1670 upvotes, 27 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: Content Policy Update
Holy crap that content policy is vague.
A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor.
So, a quarantine happens when you believe that at least 50.1% of reddit users would be extremely offended or upset by a community? Seeing as how we're a pretty liberal, secular crowd, I'd like you to please quarantine subreddits relating to religion and conservative politics. I, and arguably 50.1% of reddit, find them upsetting.
Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission.
So, "revenge porn" and /r/TheFappening is OK, since the photos were *taken* with permission and only later used without permission?
Do not post content that incites harm against people or groups of people.
What the hell is "harm"? Only physical injury and illegal acts, or does it also cover any negative impact, such as loss of income or emotional distress? Further, when does somebody incite harm? If I make a post in good-faith that tends to increase the likelihood a person or group will be harmed, have I violated this policy?
Harassment on Reddit is defined as systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.
Like "harm," this policy abuses the word "safety." What does it mean? Only physical safety, or the safety of my ideas *a la* safe-spaces[1]?
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-space
As if that isn't enough, you've apparently created an exception to the content policy within its first hour:
... we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.
Ridiculously, this standard for *banning* is easier to meet than the standard for quarantining. And it gets even worse when your later comments implicitly change the "and" to an "or." Reddit's content policy now seems to ban any content or communities that "generally make Reddit worse." You can't get more vague than that.
I also take serious issue with how quarantines are implemented. It's a generally good idea to keep certain, well-defined categories of content isolated. But requiring login and e-mail confirmation isn't so much quarantining as it is imposing arbitrary standards to make it harder for the communities to exist. Why not also start limiting their comments to 200 characters just for kicks? You could achieve a quarantine using much more narrowly tailored means--just require a NSFW-like confirmation per subreddit, exclude them from /r/all, and block search engines from indexing.
In short, I'm extremely disappointed. Not so much because of the policy itself but because of how you've misled the community into thinking that Reddit was truly interested in community feedback and in creating clear standards. **You've created a content policy with a bunch of words, but an overriding exception that boils down to "if we don't like it."**
Comment by the_code_always_wins at 05/08/2015 at 22:56 UTC*
46 upvotes, 2 direct replies
such as loss of income or emotional distress?
This would actually be a big one, as it would make organizing boycotts illegal.
. But requiring login and e-mail confirmation isn't so much quarantining as it is imposing arbitrary standards to make it harder for the communities to exist.
I think this is the point. If you read his comments, spez is largely concerned with undesireable people being on the site.
IE, a pedophile reads about /r/pomf and decides to make an account. Spez doesn't want pedophiles on the site, so he bans /r/pomf.
Comment by jP_wanN at 06/08/2015 at 00:36 UTC
246 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Holy crap that content policy is vague.
This. One of the biggest concerns when /u/spez 'asked for feedback' was that the content policy needed to be more specific about criteria for banning or quarantining. And what do we get? Even more vague rules.
Comment by FrogMasta25 at 05/08/2015 at 22:18 UTC
96 upvotes, 5 direct replies
> Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission.
So, "revenge porn" and /r/TheFappening[1] is OK, since the photos were taken with permission and only later used without permission?
Wow, you are right.
Comment by Meath77 at 05/08/2015 at 23:26 UTC*
25 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You've created a content policy with a bunch of words, but an overriding exception that boils down to "if we don't like it."
That sums it up nicely. I never liked those subs, but this is going a bit too far, and rules are being invented to get rid of specific subs. I thought the exodus to voat was wishful thinking, but the more active that becomes, the more attractive it'll become.
Comment by Mavee at 05/08/2015 at 22:47 UTC
37 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This should be the top comment. Disregarding specific inquiries to what subs should or should not be banned and/or quarantined, this post describes *exactly* what is wrong with the new content policy.
Comment by MajorBeefCurtains at 05/08/2015 at 23:27 UTC
18 upvotes, 0 direct replies
"If our advertisers don't like you, we don't like you" https://archive.is/KIhpe
Comment by [deleted] at 06/08/2015 at 00:00 UTC
9 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Pretty sure more than 50.0 % Reddit users would vote against hateful subs like srs and SRD along with coontown and fph.
