> but even then I think the reddit admins were hell-bent on shutting down any subs they didn't personally like.

Or shutting down subs that might make the site advertiser unfriendly.

I really think for something like a violent video archive to do as much good as possible, it needs to be entirely grant funded. Aside from the obviously problematic approach of monetizing violence, I don't think you can be too heavy-handed in protecting privacy with this sort of thing. Though I wonder how this might change with deepfake videos gaining momentum. I think the entire venture would be really expensive to do well.

Your response comes across as needlessly antagonistic.

My work is entirely grant funded and to my knowledge, none of it comes from the government— at least not directly. I'm positive that some of those private non-profits receive government assistance to some extent for operating expenses and whatnot, but the funds themselves are not tax-sourced.

Beyond that, governments fund libraries and archives at every level and they deliberately have all sorts of collections, from completely benign to completely odious. Funding a deliberately sensationalist aggregator and monger of violence would be plainly obnoxious, but appropriately managed archives are in the public's best interest. Probably even more so for controversial content. I'm not sure how this would be any different.

Uh... not sure where you live, but not all grants come from taxpayer dollars. Grants can come from companies or academic institutions, etc.

Ugh. Having the ability to comment really does add an entirely new dimension to a service, but a culture of bad comments can be so disheartening, and it seems like a tough cancer to treat.

Yep. The comments consisted of both extremes: analytical, reflective or informative responses, paired with "haha he got OWNED!" type of comments.

The latter made me really wonder if those commenters had ever experienced loss or hardship in their lives.

As a species, we need a pretty wide distribution of experience and approaches or we’re essentially a monoculture waiting for the right set of circumstances to catch us unprepared and fail completely.

As terrible as folks are who would laugh at someone getting sucked into an industrial grinder, they’d be untroubled by anxiety or worry and associated mental issues in a Mad Max type post apocalyptic wasteland and hence more able to survive.

At least that’s what I tell myself to help sleep at night.

Seems like a Mad Max type post apocalyptic wasteland would be a Mad Max type post apocalyptic wasteland rather than a cooperative, if rocky and uncomfortable re-establishment of a productive society specifically because of those people.

Memes can really get into your perceptions of things.

Nowadays I always pay particular attention when I see a video with someone wearing flipflops if it's real life camera footage. I'm always "waiting for the other shoe to drop," so-to-speak.

For what it's worth there's still r/CombatFootage

Buddhist monks visualize gore for enlightenment purposes.