-self posts are vulnerable. Rather than, you know, just shifting the blame to Imgur instead as is true now.
Comment by humankin at 07/09/2014 at 09:42 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Was there actually any child porn? I know that at least one of the celebrities was supposedly underage but was it nudity or just /r/creepshots kind of clothed porn? I'd check but I really don't want to download potential CP to verify this...
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 10:40 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 07/09/2014 at 13:20 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Considering reddit doesn't host *any* content, if think they would have automated this.