Comment by Orodent at 06/08/2015 at 01:24 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to **our corporate overlords and/or our own biased agenda**
Comment by johnny_rebel_yo at 05/08/2015 at 22:52 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
you know, a policy that facilitates banning anyone depending on the mood of the admin is quite useful, don't you think?
Comment by Kenny__Loggins at 06/08/2015 at 16:52 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So, a quarantine happens when you believe that at least 50.1% of reddit users would be extremely offended or upset by a community? Seeing as how we're a pretty liberal, secular crowd, I'd like you to please quarantine subreddits relating to religion and conservative politics. I, and arguably 50.1% of reddit, find them upsetting.
That's a terrible point. Disagreeing with something doesn't mean you find it offensive.
Comment by marvin at 06/08/2015 at 06:10 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's not very impressive. If it wasn't obvious before, it's pretty clear that they "hey, let's all discuss our new content policy" discussions were only meant to placate everyone who had critical questions. The wording of the content policy and actual communities banned and quarantined is very vague and only reflects content that is embarassing to the reddit board.
Too bad. I had good hopes for this.
Comment by OldWolf2 at 06/08/2015 at 06:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You've created a content policy with a bunch of words, but an overriding exception that boils down to "if we don't like it."
That's how the real world works. Now your job is to elect admins who have sensible likes and dislikes.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 22:50 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
That's the way all obscenity laws work.
Comment by Viking18 at 06/08/2015 at 10:37 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So what, if we can't make posts inciting violence against others, I am, in a completely hypothetical situation, allowed to say that "ISIS are a bunch of retarded fuckers who deserve crucifiction"?
Comment by MrRaoulDuke at 06/08/2015 at 05:27 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Didn't /r/TheFappening banned for the very reasons you cite? It may have taken a while but that is a banned subreddit on both my reddit browsers.
Comment by Kissmyasthma100 at 06/08/2015 at 07:48 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Why the fuck does they only reply to shitty "well done guys" comment? Where's the reply on this? Bunch of kids pretending to run a website.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/08/2015 at 00:10 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is the whole point of transparency. It doesn't fucking count as transparency if all your decisions are bullshit based on vague rules.
Comment by fasdgbj at 06/08/2015 at 11:14 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
They had two main choices for the content policy:
1. Make a huge list of everything that might fall under the content policy, a veritable encyclopedia of hate. Of course, they'd have to acknowledge gray area as they went along, and provide careful distinctions. Even then, Redditors would find loopholes, and more would have to be added on a regular basis.
2. Write a flexible yet vague content policy that gives administrators a great deal of discretion to make judgment calls on behalf of the community. Since every content policy is vague to a certain degree, this might be the more realistic approach. We have a policy that we can read in one sitting.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 23:07 UTC
-7 upvotes, 2 direct replies
So? It's their website. They can delete whatever they want and keep whatever they want. They can refuse access to whoever they want. If you don't like it you're free to go start your own website or find a better one that aligns with your values.
Comment by Kac3rz at 06/08/2015 at 01:10 UTC
-1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I don't get, why the vagueness of the policy is supposed to be a problem. It's obvious and understandable that admins want to have rules, *but* they want a wiggle room as well. There's nothing sinister about it. Even legal codes have expressions like *a reasonable person* which are not clearly defined.
Otherwise, reddit would be in a constant battle with legions of people that act like a kid who, when banned from entering a certain room in the house, will stand with one foot in that room and the other in the hall yelling *"But I'm not in the room!"*.
Being technically correct =/= really correct. Context matters. And admins have every right to have space to judge that context on a case-by-case basis.
Comment by Whenthisbabyhits88 at 06/08/2015 at 01:17 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
My feelings are hurt, better ban this subreddit.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/08/2015 at 00:52 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Exactly they should own up to their real ideals
Comment by WineRedPsy at 06/08/2015 at 15:47 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Average != Majority
Comment by smacktaix at 06/08/2015 at 07:48 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Such is the nature of private property. The owner sets the rules. Any non-distributed solution will have this problem too.
Comment by MericaWP at 06/08/2015 at 03:16 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This quarantine is bullshit you SJWs are such little babies "if we deem it offensive" my god there's no way any white hate groups will be banned cause you white sjws hate your own skin.
FUCK NIGGERS long live /s/coontown