SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
"We will not ban questionable subreddits," Reddit's then-CEO, Yishan Wong, wrote mere months ago. "You choose what to post. You choose what to read. You choose what kind of subreddit to create."
But in an apparent reversal of that policy, and in an unprecedented effort to clean up its long-suffering image, Reddit has just banned five "questionable subreddits."
The site permanently removed the forums Wednesday afternoon for harassing specific, named individuals, a spokesperson said. Of the five, two were dedicated to fat-shaming, one to transphobia, one to racism and one to harassing members of a progressive video game site.
Unsurprisingly, a vocal contingent of Redditors aren't taking the changes well: "Reddit increases censorship," read one post on r/freespeech, while forums like r/mensrights and r/opieandanthony theorized they would be next.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 12 2015, @07:38AM
When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.
As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occassions where no statement is asked or expect from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.
I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.
John J. Chapman
Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2015, @08:05AM
Spoken like a wealthy lawyer who was never imprisoned for the crime of merely speaking in a manner arbitrarily deemed unacceptable. As a Harvard graduate and a member of the bar, John Jay Chapman had absolutely no concept whatsoever of common life.
Chapman's criminally bad advice only applies if the following conditions are met:
1. Be Rich.
2. Don't Be Poor.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2015, @08:20AM
Mod this anonymous asshole down, because John J Chapman is rich and famous and dead, and nobody gives a shit about the contrary opinions of anonymous fucking trolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2015, @11:04AM
I assume you are talking about yourself here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2015, @03:15PM
I'm not so sure about that. Plenty of rich people won't rock the boat. They have too much to lose. Plenty of poor people will say some crazy things. They have nothing to lose. Of course most of those poor people don't get much attention. If they do, they tend to become rich. If they can resist the temptation to become corrupt, they become heroic.
I get your point though. There are a lot of people who have to work for a living to feed a family. They think about speaking out in some radical way, but figure it to be irresponsible.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 12 2015, @11:27PM
kuro5hin's orion blastar is desperately concerned that I am making many bad decisions, such as that I am likely to go back to sleeping under a highway overpass as well as dining at the portland rescue mission.
he points out that he has a wife and child and mortgage - he's mentally ill too, with the same thing I've got.
but I don't have a wife and child nor mortgage. What I've got is a macbook pro and some technical books, also lots of good libraries here. What I don't want are others to make my decisions.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 12 2015, @11:24PM
I was once arrested for felony terrorists threats because I told a grover beach, california police officer that I was conducting research into the effect of software faults on aviation safety.
Despite that I requested to act pro se, I had a public defender forced upon me who proceeded to refuse to defend me. She flatly refused to obtain any of the evidence nor to have an investigator interview any of the witnesses, of which there are many.
In hopes of paying my domain registration renewal, I pleaded guilty to... what was it I can't remember now I just woke up. The charge was pulled out of my attorney's ass because it had the convenient feature of not being a three strikes offense despite being a felony.
Now I can't get a job because I have a criminal record. That gets me down but I know the procedure as it was my general plan in my early twenties, when I was the most severely mentally ill, that being to start a business.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 12 2015, @11:33PM
I can't speak for Chapman as I don't know much else about him, but John F. Kennedy was also a Harvard alumnus, as is Richard Stallman - he was a physics major.
it is quite common for one to join the bar in hopes of fighting injustice; for example a santa cruz, california attorney who focussed on pro bono work for the homeless was unable to pay his bar association dues, so a county judge paid them - anonymously. (I'm not real sure how we know it was a judge, but it was.)
a friend of my ex-wife's obtained a master's in biology then went on to law school and is now an environmental lawyer.
I myself, while not a lawyer have quite an interest in the law not so much because I get arrested so much but because Jack Batson, my high school history teacher - and later mayor of fairfield, california - taught us that the supreme court does not make advisory opinions. That is one cannot simply request that a law be struck down as unconstitutional, one has to violate it then defend oneself.
It is my most-fervent hope to do that myself someday. So far all I've accomplished is to get my charges dismissed a few times.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]