/r/trees is not the same, and I hate slippery-slope arguments predicting its demise. Exchanging actual marijuana is illegal in many parts of the United States. Exchanging information about marijuana is not. You could download kiddie porn on /r/jailbait, and the fact that those images are actually hosted on imgur is unlikely to convince any court. But you wouldn't download marijuana on /r/trees, would you? If /r/trees or /r/atheism ever gets banned, it will be the result of a completely different kind of pressure. It won't be a straightforward extension of reddit's current policy on kiddie porn.
Reddit may or may not be dying, but its latest change of policy on kiddie porn will probably have little to do with its fate.
Still, I strongly suspect this isn't purely about legality. Reddit has come under fire (first, in the press regarding jailbait, and more recently by somethingawful users) for having content that's not necessarily illegal, but rather just creepy. Most of the top comments on this post share this interpretation, and most seem to approve of banning creepy content. If other commenters are to be believed, it also appears that many of the banned subreddits contained fairly "standard" pornography and either had strict "no minor" or "no nudity/sex" policies.
What a subreddit's policy says is less important than what actually gets posted there and/or what people expect to find there. Would you go to /r/truejailbait, /r/lolicon, or /r/preteen_girls expecting to find pictures of adults in non-revealing outfits? No, the expectation is that those subreddits will contain child porn or something similar.
> What a subreddit's policy says is less important than what actually gets posted there and/or what people expect to find there.
What's the line? What if someone posts a single nefarious link on /r/nsfw, or for that matter, something completely unrelated like /r/askscience? It seems like you're proposing that outlier illegal content should result in the banning of a subreddit if the subreddit is "creepy," but not if the subreddit is "normal."
> the expectation is that those subreddits will contain child porn or something similar.
You're hinting at the important problem of defining child pornography. Are pictures of minors in swim suits child pornography? Sure, it's creepy to think about adults surfing for those pictures, but is it even borderline illegal? I don't think so. I think reddit has every right to ban whatever they want (although it seems to go against the stated purpose of their site), but it seems a bit disingenuous to claim that it's at all about legality unless it truly is.
But I still don't think this means that reddit from now on will readily bow to public accusations of creepiness. This time, illegality, administrative burden, creepiness, and moral principles all happened to coincide. I don't think the same set of circumstances will easily obtain with respect to /r/trees or /r/atheism, which @alecco worries about. Illegality alone would not justify blanket censorship of "grey area" stuff. Creepiness alone, or moral qualms alone, would not justify censorship, either.
From the announcement: We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal.
When somebody else says things like that, we are often sceptical about that, and for good reasons. But I think reddit admins have earned enough trust among its regulars over the years to merit a more charitable reading. I doubt that they would ban entire subreddits for a small number of nefarious links if the subreddits themselves had other legitimate purposes. Maybe they'll tell the mods to take better care of their communities, but delete them unilaterally? Unlikely. That's the point I was originally trying to make; sorry for the diversion.
Yes, the good reason is that this announcement is doing exactly what that sentence promises they won't do. Of course, they have the right to do whatever they want with their site, but that line is a blatant lie without the added clause "except for this case."
The administrative burden excuse seems half-hearted and almost a throwaway line. Also, regardless of the reddit admins' views, the views of many top commenters is that this is an appropriate moderation whether or not it's illegal.
That's not what they did. What they did was to say that suggestive content featuring minors is prohibited. I feel like a broken record, but I guess I need to keep reiterating this: Romeo and Juliet is suggestive content featuring minors.
> You could download kiddie porn on /r/jailbait
No you couldn't. Nothing pornographic or illegal was ever allowed on /r/jailbait. It might have gotten posted a few times, but the submitters would have been banned.
And there's a lot of rules broken on /r/trees so it's far from safe. Like meetups to exchange or people giving tips. That's not legal in US and happens quite often there.
Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law. (IANAL)
There are (dubiously) "hate crime" laws, but they pertain to violent crime.
