FPH in and of itself isn't the most defensible or tasteful subreddit, but they're going to start by banning the least defensible subreddits first. Once the precedent is made, they can start banning political dissent subreddits.
Some people find themselves wondering what opinions will be deemed unsafe next. The policies are not exactly clear-cut, and neither are the actions of the administration.
I think this is a little dramatic. It's not about censorship of "unsafe opinions" - you are free to hold your opinion and talk about it, just not on Reddit. It's akin to a hotel owner disallowing a Klan meeting in the conference room. I think any business owner deserves that right.
> The policies are not exactly clear-cut
I dunno, the blog post seems fairly clear cut to me. It's not about blocking content, it's about blocking subreddits whose sole purpose was harassment of individuals.
Sure. But if your business derives its customer base from its longstanding support of freewheeling speech, more than a little pushback is to be expected.
> I dunno, the blog post seems fairly clear cut to me. It's not about blocking content, it's about blocking subreddits whose sole purpose was harassment of individuals.
If your only context is the blog post, it seems exceptionally clear. From following some of the discussions, I'm also aware that they came down on exactly five subreddits while ignoring many others. In a few cases, they appear to have tacitly approved of some.
So the result is that it's not clear what they come down on, why, when, or what gets their attention. Except bad PR - that seems to work miracles.
Tell me; Would you support that same hotel owner disallowing the NAACP from renting a room? He disagrees with their economic views. Would you support him ignoring requests from GLAAD, because their color scheme doesn't fit with his drab hotel? Private enterprise refusing to serve those they disagree with should be treated no differently than any other form of bigotry.
Would it be acceptable, or legal, if that were a Black Panthers meeting? Or a gay wedding?
Understated.
Well, she has basically said that she wants to start cleaning up the "objectionable" sides of reddit. Plus, there is a strong sentiment that content that's critical of her (even the less hateful stuff) has been removed often in the past.
Take a look and see how much reddit gold has been gifted recently. Reddit is doing just fine.
this sub has been banned today: https://np.reddit.com/r/paoiskillingreddit
here's a thread regarding a joke removed about two weeks ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/378smw/a_jo...
I mean its almost like her being an asian woman rather than a white male makes a difference
The situation seems almost identical to when Reddit axed r/jailbait: one of their more embarrassing communities started to get too much attention, its users were increasingly behaving in a way that was damaging Reddit, and Reddit decided to kill it (ostensibly for the greater good of the site).
But even though that pissed plenty of people off... I don't recall the front page being totally dominated by calls for anyone's head on a silver platter. Reddit's userbase seems to feel especially threatened by Ellen Pao, and it's hard for me to believe that the difference is anything rational.