[danielweber]

0. Violentacrez sure seems to be disgusting, based on his online persona.

1. If you stand for free speech, you are going to be defending assholes and thugs and people who say disgusting things. We don't need free speech for people who emit rainbows. The ACLU defended the KKK's right to march, not because they thought the KKK was a bunch of nice guys or that the KKK would ever return the favor if the ACLU were in trouble.

2. It's more about the doxxing, which seems to be the one legal thing that isn't allowed on reddit. Either they have the policy that doxxing is horrible or they don't.

[rmc]

If you stand for free speech…

There are numerous different defintions of free speech. Some countries draw the line in different places. E.g. in the USA, you cannot say "shout fire in a crowded theatre", and there are various laws against revelaing some USA military knowledge. All "right to free speech" laws have limits, as they should.

It's more about the doxxing, which seems to be the one legal thing

Here's a thought, in the EU, we have data protection/privacy law. It's illegal to release personal details of people unless it's within the law. I wonder is doxing illegal?

[Millennium]

Common misconception. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre is not a crime. The crime is causing a panic without cause: if you've got a good cause (for example, if there really is a fire) then you've done nothing wrong. The crime in releasing classified documents is in the breach of trust, not in the leak itself. Libel and slander are types of fraud: the crime comes from the falsehood, not the statements themselves. Free speech should be absolute and sacrosanct, but this doesn't mean it should protect people from breaking the law.

The folks in creepshots and its kin are in fact doing something against the law, and they should be shut down accordingly. This is not a free-speech issue.

[rmc]

But don't you see, that's the point. There are limits on "free speech", you just declare something as illegal. This kind of thinking is how many other countries have laws banning certain speech, which USA courts would probably view as protected. E.g. in EU you have the right to privacy, so there are various laws that say you cannot report things about some people without their consent. That sort of thing might be protected in USA. But the EU say "Wrecking someone's privacy is a crime, and we have free speech". Saying "All speech is protected, but if there are some laws then the thing doesn't count as speech and hence isn't allowed to be protected", is misleading, because loads of countries follow that rule, but have different free speech rules.

Every country decides where to set it's limits, the USA is almost certainly the one that has a few limits as possible, but it has limits, it has set the line somewhere/

[rmrfrmrf]

I'd hope that a woman's underwear and vagina are just as protected under that law as some scumbag's address and phone number.

[girlvinyl]

Re: Freespeech. No one is asking the government to censor reddit. Users are taking things into their own hands because the private company that owns reddit refuses to moderate completely inappropriate material. The system is working just as it should.

[potatolicious]

This is a fairly typical position - i.e. private corporations are under no obligation to protect free speech, therefore censorship in a private context is okay.

Which is an argument that flies legally, but not morally depending on what you believe.

If you believe in free speech, then using the fact that your website is private to censor others is not a violation of the law, but it certainly seems like a violation of your own declared ideology. Which is to say, you would support free speech until it got inconvenient.

Reddit as a community seems to place a high value on free speech, so while they're under no legal obligation to keep things open, it would be a violation of its own declared ideology if they started censoring.

Note that I don't miss the creepy subreddits at all, but if you're one of the people on /r/politics, /r/atheism, or whatever who are quoting Voltaire all the time, it seems hypocritical to call for censorship.

[omgsean]

>If you believe in free speech, then using the fact that your website is private to censor others is not a violation of the law, but it certainly seems like a violation of your own declared ideology.

I support free speech but I certainly wouldn't allow the KKK to march through my backyard.

[girlvinyl]

The speech of these users is still free, but there are consequences to what they say. For example, the consequence here is that their creepshots results in others naming them and exercising their own right to speech as well. I'm also not at all calling for censorship. As I said, the creeps want their free speech and are getting it, as well as others exercising their rights too. I do think it is quite unfair that the tumblr with names was deleted, but again, Tumblr has a right to police their site as they see fit.

Ultimately, I think it is exploitative of the reddit corporation and their masters to allow completely disgusting and clearly immoral content. This is 2012. The internet isn't the wild west anymore.

[Tipzntrix]

It's Reddit mods (volunteers) who started the banning only on their SubReddits. The admin and real staff haven't done anything (except ban /r/jailbait I suppose).

[eli]

One of the great things about the internet is that you can pretty easily and cheaply start your own website if you don't like how the one you're using is being run.

[shrikant]

> Which is an argument that flies legally, but not morally depending on what you believe.

Exactly like all the pro-/r/CreepShots/ arguments.

[potatolicious]

Actually, I don't think the contents of /r/creepshots are actually legal - or at least, not a large portion of it.

Upskirts, panty shots, and the such are not legally protected, even if they are done in public. As a street photographer myself I'm quite familiar with the difference.

Which is to say, much of the content on /r/creepshots wouldn't pass legal muster, let alone the morality test.

[prodigal_erik]

Free speech is meaningless if anyone sufficiently unpopular can be unmasked. This guy's life would probably be in danger over thoughtcrime.

[danielweber]

It wasn't about censorship by the government, it was about censorship within reddit.

For better or worse, the reddit admins want free speech, in which the admins don't prohibit anything that isn't illegal in the US. The one exception, which they apply in a viewpoint-neutral basis, is doxxing. The policy is "no doxxing," not "no doxxing unless you really really hate someone."

