[optimalsolver]

I've said this before, but it's particularly notable how free speech Reddit alternatives very quickly end up taking a far-right tone.

What's really funny is how all discussions they host have to be approached from that angle.

So you can't just talk about your favorite TV show. You have to first make a nod to how it features a Jewish conspiracy to push black-white interracial relationships. Only then can you go on to discuss the actual episode.

[fallingknife]

This is because Reddit was the original free speech platform, and you could find anything from any or no political leaning. Then they dropped free speech and kicked off right leaning content. So of course the alternatives quickly go right. If they had kicked off left wing content all of the free speech sites would be left, and you couldn't talk about your favorite TV show without going into the relative representation of different races in the cast.

[dredmorbius]

Usenet, mailing lists, numerous BBSes, and any number of earlier Web forums look on your assertion with bemusement.

Reddit claimed free speech as a value in its early years. That sentiment has evolved, for all the usual reasons.[1]

It is possible to host a wide range of significant views without becoming overtly hostile to the majority of the population, and the viewpoints held by those.

Reddit was in no way "the original free speech platform".

________________________________

Notes:

1. TL;DR: it's untenable and spirals into a cesspit, QED.

[fallingknife]

I should say the last universal free speech platform. It's a cesspit anyway. Not sure how you can blame that one on freedom of speech.

[dredmorbius]

I'd disagree with the first sentence as well.

My main complaint with Reddit is that the direction it's been taking the site over the past five years or so, and more pointedly the improvements it's not made, are far divorced from where I'd like to see it go.

Reddit wastes my time and does not reward time spent on site with valuable insights. Not strictly for cultivating misinformation and disinformation, though that's a fair-sized piece of my concern. I'm more concerned that it simply kills good conversation or prevents it from arising in the first place.

[KerrAvon]

Pretty sure right-leaning content per se is still available on reddit and what's actually banned is outright Nazism, racism, violence, etc. Lefty content featuring coordinated politcal violence would also get banned, if it existed.

[mschuster91]

> Lefty content featuring coordinated politcal violence would also get banned, if it existed.

And that last part is the entire point: There simply is no mainstream-relevant occurency of left-wing terrorism and murders any more in the Western world. The most relevant militant group was the German RAF, which has all but dissolved in the early 90s (there are three still on the run and occasionally robbing a bank but that's it). In contrast, murders and other organized violence and terrorism based on right-wing ideology is shockingly commonplace.

With online-based hate speech, it is just the same matter, only a different medium - and there is so much more content that draws in right-wing hate speech (such as anti-immigration stuff, antisemitism, Islamophobia and LGBT hate) than anything that inspires left-wing hate speech. The only thing that comes close to hate speech from the left wing are the "eat the rich" slogan and Stalin/Gulag memes, and that's it.

As a result, it is obvious from the numbers that the right wing will always complain about "we are getting censored and the lefties are not!!!"... well, duh, how about if the complainers would stop doing the things they get moderated for?!

[fallingknife]

If you don't count the CHAZ, or the BLM riots, or the guy who shot the Republican congressman at the baseball game, or the guy who shot 12 cops in Dallas...

[DoItToMe81]

Many lefty subs were banned or permanently quarantined for support of the USSR, and one was even banned for saying slaves killing their owners was justified in the context of pre-abolition America. I don't think it's about "coordinated political violence", it's about clearing out the site so that it's a safer place for advertisers and investors.