In a similar vein, I'm not so sure about your legal analysis about "arranging meetups" and "providing tips" on marijuana forums. The reason mj forums don't want people arranging meetups probably has more to do with not creating an easy venue for sting operations.
(Disclosure: it's sad it took Reddit this long to apply this rule, and more than a little repulsive to see people up in arms about it.)
On this particular thread, I'd like to make sure my comments are as clear as I can make them: Reddit did the right thing, and the only complaint I can make is that they took too long and their reasoning wasn't great.
I don't agree with the decision because it's apparent that it was a simple reaction to pressure from, well, lots of different places. I disagree with it because there isn't a solid brightline defense of this decision in light of other subreddits that they not only tolerate, but openly endorse.
To write a post discussion the speech implications of this decision and to end it with "repulsion" of those who disagree is insulting.
So in the spirit of most people in this thread, you're going with "you disagree with my moral framework so you're wrong".
Except it's even worse than that because no one (I think) thinks that these pictures are a good thing, we're just not comfortable with installing a select fews' morality as guidelines for censorship. But rather than have that discussion, you drag it into "well you either agree or you like pedophilia".
As long as you're proud of that, more power to you. I looove people preaching morality and especially absolute morality. There's a lot of people who would love to see a LOT of subreddits banned. Hell, there are people that would see me KILLED for how I live aspects of my life. You going to tell me "oh well" when that becomes the popular sense of morality?
I'm not interested in this conversation at all. I'm not interested in debating moral relativism in the context of child pornography.
I have a sore spot regarding NTTP/Usenet, because the abuse inflicted on it to make it "anonymously" "publish" "binaries" killed Usenet, and Usenet was a far more valuable resource than Reddit is today. As a card carrying nerd (and former Usenet admin), I have trouble walking away from comments about Usenet.
But like I said, I'm not interested in the rest of this "debate". I opt out. I told you what I think, and, in the interest of clarity, I repeat: arguments in favor of retaining forums constituted for the purpose of sexualizing children are repellent.
> I'm not interested in debating moral relativism in the context of child pornography.
Fine. But kindly take the rest of your judgmental, condescending insults to those of us who are having a more mature conversation elsewhere. If all you want to say is "CP BAD", fine, you shouldn't have bothered in the first place; as I've said repeatedly, we all agree with that sentiment. If you don't want to have the rest of the conversation, then your opinion is irrelevant.
>I repeat: arguments in favor of retaining forums constituted for the purpose of sexualizing children are repellent.
Jesus. Do you not get the point, do you not care, or are you incapable of defending your point so this is all you can resort to? Not a single person here is arguing that, in anything even close to that form. You are being entirely disingenuous, you know that and I don't think you care.
But breaking rules in a subreddit is different from having a subreddit where the only possible means of participation is to break the law by posting links to CP. If everybody obeyed the rules in /r/trees, that subreddit might still contain interesting content. If everybody obeyed the law in /r/jailbait, that subreddit simply could not exist. It's a fine difference, but it makes all the difference.
Also, FYI, the U.S. Constitution offers very strong protections for hate speech. It's not like some other countries (cough Germany cough Canada cough) where you can get fined for uttering racial slurs.
That being said, none of the jailbait subreddits had any CP on them. Those who claim that this was a move against child pornography and child exploitation are being disingenuous. There was no child porn nor exploitation. What there was was suggestive pictures of minors. The content was distasteful, not illegal.
Now, I firmly support reddit's right to ban those subreddits on whatever grounds they choose. What's more, I think it was the right move to make. I am disheartened, however, to see people conflate the content that was removed with child porn. The images on those subreddits were largely pulled from facebook and the like. Yes, there were a couple subreddits devoted to the so-called "model" agencies where clothed children were photographed in suggestive poses, and I find that creepy and distasteful in the extreme, but it is not porn, any more than the Victoria's Secret catalog is porn.
