Free speech, and where Reddit uses it, or abuses it

LonelyVoiceOfReason · 1 year

How many "free speech" controversies have there been on Reddit in the past 6 months? The Pedogeddon? The Chris Brown thing? SRS being a downvote brigade and therefore hiding comments from Mens Rights advocates? Closing Jailbait? That's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

People on the Internet are always upset about free speech on the Internet. Seriously, I remember people complaining about their free speech being violated the first time I found a yahoo message board in the late 90s. It's going to happen and it's going to keep happening. There's always some issue to be mad about.

It's sad because these people could spend their energy protesting for free speech for those that actually don't have it instead of copy and pasting a police report because OMG THE EVIL CORPORATE OVERLORDS OF REDDIT ARE CENSORING US. When was the last time you saw an incredibly upvoted front page post with a ton of mirrors to stuff banned in China? Instead Reddit is up in the arms about the ability to post a celebrity police report. I guess that's what annoys me.

noworryhatebombstill · 1 year

Redditors as a whole have laughably uncomplicated ideas about what constitutes free speech. For one, child pornography is not "censored" because it's offensive. It's removed because it is child abuse. Beyond that, they can't seem to understand that a private entity's regulation of content is very different-- both legally and socially-- than government censorship. Reddit has precisely zero physical or material power to prevent an individual from airing their views. Someone just has to hop on over to some other message board (or, realistically speaking, some other subreddit) to find a soapbox. To compare the moderation of a private forum, which is just one among many millions on the internet, to a violation of free speech is to grossly downplay the very tangible, very real injustice of government intervention in the exchange of ideas.

Many more reasonable redditors maintain that even if, legally speaking, forum moderation is not a violation of free speech, Reddit's stature makes it a modern-day substitute for the public square. Thus, the argument goes, moderation should ethically be kept to a minimum in order to respect its de facto role. I think there's a certain merit to this argument, particularly in the larger subs. Yet the primary purpose of free speech is the unfettered exchange of ideas. And without certain safeguards under a downvote system like Reddit's, particular voices will be completely drowned out and driven away. In r/lgbt, for example, that took the form of cis gay men drowning out the voices of trans people. Moderation was necessary to ensure that opinions that would have otherwise been erased from a subreddit by downvotes and by privilege were protected and maintained. Needless to say, it's not like transphobic opinions are completely absent from reddit.

Now, personally, I think heavy-handed moderation in discussion-oriented subreddits is unfortunate. But the point when queer folk, trans people, POC, women, or what have you find a space hostile enough that their ideas are no longer heard is the point when I think moderation is necessary to preserve real conversations.

StudentRadical · 1 year

I find it weird that Reddit loves to celebrate DDOSing websites of entities they don't like. Stripping other people out of their ability to exert free speech? Perfectly ok if you don't like them.

Duncreek · 1 year

The idealistic view is that Reddit can be a place of pure Relativism. As an official stance, the goal would be that there is no one who can say what is right or wrong. I, to an extent, can appreciate that. And with that as a starting point, it makes sense why so many people wish to see such a broad application of "free speech". When you feel that the moderation should find literally nothing to be "good" or "bad", free speech will take a very broad meaning.

Anything goes, unless it's there to prevent further discussion. This can also be seen in the very hostile reaction many people have to SRS and others who say certain things shouldn't be said.

But Reddit is a big place, and so for everyone who holds to that ideal genuinely, there's going to be more that either don't share it, and would see dissent quiet, and there are those who only hold to it when you agree with them.

Unfortunately there is the matter that some speech can be harmful. To further complicate matters, some of that harm is direct, while some of it is indirect. A remark may directly harm someone by triggering them, while another may fly by without directly causing anyone concern... but by constantly seeing it some other reader will feel secure in taking a harmful action.

It's tricky to find where to draw some of those lines. I would like to think that most people are fine with saying that direct harm is unacceptable, but even there, how much so? Technically speaking, SRS loving itself some offended Redditor/MRA tears would qualify for hurt feelings. Do we censor that?

And what about indirect harm? I'd like to think most people are opposed to this to, but what kind? How much? Repeating false information with the intent of making others hold violent beliefs is unacceptable. Promoting and tolerating the trade of child pornography was terrible. But what if a woman is going on about how she herself despises the feminist movement. She'll be latched to as proof that feminism isn't needed, and thus more people will carry on misogynistic behavior, and some harm will be done... but do we say that she isn't allowed to voice that opinion?

The answer to all of these questions is wonky, dependent on the intent of the community in question, and morally gray across the board. It's complex. Unfortunately, when you're looking to get the mob behind you, it's best to speak in absolutes, and so the popular opinion on Reddit regarding free speech is absolute free speech. Don't censor any of it.

Or my meandering theory and musing is a load of crap, and people just feel entitled to say and do whatever the hell they want. I dunno, I try to be optimistic about humanity.

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