Eh, I have trouble extending the concept of "censorship" of the internet to private websites deciding what can go on their own sites. HN flags and kills threads too. That's not censorship, because HN is Y Combinator's website, so they can pick and choose what kind of content they do and don't want discussed on their site. I could imagine saying, "[HN | Reddit | Slashdot | whatever] is running their site in a way I disagree with", but it's hard for me to imagine complaining that they are censoring me, and getting on some kind of high horse about "free speech", as a bunch of people on this subject seem to be doing.

If something really becomes a central medium of communication such that it's hard to avoid it, like the telephone system, internet infrastructure (backbones, DNS, etc.), and so on, then it starts to be a different issue imo. Then regulation as some kind of content-neutral common carrier might be in order. But does Reddit really play such a role? Twitter or Facebook seem closer to filling such a role, if we were going to pick one of those platforms.

It probably would have been better to frame it as: you can have open communities (old Reddit), or controlled communities (new Reddit) - but you can't have a controlled community that pretends to be an open community (not for very long, the contradiction destroys itself).

and further, you cant one day decide to make an open community a controlled one without getting blowback - to expect otherwise is insane

Reddit it's founders/community/company have been against PIPA/CISPA/TPP and pro EFF . Freedom on the site and an anti-censorship policy is "that one thing you need to get right", and will allow you to survive through getting a lot of other things wrong.

The thing is that as a user I want some control over what I see. I do not want NSFW content in my feed, or to accidentally see things that are illegal/NSFL. I want to avoid the worse of the troll and hatey people. Reddit does not have freedom of speech, it has admin controlled thiefdoms. This works well, but if a particular community jepardises the whole it should go elsewhere.

> thiefdoms

That's a pretty cool respelling of fiefdom!

kn0thing knows better

http://live.fastcompany.com/Event/Chat_with_reddit_co-founde...