It doesn't do anyone any good to use disingenuous language to conflate the issues we're talking about. Reddit got rid of about a dozen creepy and distasteful, but fully legal subreddits devoted to suggestive pictures of clothed minors. Despite my misgivings about censorship and free speech, I support this decision. That does not, however, mean that I am willing to use dishonesty to make those subreddits seem worse than they were, or argue that this was a decision about preventing child exploitation. It simply wasn't. This was about removing subreddits that the majority of redditors found distasteful and a black mark on reddit. It was about avoiding another PR boondoggle like the one that followed Anderson Cooper's report. That's all. It need not be any more than that for it to still have been the right decision.
Never once have I seen this. I've seen ONE meetup and it was in a state where medical use is legal and even then, there's no law against conspiring to meet up to talk about and or consume marijuana. "conspiracy to get high".
Give tips about what? Stupid ways to make a bong out of a gatorade bottle? Scandalous!
>Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law.
I just spit onto my keyboard a bit. Besides the fact that hate speech is not illegal, I can't think of anything that is purely hateful enough to be deemed hate speech in that subreddit.
I've heard of the same thing in /r/trees; Eg. seed exchanges and more.
FWIW, that's just speculation. I think a more plausible explanation is the bad publicity from CNN.
Except for that now the Obama administration is trying to charge anyone who speaks out in favor of drug reform under the RICO laws, which carry a possible death penalty. Some Montana legislator was just charged a couple weeks ago.
Apparently she hasn't been charged yet, she's currently being investigated, but it seems that RICO is the framework that they are considering using to charge her.
You've extrapolated from a single question from a single investigator to a nonexistent death penalty case and pinned it all on an imaginary Obama administration mandate to charge everyone involved in medical marijuana advocacy. That's not the story here.
The stuff that was allowed on reddit would get you an instant, permanent ban on pretty much every website on the internet.
Do you even know what SOPA, PIPA or ACTA do? Reddit has voluntarily taken the stance they won't allow the trade and index of child pornography on their website.
That has got nothing to do with DNS takedowns for linking to copyrighted material. It was a private decision made by a private company.
And good. The idea that people would support the exploitation of children because they have somehow wrapped it up inside of "free speech" is completely disgusting and embarrassing. Yes, you have the right to free speech, so long as it does not infringe on the liberties of others.
No one argues that illegal content should not be removed, and uploaders banned. Which was already being done. Child pornography was never allowed on reddit, and was removed as it was reported.
This is not preventing 'exploitation of children', it's just a majority censoring topics it finds inconvenient/disturbing.
It's preventing the trade of child pornography. How on earth do you not see this as exploitative?
>It's weird how reddit was a bastion for resisting SOPA/ACTA but fear mongering in US can take over a site.
That has nothing to do with SA.
Production of child pornography is exploitative for sure. Trade? Not really, but I accept it should be illegal because it provides incentive for production. However this is not about explicit child pornography, which was never allowed on reddit and was being removed as soon as someone noticed it. Nothing changed there - it will still be banned as soon as someone will notice it. No gain from the change of stance. What has changed, however, is the banning of content that is not illegal, but that some people find disgusting/creepy.
Well then you are incredibly naive. Do you understand what "exploit" means? They're exploiting either the naivety of the children taking these photos, or the naivety of the people who posted them to the internet.
The damage isn't finished being done after the photo has been taken. The damage happens in the way that these photos are then used. Imagine doing something foolish in school and then being teased for it. Did the damage stop happening after the original act was completed, or is there damage happening in the act of teasing as well?
The fact that there are people who think that this should be protected ("this" being: the exploitation and sexualization of children) is a embarrassing to anybody [read: most people] who believes in free speech.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
please.
>Do you understand what "exploit" means? They're exploiting either the naivety of the children taking these photos, or the naivety of the people who posted them to the internet.
