These things never stay contained though. The hate subreddits feed off of and seep into the rest of the site. In the old days someone had to make a conscious decision to visit a site like Stromfront. You weren't going to go there unless you already were interested in racist ideals. On Reddit those ideals are mixed in with everything else. This makes it harder to notice you are being exposed to hate and/or influenced by it. The end result is that Reddit is a boom to recruiting for hate groups.

There are three main ways of interacting with Reddit: posting, voting, and commenting. Hiding the obvious hate subreddits helped address the posting of topics. That was an important step and I don't want to diminish it. Reddit has tried to address the voting aspect with various tweaks to the ranking algorithm but whether it has been effective is still debatable. They haven't done anything as far as I'm aware to address hate comments. That is left completely up to the users and moderators.

This is the exact type of thing I am talking about. You see this bothsiderism all over the place on Reddit. I am sure the author of this comment doesn't think of themselves as a racist (and perhaps there was sarcasm intended in this comment that is lost in the printed word). Many users might read this comment without considering it is racist. Yet the comment is drawing a direct parallel between Stormfront and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Equating those two as opposite and morally equal sides of the same issue is an inherently racist idea.

For the sake of comparison, here is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for each:

Stormfront is a white nationalist, white supremacist and neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web's first major racial hate site.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is noted for its successful legal cases against white supremacist groups, its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs.

Bad groups can hide behind good ideals. Just because they are a "nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation" does not mean they aren't racist or politically extreme.

I do agree that SPLC and Stormfront do not compare, but it could be argued that Reddit blocks or suppresses conservative, non-multiculturalist views much more than liberal ones. That asymmetry is part of what fuels the growing extremism IMO.

The fact that you equate conservative views with things like white supremacy is a huge problem. Rational and compassionate people can be conservative. No one is going to censor debate about things like state rights, a small federal government, tax cuts, trickle down economics, etc. But I don’t think it is controversial to say that white supremacy is simply morally wrong.

Well there does tend to be a correlation between right-wing extremism and white supremacy, so it's not like that comes from nowhere.

Conservatism goes beyond states rights and economics. It's also cultural. Conservatives tend not to like multiculturalism or cultural change, and tend to like things like gender roles, immigration tests, and just generally keeping things the way they were. Rational and compassionate people can have these opinions too, yet they are suppressed on pretty much all social media sites including Reddit.

When people with moderate cultural views and opinions get suppressed, they cling to the nearest groups with the closest mindset to their own. Unfortunately, on sites like Reddit, these are often extremist subreddits.

I would say it's a delusional victimhood on the part of those people.

/r/The_Donald has broken many rules of Reddit and the largest punishment they've been given is that /r/popular was created to steer people to less toxic content.

You can also look to how long they let /r/physical_removal (advocates of political violence towards "commies" and "leftists") and /r/incels (advocates of sexual assault, rape, and violence against women) stay open.

/r/MensRights is still around despite doxxing and harassing people in the past.

>who cares?

Victims?

Heavy handed speech moderation is what is starting to happen on reddit.

It works on HN

although the format is similar, reddit and HN are very different sites, and imo that's a good thing.

when i visit HN, i expect the articles to be topical and for the discourse to be informative and interesting. somewhat amazingly, my expectations are usually met here, which makes the site quite a gem.

at the same time, i don't always want that. sometimes i just want to see a true train wreck unfold in the comments. in a way i even appreciate the donald trump and hate subreddits. if there are ideologies spreading that can impact my life, i would prefer to go to the source and read their actual words than have the ny times regurgitate them to me.

there are benefits to the hands-on moderation and the wild west styles. the only optimal solution is having a wide range of choices.

> if your vast majority of users doesn't see it or know where to find it, who cares?

If those channels become extremist echo chambers, then the government could care when terrorists start being made on the site, affecting Reddit's PR in the long run. I know of several subs that are full of such extremist vitriol. Since they're a global website, they've got to consider things like long-term social impacts of their content.