[danko]

For those who need the context -- when Reddit had that big bust-up last week about banning subreddits like /r/fatepeoplehate, aggrieved commenters were recommending that others migrate to voat.co. That effectively means that voat.co recently absorbed the slimy runoff of Reddit's worst element.

Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them.

[sergiotapia]

Please don't misrepresent what happened. A lot of people, myself included, left Reddit because I don't agree with the way the CEO is handling things. My leaving Reddit had nothing to do with fatpeoplehate being banned. I just don't agree with shadowbanning people and removing -distasteful- subreddits. I just don't visit them.

Reddit has become a marketing tool either way, so I that was just another drop in the bucket for me and I left.

[fragsworth]

They should have handled the /r/fatpeoplehate problem by hiding them from /r/all. Then nobody will see the subreddit unless they directly go to it and/or subscribe to it.

What they actually did reeks of incompetence. The reaction they got from banning the subreddit was entirely predictable, and because of this, gives the impression that they're pretty far disconnected from their users. It doesn't bode well for the long-term success of the site.

[lingben]

Totally agree. Whoever made that decision proved that they are absolutely not the right person or persons to be at the helm of reddit.

Not only that, apart from the decision, the way that it was implemented was so tone-deaf and juvenile that it went beyond mere incompetence.

For example, take a look at the announcement where they tried to outline the rationale for the decision and their methods. When they were bombarded with polite and sharp questions about their hypocrisy they avoided any response.

[sanswork]

The thing is the people that are upset and claiming this is the end of reddit are actually the ones that are disconnected from what most users want as evidenced by the fact that almost no one but a small vocal minority in a few places on reddit care anymore and when they try to get support in more popular/general focus subreddits they are almost unanimously being downvoted or disagreed with.

[fragsworth]

> no one but a small vocal minority in a few places on reddit

Here is a front-page /r/news post about Ellen Pao: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/3a85no/ellen_pao_must...

Read the comments. This is not a "small vocal minority". It's pretty much the entire fucking user base.

[sanswork]

A vocal minority doesn't become a majority because they flood a thread about their current hate target.

[wvenable]

I think you vastly misunderstand the size of reddit's userbase. Furthermore, it's been my experience that a small vocal minority produce significantly more content than the average user. And the single largest group of people with enough time to post all the time are children.

[bluecalm]

Most users don't care about most subreddits. That's the way any big forum with many sub-forums work. It's true that you get downvoted on Reddit for posting anything even mildly politically incorrect which is another problem with it - it's not a place to have any sensible political/worldview discussion anymore.

[DanBC]

> It's true that you get downvoted on Reddit for posting anything even mildly politically incorrect

That's untrue and I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion.

The whole point of SRS is to highlight "politically incorrect" posts that have many upvotes and few downvotes.

[DanBC]

> They should have handled the /r/fatpeoplehate problem by hiding them from /r/all. Then nobody will see the subreddit unless they directly go to it and/or subscribe to it.

FPH brigades. FPH brigades other subreddits, and also other forums.

[s73v3r]

What about the brigading going on? If they had simply stayed in their little corner, no one would have cared. But they didn't.

[m3rc]

Your personal reasons for not using reddit don't have any impact on the fact that most of the people switching over were either from the /r/fatpeoplehate, /r/kotakuinaction, and /r/conspiracy crowd. You can have whatever personal BS with the CEO you want, but the fact is that voat's ex-reddit userbase is all from what is essentially the worst parts of reddit.

[fragsworth]

You should not lump /r/kotakuinaction and /r/conspiracy in the same category as /r/fatpeoplehate. They aren't even mildly offensive - the only relationship here is that they tend to be zealous about freedom of speech, and therefore angry about the removal of /r/fatpeoplehate.

I would classify them strongly as "political speech", which /r/fatpeoplehate was not.

[Torgo]

/r/conspiracy was harassing a daycare in Utah. I don't like to use that term lightly but yes, actual harassing. As in, the subreddit was obsessed with it because it had some records online that made them think it was secretly running some kind of malicious operation. people were going there and surrepititiously scouting the place and sending back photos and talking to neighbors. Admins were deleting posts, which is why it turned into a "free speech" issue for them and a bunch went to voat.

[bduerst]

The difference between those subreddits and the ones banned where:

1) Magnitudes more users -and-

2) Mods were actively promoting harassment of individuals

Reddit admins had to step in because people were being bullied and receiving violent threats, in part due to actions taken by Mods of these large communities built on prejudice and harassment.

[MCRed]

They are in the same category as far as SJWs are concerned because the are not "politically correct", or put simply they are not taking a knee and kissing the ring as SJWs demand.

This is why they have no problem simply telling lies about these subreddits (as they are lying about FPH). The entire point of KotakuInAction and GamerGate is to point out how dishonest this movement is... and what is the response? They lie about them!