I'm not sure what kind of pictures are we talking about here. Child pornography or teenagers in underwear posing to a mirror? If the first, then it is the act of taking the photos that is exploitative. Whatever happens afterward is only immoral because it incentivises more production.
>The damage isn't finished being done after the photo has been taken. The damage happens in the way that these photos are then used. Imagine doing something foolish in school and then being teased for it.
I don't find anything wrong with a teenage girl being teased about a photo she posted to the internet. Teased, not bullied - but bullying is wrong whatever the cause, so we do not need new rules for this. No real damage done, and the embarrassment might teach her to be more careful on the internet (same with boys, of course - but there is less social pressure on them, so not as much teasing I would guess).
>The fact that there are people who think that this should be protected ("this" being: the exploitation and sexualization of children) is a embarrassing to anybody [read: most people] who believes in free speech.
If sexualization of children is so wrong, why are all the 'miss 6 year old' shows legal?
Well that's telling.
Perhaps we have a different understanding what it means to tease someone. For me it means (and the free dictionary seems to agree) to annoy, make fun of, mock playfully without degrading the person.
More to the point, you are misunderstanding the stage at which the girl is victimized; when she is ridiculed. You are definitively blaming the victim if you think it's her fault that people other than her traded the photo around for whatever purpose leads to the teasing.
Kids kill themselves over this stuff, it's not so simple as, "deal with the consequences."
But of course it's easier to blame 'those paedophiles on the internet' than 'my little innocent boy'
Further, the legal definition for child pornography is, in many cases, not what people expect. The EFF has a primer that touches on this: https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/adult
If reddit begins cracking down on protected speech like you'd find in /r/trees and /r/atheism, you've got a point. But when reddit (finally) decides to crack down on something that is plainly not legal speech, you're fear mongering with the best of them.
Inside your link it says, for something to be considered "obscene":
>The Miller test stems from Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), in which the US Supreme Court held that material is obscene if each of the following factors is satisfied:
>1) Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
>2) Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law;
>3) Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
So, by law ALL THREE of the "obscene" criteria have to be met for it to be considered obscene. I want to focus in on #2, because I don't think pictures of children in bathing suits is sexual in nature. If it were, then taking your children out in public wearing said bathing suit would be illegal too... Now, people looking at those pictures may be sexualizing these images in the head, but the images themselves break no laws and show no nudity. So why exactly is reddit drawing the line there? Also, why is Toddlers in Tiaras fine? (there's a subreddit for that too). I don't understand what makes it so different to you (and to reddit admins).
I kept reading and further down in your link it says:
>Child pornography is any visual depiction, where "(A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor [under 18] engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (B) such visual depiction is of such conduct." 18 U.S.C. § 2252 The law prohibits knowingly possessing or transmitting (including by computer) child pornography.
I'm positive that children in swimsuits does not constitute being sexually explicit, so I'm still not getting why you are considering it illegal...
Finally, you say >when reddit (finally) decides to crack down on something that is plainly not legal speech
Yet, based on the legal definition that you provided these subreddits, for the most part, are participating in legal, albeit creepy, speech. Anything illegal has been removed and delt with according to law. Not sure who the real fear monger is here, but calling pictures of children in bathing suits "not legal speech" is disingenuous at best.
The Dost test establishes if an image depicts lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area. If it does, it's considered child pornography.
Read on the six Dost factors. Note that it's not a bright line test -- you don't need all six to be true for an image of the genitals to be considered lascivious.
The Wikipedia article on the Dost test is quite apropos:
>Concerning the lascivious display of clothed genitalia, the Department of Justice described use of the Dost test in child pornography and 2257 documentation regulations in a 2008 rule, writing that the precedent United States v. Knox, 32 F.3d 733 (3d Cir. 1994) did not prohibit ordinary swim team or underwear model photographs, but "although the genitals were clothed in that case, they were covered by thin, opaque clothing with an obvious purpose to draw attention to them, were displayed by models who spread or extended their legs to make the pubic and genital region entirely visible to the viewer, and were displayed by models who danced or gyrated in a way indicative of adult sexual relations."
