At that level perspective the analogy breaks down though. The users are the ones who decide what to post (content creators, as you say), but they also push the button to make that content visible, (ergo, publishers).
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That would be correct if the platform was dictating the content that users were posting. The platform is just the platform. Think of it as the notebook company selling notebooks. The users are the ones filling those notebooks with stuff and tossing them out on the street for people to read.
I wonder how long it will be before the reporting system gets gamed by idiots en masse reporting feminist or woman-focused sub-reddits, trying to get them quarantined from public view?
I hope the bar isn’t just that content is “upsetting”. Nice things often upset foolish people.
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But it’s a “notebook company” with the power to remove certain notebooks, at their own discretion, by their own standards.
Reddit as a platform does ultimately dictate here. They may let stand 95% of what’s posted but it’s their choice how passive they’re being.
A really lazy gatekeeper that infrequently acts is still functionally a gatekeeper.
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You mean to tell me snuff films were appearing on the front place news at this place? I’m glad I took whomever’s advice it was not to bother with the site.
Fine, bad analogy is bad. But the fact remains that they aren’t a publisher, which implies they vet all stuff before it ever gets posted. They allow users to publish content and, based on Reddit standards, can decide to block what they want. They are, in fact, acting as a form of the FCC here, which sets standards for what can be shown on television without dictating every detail of every show. No one is going to argue the FCC can’t do that, because we’re all inherently used to it (though actually I can see THAT argument having traction because it’s a government entity, not a private company).
While it’s the right thing that reddit is not harboring negative social groups, it doesn’t get to the root of the problem.
Well, no, but then, how do you suggest that Reddit get to the root of a social ill like white supremacy? (I’m not thinking that’s actually their job…?)
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What is this, in your view?
Reddit could do a lot more within its domain (in both senses of the word). It could entirely ban subreddits created to promote and excuse bigotry, sexism, genocide, etc. from its platform. It could also ban users who consistently do those things. If the root of the problem is bad actors then, yes, this doesn’t really address it.
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I think it’s great that Reddit isn’t harboring negative social groups. It’s not going to cause this groups to go away. These people have real unaddressed issues. Addressing them gets to the root the of the problem.
And political correctness doesn’t solve anything.
This is the best rebuttal that I can think of.
Addressing them != giving their thoroughly discredited views a platform.
The debates on whether right-wing populism or racial segregation or ethnic cleansing or limiting the rights of women are solutions to reality-based problems were settled decades ago. The fact that some fools want to re-open those debates, and that they’re encouraged by establishment conservatives who see it as a good way of distracting from their own culpability in creating and perpetuating those problems, does not oblige any private institution in the U.S. (a company, a university, a magazine festival, etc.) to give them a platform to do so.
“Political correctness” isn’t an issue in this story. Reddit trying to half-arse a solution is.
I’d suggest that you start with the cartoon at the start of this topic, followed by the one I provided, followed by taking a look at the “Freeze Peach” thread linked underneath.
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It would have been better to flood those subreddits with facts, honest history, and bright truths.
Shutting them down is a good alternative. I wouldn’t let negative social groups organize on a site that I owned.
This does smack or political correctness.
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All those things are already out there, in textbooks, in Wikipedia, in popular culture. There’s no reason to dignify those subreddits by casting them as forums set up for rational debate and discussion.
You haven’t explained how the term applies in this case. What makes reddit different from the theoretical site you’d own, or from this site’s BBS section?
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Reddit gets to decide what is allowable and not allowable. That is their right. Their decisions may be stifling and devaluing.
The same applies to BB BBS, or the theoretical site where you’d outright ban those groups. This isn’t a particularly stifling platform, and I see no lost value from voices in favour of Nazism being silenced by the site rules.
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Banning Nazis is easy. They’re Nazis. You can see then coming from a mile away. But what happens when you squelch speech because you are uninformed and you do not understand the social and political reality of the person that is speaking? Then you have become the problem. You have become the one is a negative social actor. Someone you disagree with may be more correct that you and may not be someone that you can negatively categorize.
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Dismissive but I accept it.