Expecting dishonest people to respond with anything but more lies is a silly expectation.

The morally repugnant SJW movement is, at its core, a political movement. They succeeded in turning /r/politics into a monoculture around a single thought and the entire purpose of /r/SRS and all their activism on tumblr is to shame and harass anyone who thinks differently into submission.

[vezzy-fnord]

You clearly haven't dived in too deep if you think /r/conspiracy is even close to among "essentially the worst".

[Someone1234]

They aren't the worst. They do say some pretty anti-semitic things at times however from what I've seen (some of them think the world is controlled by a Jewish conspiracy or some such).

[kinghajj]

/r/conspiracy has quite a diverse set of 'characters', the anti-semitic ones are merely one of the loudest. There's also the various 9/11-truthers, the flat earthers, UFOlogers, Christian/spiritual scientists, pro-gun/anti-federal government types, etc. It can be a pretty fun place to check out, actually, if you enter it with the right frame of mind.

[jchung]

Could you please cite the source on this? I've heard this asserted, but haven't seen the data yet. Would love to understand the dynamic that took place. Specifically, the data supporting the words "most" and "all" in your comment.

[logicalmind]

This isn't data, but this post and the comments are one point of reference. This in on the frontpage btw.

https://voat.co/v/news/comments/147052

[cocojumbo123]

thanks for sharing!

[lawl]

Care to back that up with numbers?

I switched and don't frequent any of those.

Seems like you have personal beef with voat? Just stop spreading misinformation, or back it up with numbers please.

[Someone1234]

> I just don't agree with shadowbanning people and removing -distasteful- subreddits. I just don't visit them.

Please don't misrepresent what happened.

FPH has been bullying, harassing, and abusing individuals for almost a year. Pictures of people out in public, Facebook profiles, other Redditors, the Imgur staff, brigading other subs (inc. weight loss subs), attacking popular bloggers, YouTubers, and people on Twitter. Often this was just for the "crime" of being overweight and the abuse was nasty.

I'm tired of people defending this behaviour as being "distasteful" or "offensive." Even the title of Reddit's announcement was "removing HARASSING subreddits." And if you don't believe that's what FPH was doing then you literally didn't spend even one minute on it.

Key Reddit staff quotes:

> subreddit as a platform to harass individuals

> We’re banning behavior, not ideas.

> based on their harassment of individuals

> When we are using the word "harass", we're not talking about "being annoying" or vote manipulation or anything. We're talking about men and women whose lives are being affected and worry for their safety every day, because people from a certain community on reddit have decided to actually threaten them, online and off, every day. When you've had to talk to as many victims of it as we have, you'd understand that a brigade from one subreddit to another is miles away from the harassment we don't want being generated on our site.

If this is what you support, please leave Reddit. I welcome you gone.

[300bps]

FPH has been bullying, harassing, and abusing individuals for almost a year

Yes, and /r/shitredditsays has been bullying, harassing and abusing individuals for several years. But that subreddit is allowed to exist because Ellen Pao (reddit CEO) and admins agree with their politics.

Any other subreddit is deathly afraid to directly link to other comments on the site because they don't want to be accused of "brigading" votes which is against the rules and will get the subreddit banned. /r/shitredditsays links directly and openly vote brigades dozens of times per day. Again, because their political speech is favored.

[Vik1ng]

> Pictures of people out in public, Facebook profiles

But Reddit mostly does not give a shit about posting pictures of people without their consent. Even on bis subs like /r/pics or /r/funny you will see pictures of people in public, which obviously did not consent to have their images posted there. So that's a pretty big double standard to accuse FPH of that while completely ignoring it on default subs.

And /r/videos time after time results in people harassing and brigarding youtubers.

[FLUX-YOU]

If they wanted to ban behavior, they should have banned the individuals from reddit site-wide. But that would have been hard, so instead, they go after the common banner that causes the behavior.

That IS banning an idea. They have essentially said "We're banning FPH for harassment, but if you participated in that harassment, feel free to browse our other subreddits."

[bluecalm]

>>We're talking about men and women whose lives are being affected and worry for their safety every day

I was reading /r/FPH on regular basis for few weeks before it was closed as I've found it entertaining even if distasteful. I think you have very skewed view of what it was:

-posting identifying personal info was forbidden/removed by the mods

-linking to other parts of Reddit was a no-no

-I can't remember seeing anything threatening on it there was no discussion about threats or doing bad things to specific people; just over the top venting

That is unless you understand "safety" as it is too often interpreted today: hearing not politically correct opinions. If you think the decision has anything to do with removing harassing subreddit try visiting /r/coontown and think why it's still online.

[sanswork]

Unfortunately as is always the case with every popular social network/forum in the history of the internet when the "slimy runoff" says they are leaving what they actually mean is they are going to spend all day on in the same place talking above leaving and how shit the current site now is.