The distinction is not nearly as clear as you claim it to be.
No, it's not only on their head. It's written right underneath the photos by redditors, ie: "my d* is so hard right now". So the picture by itself may be harmless, but the post as a whole puts children in a highly sexualized context.
To make matters worse, threads sometimes include links to fully illegal material on some download server. The bikini photos sometimes are just the thumbnail...
I doubt that's the case with Toddlers & Tiaras.
I think the admins are sending the right message - This subject is blanket banned because it's too hard to sort out the shades of gray, and it brings a unique risk to the community that other things (drugs, racism, etc) just don't.
I agree that they'll be playing 'ban the sub' whack a mole, but that will happen to any UGC site of scale, the important thing is (ironically) not to let a community coalesce around the subject that's big enough to get reddit targeted by the media or some zealous prosecutor trying to score political points (See craiglist's adult section...)
It would be nice to see them lay down some firm rules that say "OK: These things are blanket banned, these things are fair game just don't break US laws; these things are open season". It would be doable to segregate Jailbait / Trees / Atheism along those lines and remove some fears.
* Edited for grammar, typos, wording of first sentence.
The philosophy degree in me screams that there's something wrong with that phrase.
Wiki calls them 'Conditional or questionable fallacies', which is a bit less punchy. Do you have a better name?
Not arguing with you on the merits of the OPs argument, but a slippery slope argument is not necessarily a fallacy.
It's only a fallacy if one doesn't logically connect the first event with each subsequent event in the chain.
You can check wikipedia if you'd like some examples of fallacious and non-fallacious slippery slope arguments.
and
>Sure, a lot of questionable/creepy subreddits shouldn't be there. But where's the line? And who draws it?
The way to deal with a dilution of community quality is communicate and enforce stricter standards. Ban more stuff. Not because of a moral panic, but because the trolls, spammers, pornographers, etc.. can trash your site with force disproportionate to their numbers. You can't fight Eternal September unless you lay down some serious boundaries.
Check out http://www.reddit.com/r/depthhub where they take a different approach: it's a meta-reddit where they link high-quality discussions from the various niche subject-specific reddits. A random example that's on there right now: /r/ludology discusses the tension between plot and choice in games.
They, at best, misunderstand the issue at hand.
Yes, it would be easier to not take a stance on things like this, because then we could argue from the superior position of "I've never censored anything (well except posting personal information...)," but that would make us complicit in the trading of child pornography.
So, instead, I say we accept that we now have the harder job of drawing lines and judging what is and not allowable. Accept that the harder thing is to go "I am against SOPA/ACTA in all its forms, but am against being complicit against the trade of child pornography and will ~censor~ it if necessary" because life isn't about black and whites, and sometimes we have to make compromises for the greater good. (EDIT: spelling, grammar)
At the very least can I be told what my post did wrong and/or what norms I have broken to get this reception?
The top voted comments on threads about censorship are mostly 1 to 3 months old users. And now reddit (had to) surrender to a decadent SOPA-supporting forum and a bunch of trolls from /r/ShitRedditSays (wich starts to look like a *chan long troll instead of a bunch of ultra-feminists).
Sure, a lot of questionable/creepy subreddits shouldn't be there. But where's the line? And who draws it? Also, isn't this an ongoing process? Those subreddits can reopen in minutes with more subtle names. The censorship whack-a-mole is pointless.
It's weird how reddit was a bastion for resisting SOPA/ACTA but fear mongering in US can take over a site. It seems that's the real frontier and we are losing. Next up /r/trees and /r/atheism.
Like so many times before it's time to move on. I wish the best to the owners/admins, they were cornered and probably had a tough choice. And I sincerely hope the new users enjoy this new reddit.