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Reddit Bans 5 'subreddits' under its Game-Changing Anti-Harassment Policy

posted by janrinok on Friday June 12 2015, @06:52AM   
from the we-will-not-ban,-much dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Washington Post:

"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.

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Original Submission

• Re:comments ftaRe:comments fta (Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday June 16 2015, @01:19AM

  by tathra (3367) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @01:19AM (#196691)

  So I don't disagree that if you don't meet the definition of a group that you're not part of the group, but if the qualifications are sufficiently vague and subjective, just about anyone can qualify.

  which is exactly why i said can be difficult if not impossible to differentiate between examples of the fallacy and pointing out that somebody really isn't part of a group. people lie all the time, anybody can say they're a member of a group, but that doesn't automatically make them a member. all that can be done is looking at the loosest definition of the group and seeing if they fit; so long as its a pre-existing definition and not being narrowed to exclude the person or people in question, its not fallicious. if a group is so broadly defined that self-labeling is all thats required to be part of it, then there's no point in labeling anyone as a member, the same way a word thats so broad that it could mean anything is meaningless and useless to use.

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• Re:comments fta(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:57AM

  by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:57AM (#196728)

  if a group is so broadly defined that self-labeling is all thats required to be part of it, then there's no point in labeling anyone as a member, the same way a word thats so broad that it could mean anything is meaningless and useless to use.

  There goes most labels. Good riddance.

  Parent