Now, you can say that the doxxers were doing their version of protest. Civil disobedience, I guess, because they think that reddit's approach to free speech is wrong. We now have two mutually exclusive philosophies in conflict, and reddit will need to choose one of them.

[yummyfajitas]

While we are at it, lets also unmask people with blogs about living a closeted gay life, conservative profs trying to become tenured, girl geeks blogging about sexism in their workplace, and other such inappropriate material.

[omgsean]

It worries me that you see these people as analogous to violentacrez.

[jbooth]

The point isn't that they're analogous, the point is once you start drawing lines where it's ok to doxx people, you're on a slippery slope.

Oh, it's ok to do it to violentacrez, but not to someone slightly less creepy? Are you in favor of the slightly less creepy guy? What about someone talking about drugs online? Hacking?

I'm not usually a 'principle-above-the-particulars' kind of guy but when it comes to free speech and privacy online, you've gotta keep it absolute.

[rmrfrmrf]

The point is that getting upset at being doxxed is hypocritical when you're invading the privacy of multiple women. The fact that people who post there feel that they have the 'right' to have a safe haven for posting disgusting and degrading photos is craziness.

[jbooth]

Sure, the guy's an asshole and can't really expect better. But doxxing is vigilantism. In your own words, would you agree with everyone else's definition of "disgusting and degrading photos", and endorse any vigilantism against such?

[hackinthebochs]

The point is when you get to decide who deserves anonymity online, other people with different opinions than yourself do too. There are plenty of people out there who would consider being gay just as morally damaging.

[rmc]

lets also unmask people with blogs about living a closeted gay life

Actually if that person is publically and actively opposing gay rights (e.g. political who blathers on about how bad gay people are and shouldn't have rights, and then is caught with a prostitute of the same gender), then yes, those people should be doxxes.

[yummyfajitas]

Neal Stephenson has a great quote on this (from the Diamond Age):

"You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices. It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others--after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism?

"Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others' shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices..."

http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2006/03/21/hypocrisy_is_the_gre...

[rmc]

Yes that's a good point. However consider it from the perspective of a LGB community member. LGB people are broadly of the belief that one should come out when one's ready, and no-one should out someone without their permission. However that shouldn't apply to people who are actively working against the LGB community, the people who get up on stage and say "These people (LGB) are not full human beings" (as the Pope said recently). Those people should be outed.

[tzs]

> If you stand for free speech, you are going to be defending assholes and thugs and people who say disgusting things.

Violentacrez's speech rights do not automatically trump the privacy rights of his victims. His ideas and opinions can be communicated via speech that does not violate the rights of others, and so when balancing his speech rights against their privacy rights I'd favor the privacy rights.

[danielweber]

This is true. I was mostly offended by the "he's a bad person so who cares about his rights" argument.

[koeselitz]

>> 2. It's more about the doxxing, which seems to be the one legal thing that isn't allowed on reddit. Either they have the policy that doxxing is horrible or they don't.

I guess the question is whether that is a sensible policy. It may make sense to protect anonymity - I can see that - but does it make sense to protect nothing else? Is anonymity really the only true community value?

[thwest]

Regarding point 1: You are absolutely misguided. I have no obligation to defend them disgusting things until it is the government that is prosecuting the speech, rather than the community.

We have a moral obligation to protect free speech from government intrusion.

We have an equal or greater moral obligation to personally confront the KKK, and sexual predators in order to enforce moral standards within our community.

The government's job is to make sure we both get to speak, and don't kill each other over the disagreement. The first amendment has nothing to do with protecting KKK members from public shaming and expulsion for the views they profess.

[danielweber]

I wasn't talking about the government.

"You" wasn't "you, thwest." It was to the reddit admins and their own desire to have a community of free speech. Once they, the reddit admins, decide that they, the reddit admins, want a community of free speech, then they, the reddit admins, are going to find themselves supporting the rights of assholes to speak.

[thwest]

If the reddit admins want to shoulder the same burden as the government in regards to free speech, I still believe in community self-policing of reddit by users. The admins won't shut down assholes, but neither shall they shutdown shaming of assholes.

[watty]

Free speech? Free speech would be not banning Gawker and allowing Gawker to doxx the scumbag. Free speech, right?

[eli]

I absolutely believe the KKK has a right to march. But I also wouldn't participate, even as a spectator.

[girlvinyl]

What about publicly naming and shaming KKK members who did participate?

[danielweber]

Depends on your policy.

You can have a policy of "we are not allowed to publish personally identifying info of anyone."

You can have a policy of "we are allowed to publish personally identifying info of anyone at will," but you need to realize that it will also affect people you like as well as people you don't like.

What doesn't work is "we are allowed to publish personally identifying info of people that a sizable minority of the community thinks sucks."

[Evbn]

Sure, but not by posting that info on Reddit with a link to the shamee's Reddit username. This is one of the only rules of Reddit, and it is for your protection, so people don't say "girlvinyl is KKK member and here is her legal name and address".

[girlvinyl]

Right. It wasn't posted on reddit, it was posted to tumblr.