Perhaps. I know that a number of objectively hateful subreddits were not banned because they were hateful of people "in the majority" (whatever that means).

An archived copy of Reddit's "Account and Community Restrictions" from the time of the ban reads as such [0]:

> While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.

The question here veers into the territory of whether Reddit is a "publisher" or "platform". Their editorial decision to ban certain kinds of loosely-defined "hate" seems to clearly point to them being an editorializing publisher of content. This, in addition to their editing of user's posts criticizing their core team [1] and other such egregious acts.

There's no compelling reason for me to believe Reddit acted in good faith.

[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20200701001008/https://www.reddi...

[1]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comment...

> I know that a number of objectively hateful subreddits were not banned because they were hateful of people "in the majority" (whatever that means).

Don't be vague, give concrete examples if you're going to make broad statements like that.

> The question here veers into the territory of whether Reddit is a "publisher" or "platform".

Well are subreddits "publishers" or "platforms" then? Because a lot of the hateful subs that have been shut down over the years (t_D, uncensorednews, European, etc.) banned users who disagreed with their moderators.

Well there is /r/BlackPeopleTwitter, which generally has a lot of vitriol aimed at white people which goes wholly unchecked.

It is also the home of "country club threads", wherein you're banned from commenting unless you are a PoC or have proved yourself to be a "white ally" (initially I think it was only PoC and none of the white ally stuff, but they let them in later in response to continued backlash – also because I think many of the mods aren't actual PoC so looked even more ridiculous than it was already).

Subreddits are composed of communities which (in theory) are self-moderating. The communities themselves can be publishers or platforms, the question here is about whether or not Reddit should have the editorial authority to delete subreddits at will.

Here is a small list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti.... Most of these subreddits are not Nazi or Stalinist-level hateful, but could still be considered hateful (the definition of hate is actually very shaky, I regret saying "objectively hateful" in my above comment).

I could back to you with a longer list of more underground subreddits, though I don't really have the time to. You can go to something like https://reddit.guide and search for subreddits similar to the ones banned. Plenty are still active, just much smaller.

Why do you guys always call t_d a hate sub? It was a Trump fan sub. Dedicated to positive content about Trump. It was the complete opposite of hateful, of course. Now, take the far left sub “/r/politics” which actively promotes hatred against half of the United States. Threats of violence against law enforcement abound there. Calls for actual bloodshed and violent “revolution” constantly.

Subreddits are private or public communities that all have their own rules for what can be posted. Reddit itself is a publisher. Legally speaking, they curate a collection of subreddits and publish them. Reddit (and other pro-communist and anti-American publishers like Twitter) will likely face massive legal action from the DOJ if Americans vote to give Trump a second term. I for one can’t wait to see these commies bite the dust in federal court!

I truly was, and it's was hilarious.

California/Silicon Valley has a big issue of absolutely belief they are right. Big tech companies want to stop "disinformation" by banning people from their platforms.

A recent case is Dr. Li-Meng Yan who's been publishing research about CoV2 origins. There are academics who've taken issue with some of those releases/papers, and there is room for discussion for sure. But it should be discussed. Twitter just said, "nope, disinformation, cut and dry" and banned her account.

There are a lot of experts recently who have been banned on platforms like YouTube, Twitter, et. al. for spreading bad information. But science is not democratic. California companies have somehow become the arbitrators of what is good and bad science.

But coming back off of science to t_d, the same applies. It's a huge feedback loop of "he's bad" and a "fascists" and subs like these showed time and time again the massive media distortion of every one of his statements. There are a lot of agendas going on here and few of them are for the Truth.

I assume those not banned subs are still there and you can link them. Because whole ton of subs were banned, not just Donald and not just right wing.

[1] is an example of a hate sub against men that's not banned by reddit. But [2] is just a group of men who have decided to never date, marry etc. is quarantined because somehow that is hate. Also how are women a minority when they are 50% of the population? Baffles me.

1 https://www.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/

2 https://www.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/

Both those subs are sexist garbage and MGTOW is not "just a group of men who have decided to never date, marry etc.". It's a shitty community that frequently promotes sexist garbage like this [1, 2].

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/i3dqzi/very_superfic...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/iwaqm5/we_equality_n...

If rules applied to all subs the same topmindsofreddit would have been banned long ago

They were not as much in favor of free speech as they often proclaim. It is probably mostly due to reactionary behavior. I think the banning was a mistake, they were also discriminated against on political grounds.

If you do that because you think it necessary I would at least expect results.

Which is what /r/LateStageCapitalism, and many other subreddits, do. Only it's allowed because they are not right wing.

The anti-free speech claim is made not by judging the ban of t_D in isolation, but by looking at how their policies are selectively enforced across their platform in order to silence right-wing opinions and perspectives. In particular, support for Trump. A sub like /r/politics, dedicated primarily to anti-Trump content, is fine though, even if their users are wishing him death after getting COVID and are actively promulgating conspiracy theories.

Then why did they ban /r/Holodomor? Ideological motivation.

Not 100% sure but probably because the top mod was an anti-semite and 9/11 truther. It doesn't seem like it was a particularly active sub though.

It's interesting that your rationale is so similar to the same old propaganda. If you're going to make those claims you should source it, otherwise it's just a convenient way to dismiss this without really engaging.

  In 1987, Tottle published his controversial book as Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: 
  the Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard, in which he asserts that 
  claims the Holodomor was an intentional genocide are "fraudulent", and "a 
  creation of Nazi propagandists". [1]

  Russian publicist Yuri Mukhin has a published a book titled "Hysterical Women of 
  the Holodomor", dismissing Holodomor as "Russophobia" and "a trump card of the 
  Ukrainian Nazis." [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_the_Holodomor#Dougla...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_the_Holodomor#Denial...

