86 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: Update to Our Content Policy
Very good post, great points. I agree with all of this. I miss the Reddit I discovered many years ago.
One thing I used to love about Reddit was that although there has been some questionable content here and there over the years, some of it made the site more legitimate when compared against other platforms (er...publishers) due to the initial lack of censorship. For example, "Watchpeopledie" was a good subreddit to have here. Was it "shock" content? Sure. But was it uselessly shocking? Definitely not. In fact, Watchpeopledie was incredibly valuable. For example...
YouTube, for example, is a family-friendly ish site. At least it tries to be - no gore, no killing, no "shock" value stuff, etc. However, what we are left with is videos of idiots walking on the top levels of sky scrapers looking down at the streets below, parkour over deadly gaps, people generally doing dangerous stunts successfully... Followed by high fives and smiles all around, etc... along with the discussion about how ballsy and crazy it is.
But what is not shown on Youtube are the times when those stunts aren't successful, resulting in consequences. Young people see this kind of stuff and are influenced by it. They are impressionable. They don't see the entirely realistic scenario where somebody misses a jump and falls 20 feet onto concrete. They only see the "cool" side of it and the clout those people build from doing dumb shit like that. This kind of content is on Reddit, too (think /r/sweatypalms). To call this example a hyperbole would be naive.
Also, you are totally right about the "majority" descriptor in Reddit's new "policy." This doesn't make any sense. /r/fragilewhiteredditor 's message clearly is that if you are white, you automatically live a privileged life and your hardships don't compare to that of a black person or "minority" (which, again, doesn't make sense from a worldwide perspective). There is a startling amount of racist content on that subreddit. However, /r/afragileblackredditor, a subreddit I didn't even know existed until today, was banned. Does that make any sense for people living in a country where whites are minorities? Also, when did it become okay to offend white people?
Additionally, many conservative forums on this site have been completely nuked. Censorship (or "breaking the rules," as Reddit calls it) is dangerous. Reddit's policy is that if you aren't liberal, you are racist and you should be banned because it is wrongthink. I love reading good arguments on either side of an issue, but I don't get to see both arguments anymore because Reddit shuts one side down almost automatically. I noticed Reddit's censorship started getting out of hand particularly following the 2016 presidential election, but I had no idea it would get this bad.
It's quite apparent that these "changes" are politically motivated. They aren't saving anybody. Except, I don't know, maybe the Chinese government.
Comment by seraph85 at 30/06/2020 at 11:14 UTC
12 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's fucked up that we live in a society against racism and we here how bad Institutional racism is. Yet there is only a few forms of Institutional racism still endorsed today affirmative action and rules and regulations like what reddit has adopted here.
Comment by TheOneSarah at 30/06/2020 at 15:33 UTC
11 upvotes, 3 direct replies
They banned r/gendercritical which was a subreddit for discussions about women issues. They were up for 7 years and promoted no hate, only discussion, and were silenced in the name of progression. Reddit is trying to go so far left they loop around into alt right.
Comment by [deleted] at 30/06/2020 at 11:05 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Does it really make sense to complain about censorship after agreeing with a post that calls for more censorship?