It makes no sense to you, but for years, users on certain subreddits were exposed to users and their views from other subreddits thanks to brigading.

Likewise, Reddit and Facebook both have to deal with being judged by all the forums they "host." You may not think it makes sense to criticize Reddit as a whole for hosting white supremacist forums and violent misogyny forums, but the rest of society seems to think that one bad apple forum spoils the entire Reddit and Facebook barrel.

If you're looking for a comparison, I don't have to read any thread I don't want to on HN, just as I don't have to join any subreddit I don't want to on Reddit.

But I know they're there, and that affects my perception of what HN or Reddit or Facebook is.

If it was just about hiding content, we could argue that HN shouldn't censor anything, but if we let people tag threads and comments with labels like "white supremacy" or "SJW raving," then everyone can filter what they don't want to see, so what's the problem?

>users on certain subreddits were exposed to users and their views from other subreddits thanks to brigading.

Brigading has been rightly against the rules of Reddit forever, that's a hostile action, rare, quickly punished and not significant.

Also, critically, it applies the same way to completely separate websites as well. Redditors could brigade HN or vice versa.

On Reddit, nobody gets exposed to content they didn't subscribe to.

>I don't have to read any thread I don't want to on HN

True, though you still have to see it, so in the interests of time at the least it's good to have a filter.

>we could argue that HN shouldn't censor anything, but if we let people tag threads and comments with labels like "white supremacy" or "SJW raving," then everyone can filter what they don't want to see, so what's the problem?

That's a great idea! We could do a curator system where anyone can sign up to be a curator to tag things with their own personal tags. Then you can just find a curator who matches your wishes and we're golden.

Let’s compare this to a mall. If 50% of the stores sell confederate merchandise, Nazi memorabilia, MAGA hats, and souvenir photographs of Black people getting lynched and/or Jews being gassed, can we ask Blacks people, Jews, and generally people who are not ideological racists or libertarian enablers to just walk past what they “disagree with” and spend money elsewhere in the mall?

Not in this or any other timeline. Even if we cover up the shops, knowing that your money in a normal store helps the mall stay in business to rent space to a racist store makes this mall anathema to a huge segment of society.

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YOU may be comfortable shopping there, and YOU might construct all sorts of rationalizations for being complicit in racism, but YOU are being unrealistic if you think that everybody else is going to be all, “racism is terrible, but hey, it’s a mall, what’s the big deal?”

Not everybody is going to go along with rationalizing away being complicit in violent racist ideologies. And thus it is that companies like Facebook and Reddit end up being judged by the worst things they support.

If you think that’s terrible and want to trot out “logic” that “proves” they aren’t complicit in racism, you’re going to have to accept that plenty of people can’t be persuaded to do nothing while their country slips into Nazis II.