[jjawssd]

Just because you disagree with their opinion does not mean you should want to kick them out. They are not acting upon their views in any way that affects you. Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically. I disagree with almost everything they stand for, but their presence is crucial for an open discussion of issues in our global societies.

[chrisrhoden]

Reddit is under no obligation to support, nurture, or pay for the resources required to keep this up. They are under no obligation to implicitly condone this content, as they have taken on an editorial role in the past and now anything they don't ban is in contrast to those things they have. As you pointed out, it's the web. There are many web hosts that will refuse you service for hosting pornography. That doesn't prevent anyone from finding one that will allow it.

[mordocai]

Technically you are 100% correct. They are definitely within their rights, as are twitter and facebook. The problem is that we've got a de facto (as opposed to de jure) "censorship" system going on where people with undesired opinions are being forced (whether they wanted it or not) into echo chambers.

"Censorship" just forces people underground to talk amongst other people with the same opinions. While it has some kind of measurable effect on preventing impressionable people from being exposed to their opinions, it also prevents people from discussing alternative views with the ones who were "censored". This is a large part of the reason why everyone was blindsided by Trump, the trump supporters were largely either not speaking up due to social penalties for doing so or only talking on-line in forums where other people agreed with them.

If the goal is to "defeat" the alt-right movement, then I don't think it is necessarily obvious that banning them is the right move. As I said though, maybe it is since it does limit exposure to their views which in theory limits their membership.

Note: Scare quoted censorship due to it not being government run which is what people usually mean when they say censorship.

[kiba]

If they can't voice their opinion in a respectful manner, I don't see why we have to listen to their garbage.

Every site in the world, if they don't want to be a cesspool full of trolls and baiters, will have to moderate.

[mordocai]

One of the big problems here though is thing like twitter's recent behavior(I'm using twitter as an example but other sites do it too).

You can say something hateful, disrespectful, and even threatening to/about a white person(or people) and twitter doesn't care even if you are reported.

However if you say the same thing about/to a black person (or people) [literally the same sentence with only those words switched out] then when reported you will be banned.

If twitter(and others) would actually apply their rules fairly, a lot of people would be a lot less upset.

[basch]

are mockery and satire respectful? what does that make Stewart, Colbert, Bee, Meyers, and Oliver? how about SRD and SRS? they are assholes too but they deserve their space to mock people they disagree with. should /r/atheism be banned for its disrespect towards religion? /r/atheism has the same fervent hate towards people of belief.

you dont have to listen to those subreddits. dont subscribe to them. dont hang out in /r/all if you cant handle seeing things you disagree with.

you just called other peoples views a cesspool of garbage, and youre advocating respect.

[kiba]

you dont have to listen to those subreddits. dont subscribe to them. dont hang out in /r/all if you cant handle seeing things you disagree with.

I don't hang out at r/all nor subscribe to subreddit I don't care about.

you just called other peoples views a cesspool of garbage, and youre advocating respect.

I am more concerned about a person's behavior more so than their opinion. I look down on baiting, trolling, harassment, etc.

[jjawssd]

> the trump supporters were largely either not speaking up due to social penalties for doing so or only talking on-line in forums where other people agreed with them.

This is the key takeaway IMO

[pavel_lishin]

You have a good point about driving people underground, instead of giving them an outlet - but as the article points out,

> Like the mod said in his own words, they are not interested in public policy, they are focused on white nationalist racial discussion. To continue on that course without steering into hate speech is impossible.

[mordocai]

I don't see the article's point as a good one.

Unless they are literally calling for people to take action and kill/harass/otherwise harm people I see no reason to "censor" them. From what I've seen, most of that subreddit is hating on other races(which definitely is hate speech) but not calling any real action. I also don't consider calling for legitimate political action to be worthy of "censorship" either, only going outside the political system to directly harm.

[jjawssd]

Why isn't Spez able to arbitrarily delete subreddits? Why isn't Twitter starting mass deportations? I don't see any reason for them to wait. They can get started right away. It's easy to write a regex that identifies Trump supporters and eliminates their accounts quickly. Why haven't we started yet?

[lovich]

Automating a way to identify what people belong to what groups is possible, buts its definitely not as easy as a regex

[dang]

Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN.

[jjawssd]

Will do sir

[deadbunny]

And reddit has on multiple occasions refused people the right to "totally free expression". Freedom of speech is about the government not shutting you down for airing your views, not a company.

[basch]

freedom of speech is a philosophy.

the first amendment is an application of that philosophy codified into law.

a company can by choose choose to value the philosophy of free speech, independent of the law.

you cannot use the phrases "freedom of speech" and "the first amendment" interchangeably.

[pavel_lishin]

> Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically.

Until it elects the sort of people who want to see me deported into positions of power. At which point am I obligated to hand them a free platform again?

[ProAm]

> Just because you disagree with their opinion does not mean you should want to kick them out

I don't see why the admins don't just edit the posts? No need to ban things.

[TeMPOraL]

Ha ha, good one. Wasn't Reddit CEO's ass on fire recently for doing exactly that?

[ProAm]

Yeah, that was the joke. Reddit can do what it wants, its sort of a cesspool anyways, banning 1 or 2 subreddits won't change it.

[r_smart]

Yeah, and I think according to him, even the reddit team was really pissed at him for his actions.

[joesmo]

How can you have an intelligent discussion without a lot of racism and hate thrown in? It's impossible.