The conflict is that reddit originally touted itself as a meta-community, where such moderation was applied per-subreddit. If you didn't like the topics/policies of one community, then start another right alongside.

But the desire of investors for widespread palatability and the media's latest push for censorship have perverted the site into creating unified "community standards", across what should be considered independent communities.

Reddit itself gained much of its popularity due to the mass exodus from Digg over their censorship of one simple number! Users inherently do not want to be censored in what they can communicate about, and so the cycle will be with us until we finally scrap this hack of using centralized websites in lieu of end-user software - centralized structures can never remain free of top-down control.

The other problem is that several subreddits were known to "leak," where the subscribers to some subreddits would go out and spread that kind of thing across the rest of the site. If the racist content stays in their subreddits, it's still terrible that it's there, but at least it can be firewalled off. But when the users of those subreddits start spreading that content through the rest of the site, it's much more difficult to avoid it.

For me the issue is the broad application of troll and liberal banning. I was all on board the detoxify train until I was banned from a subreddit where I had posted for 5 years.

I didn’t know what comment or behavior. Messaging mods said that it was obvious what comment and that I was a troll.

This was confusing to me. I never went back. Now I am skeptical of labeled trolls unless I can assess behavior directly.

> Yeah this is bullshit. Trolls have always existed, but shrugging them off was never a solution.

> In message boards I used to frequent trolls were suspended without question and banned for repeat offenses.

That must be selective memory, or at least not generalizable: on some pretty major message boards (e.g. Slashdot), trolling became a prominent subculture.

In fact, one of the my major memories of numerous early message boards was that trolling was an integral component of the forum culture. Trollish things would frequently be said and you spotted the newbies and outsiders based on how they responded. As you learned the culture, you'd learn not to get trolled and maybe occasionally troll yourself.

> The problem is trolls are given too much room to play and speak.

That's the problem with your mindset right there.

We are talking about people. To decide that other people cannot say things you do not like to hear is to deny them their liberty. That clearly worse than "trolling".

Getting offended by a person's words or actions is not them doing something to you, it's you doing something to them - or rather, to yourself.

So if you can't - or shouldn't - compel other people to think and act in a certain manner, what do you do?

The answer is simple: show them the door.