Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 16 submissions in the queue.

Reddit Auto-Censors Tech Security Related Language

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday April 17 2014, @03:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the First-rule-of-censorship dept.

Serial_Priest writes:

In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations in mid-2013, moderators at /r/technology configured filters to automatically censor posts containing "politicized" words, based on findings by creq. This censorship appears to be ongoing. The banned words include NSA, Comcast, Anonymous, CISPA, SOPA, Swartz, FCC, net neutrality, GHCQ, EFF, ACLU, and others.

The admins claim they simply configured their bots to delete "politicized" posts. Yet their filters (which were not announced or explained) effectively precluded meaningful discussion of contemporary issues. Could this reflect willing government collaboration by Reddit's admins, or might they have been served with an NSL to force compliance?

News coverage of the censorship is at the Daily Dot. A fuller list of banned words are available on pastebin. The reddit post reporting censorship on /r/rechnology.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Reddit Auto-Censors Tech Security Related Language | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 16 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 17 2014, @04:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 17 2014, @04:18PM (#32722)

    Occam's little helper (and the DailyDot piece) says that it's just lazy mods letting a filter do their work for them.

    "Could this reflect willing government collaboration by Reddit's admins, or might they have been served with an NSL to force compliance?"

    Both of those speculations seem WAY overblown to me. /not-a-pro-gov-bot

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   2