Re:Why Reddit moderators are “censoring” Glenn Greenwald’s l...
by dredmorbius on Saturday March 01, 2014 @03:54AM
(#7323686)
The entire idea of "subreddits" is community-specific curation.
There are a number of significant issues with that. Straight off the top, a few that I can think of:
• /r/news is a default subreddit. It carries rather more weight and significance on reddit than, say, /r/swoleacceptance or /r/dredmorbius. It really ought to reflect a fair assessment of what is or isn't news.
• Subreddit squatting has been known to happen, often by those with a specific axe to grind. In the worst cases, this leads to a very profound drift of a sub from what its initial charter was. /r/srs is probably one of the more significant examples (it went from a general critique sub to a pretty radical political viewpoint). Another case which came up recently is /r/xkcd, yes, the subreddit devoted to the xkcd comic. After its initial moderator went AWOL, it was picked up by a neo-Nazi, Holocaust-denying mod, who installed a number of similarly-minded sub-mods. Randall Munroe even chimed in to voice his disappointment. An alternative sub has formed, /r/xkcdcomic. Story: http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1xdwba/the_history_of_...
• There's no real mechanism to keep subreddit drift from happening. This, given the issues above, seems like it could be a long-term problem for reddit.
• In the absence of "acceptable" mainstream news coverage of the latest from The Intercept, it seems that /r/news really should have accepted the article. As Greenwald has noted, the MSM and government are clearly biased in their own coverage of this story.
There are a number of significant issues with that. Straight off the top, a few that I can think of:
• /r/news is a default subreddit. It carries rather more weight and significance on reddit than, say, /r/swoleacceptance or /r/dredmorbius. It really ought to reflect a fair assessment of what is or isn't news.
• Subreddit squatting has been known to happen, often by those with a specific axe to grind. In the worst cases, this leads to a very profound drift of a sub from what its initial charter was. /r/srs is probably one of the more significant examples (it went from a general critique sub to a pretty radical political viewpoint). Another case which came up recently is /r/xkcd, yes, the subreddit devoted to the xkcd comic. After its initial moderator went AWOL, it was picked up by a neo-Nazi, Holocaust-denying mod, who installed a number of similarly-minded sub-mods. Randall Munroe even chimed in to voice his disappointment. An alternative sub has formed, /r/xkcdcomic. Story: http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1xdwba/the_history_of_...
• There's no real mechanism to keep subreddit drift from happening. This, given the issues above, seems like it could be a long-term problem for reddit.
• In the absence of "acceptable" mainstream news coverage of the latest from The Intercept, it seems that /r/news really should have accepted the article. As Greenwald has noted, the MSM and government are clearly biased in their own coverage of this story.