I'm definitely not denying the Holodomor or any of Stalin's crimes. But unfortunately some of the people who are most adamant about spreading information about the Holdomor are not doing so to spread information about the atrocity, but rather to spread their own anti-semitic propaganda.

u/soccer was a moderator of r/911truth and, according to archived versions of their user page, posted quite a lot of links to "Israel did 9/11" conspiracy websites like https://careandwashingofthebrain.blogspot.

r/uncensorednews essentially did the same thing. It posed as an "unbiased" source of news but the sub's creator and top moderator was pretty clearly pushing his own neo-nazi views.

I'm going to take your claims at face value. Let's say this is all 100% correct. Maybe then the prudent action is not to ban a subreddit that is a valid topic, but instead to ban users who have a history of behavior that's not acceptable?

In fact, Reddit does ban users including u/soccer. To conflate r/911truth and r/Holodomor isn't fully honest.

Edit: Meanwhile this exists - http://reddit.com/r/stalindidnothingwrong

That looks like a joke sub.

This looks like a joke comment. If you're not going to add anything please comment elsewhere.

It's not a joke sub there are people who legitimately believe this. And the point it's illustrating is that even if it's a "joke" some "jokes" are more well tolerated by Reddit than others. My original point is that there is definitely ideological biases at play in what is/is not bannable on reddit.

No, when I say it’s a joke sub I really mean it’s a joke sub. Just like https://old.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/. There might be people who actually believe that Stalin was a saint, but they’re not the ones posting memes about it.

I agree; r/Holodomor should not have been banned but should instead have had its moderators replaced.

That Stalin sub's creator and sole moderator is already banned btw, so I'm pretty sure they just missed banning the sub or something. And it hasn't had any activity in 7 months so at least it's not active.

There is still plenty of racism on reddit. Look up any thread about Indian, Chinese and Romani (Gypsy) people.

The Reddit admins only goes after racism when the target is people contemporary liberal media sympathize with.

They only banned anti-black racist subreddits and users after the 2015 Charleston church shooting. They only banned anti-Semitic subreddits and users after the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. They only banned Islamophobic subreddits and users after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings.

How does banning those reddits only after shootings prove it is about groups liberals sympatize with? I mean it shows mostly that reddit bans after shootings.

Shootings that the contemporary liberal media highlight. We can't recall mass violence that target Asian, Romani, or global south communities because our media doesn't think it's notable enough.

and yet there's nothing on the anniversary of the Las Vegas shooting this year (most likely because the media needs to memory hole what was really a failed assassination attempt)

Failed assassination attempt? The gunman fired randomly into a crowd, who could they have been trying to assassinate?

It can’t be a free speech issue. Reddit is not part of government.

Free speech issues aren't the exclusive domain of government.

If misinformation and hate are why t_D was banned, why are r/latestagecapitalism (openly hateful and violent / ban dissenters),r/blackpeopletwitter (openly racist, spread misinformation), r/socialistrifleassociation (openly fomenting revolution) allowed to exist?

Reddit just bans speech it doesn't like. It has nothing to do with hate -- only who you hate. Hating conservatives, Republicans, Whites? That's all fine on reddit. Hell, it's fine here. How long will this comment last?

Don't comment on comments. It's against the rules and isn't constructive.

But I agree with you. Reddit is growing to be as hard-left as voat is hard-right. It's not quite there because there are still a lot of old communities before everything got political who still use Reddit (/r/MechanicalKeyboards/ and such).

But honestly, everyone needs to get off Reddit and go back to the days of phpBB forums, individual blogs and RSS feeds. Aggregation sites like HN, Reddit, etc should be where you go to promote stuff you've found though following individual you like.

I’m amused when people post flat out lies like this. T_d was a positive sub that loved Trump. They were pretty “rah rah” about him. It drove the anti-Trump people crazy, which is why it was banned. That’s the only reason. Just go cruise the comments on /r/politics for proof. They call for actual bloodshed and for the death of Trump and his supporters every single day.

TDS is very real. It causes people such as yourself to parrot flat out lies that have no basis in reality — and you seem to actually feel good about it. It’s bizarre and I suspect history will look back on it as a mass hysteria event.

You can't in good faith make the argument that t_D was a positive sub. It loved Trump, yes, but it also frequently called for the execution of Muslims [1], immigrants [2], Planned Parenthood employees [3], Hillary Clinton [4], etc. [5]

[1] https://archive.is/Kfl86 https://archive.is/DwlAc

[2] https://archive.is/oOqOR

[3] https://archive.is/LGH19

[4] https://archive.is/0uCjr https://archive.ph/LPuGH https://archive.fo/Z0s1x

[5] https://archive.ph/2Gj8w

If I cared to waste my time doing so, I could find plenty of objectionable comments in just about any Reddit sub. You seem to believe tough conversations about whether Muslim culture is compatible with Western culture, or whether the US should begin mass deportations of illegal aliens should not occur. I’d have to disagree with you there. If we can’t discuss complex topics like this on the internet, then where can we discuss them?

You’re really not very good at gaslighting.

What you are describing are not “tough conversations”, they are hardly a conversation at all. Trying to misrepresent the parent comment’s claim that they want to suppress all discussion of these topics and then calling their description an attempt at “gaslighting” is fairly poor-faith.

If you're not interested in having those conversations then don't participate in them. No need to claim those who are are somehow "hateful". You have expressed your opinion, which I totally disagree with. But thanks for writing!