Reddit would be a much nicer place if everyone who threatened to leave over last weeks bans actually left.

[MCRed]

Tell that to the ghost town that is slashdot or Kuro5hin. To be honest, I see the same thing happening here already. So many posts on the front page with no comments, so much less comment activity than before. Feels like HN is emptying out.

Where they're going I don't know.

[sanswork]

Slashdot lost its userbase because new sites like Digg offered more frequent stories/variety and a better experience than the curated and infrequently updating /.

I was never a user at Kuro5hin and only checked it infrequently but I thought it was more due to lack of management than over management that led to the initial decline.

Digg changed the way the site worked.

I've been here a fairly long time and it seems busier than ever to me. I think a lot of the shitty pointlessly mean comments are gone now which just improved s2n even if it means less comments in total.

[x5n1]

> Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them.

It is very surprising, the hosting company should be concerned with providing hosting... not moderating content. that's the job of the government and the legal system.

[slg]

And the German government, like all governments, (although Germany's laws are slightly stricter than most western governments) puts limits on free speech. Reddit has a tendency to demonstrate Godwin's law pretty quickly. For example, it is common practice to upvote a post with a link to a Nazi flag and a headline about some hated group in attempt to get that to be the default image for Google searches of that group. I imagine with Voat being a Reddit clone, similar things have popped up on it. Something like that could run afoul of Germany's laws regarding how to portray Nazi history and iconography. I could imagine Voat's hosting provider wanted to wash their hands of the site before the government actually tries to come after them.

[mootothemax]

What's the logical conclusion of that?

The government forcing private companies to host content that they disagree with?

You can't have it both ways.

[x5n1]

> What's the logical conclusion of that?

Private companies should serve their shareholders. They should draft a policy saying that they don't get involved in content moderation issues as a matter of policy. That's good business and good for speech. If disgruntled people want to do something about it, they can take it up with the legal system.

> Is it good business? Or is it better business to have a clear policy over what is and is not allowed, and then enforce that?

It is not possible to have a clear policy when moderating content because the world is a diverse place with diverse opinions. Where would you begin? Are Muhammad cartoons banned?

[nine_k]

Let's note that it's perfectly fine for a private company to limit their terms of service and reserve a right to stop hosting "distasteful content". It just needs to be declared openly in TOS. If it were so, probably voat won't choose them.

[s73v3r]

Is it good business? Or is it better business to have a clear policy over what is and is not allowed, and then enforce that?

[nothrabannosir]

False dichotomy. Nobody is talking about forcing anybody to do this. At least not the OP, and I didn't read it that way.

The conclusion of this issue is anything but obvious. It is hairy, ambiguous, and unclear.

An alternative could be: public shaming, and people taking their money elsewhere. There, no government required.

I feel he is allowed to at least express disapproval...

[higherpurpose]

Right. Vote with your wallet, I guess. Don't buy services from hosteurope.de.

[x5n1]

> Vote with your wallet

Usually doesn't do shit. The people voting, just like the people who are disgruntled, are usually a small minority. They have no material impact on anything other than the propaganda value of their actions.

[hcal]

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but you can certainly argue that hosting companies shouldn't censor or moderate their customers without rising to the level of a legal requirement.

[DasIch]

Given voat's new community that content will be everything from the more "friendly" organizing harrassment and doxxing people to child pornography.

Nobody in his right mind is ever going to knowingly host them for long.

[s73v3r]

Do you want your company to be associated with harassment, even if you're not doing it directly?

[monksy]

It's not just the worst. Its people that disagree with the current fad of "politically correctness." There were very few people that were sad to see most of those subs go, but those subs weren't well known.

The FPH was a response to the silly "body positive" movement that has been encouraging non-healthy behaviors. (The execution wasn't popular, but the idea of it is well supported)

Additionally: Another big reason for the migration is that the ban came out of nowhere. There was no interaction with the Admins, and there has been a threat that has been expressed by Pao. ["We're going to make it safe" (for who and what political adgenda has scared the users quite a bit)]

[zorpner]

Its people that disagree with the current fad of "politically correctness."

Given that the subs which were removed were not removed for offensive speech but rather for encouraging and tolerating criminal harassment off-site, these "people" are either extremely misinformed or are using free speech/political correctness as red herrings to conceal their desire to harass and abuse.

[unbudgingprawn]

FPH was posting photos of imgur's staff and sending them hatemail, I belive.

[monksy]

So there is a question about that I have for you:

Was it that they posted a picture of the staff of Imgur that hatemail was sent, or was hatemail sent because Imgur just decided to wipe them out?

----

Did FPH cross the line with the pic. Mostly yes... But they didn't put personal information on it. Nor was it an drive to attack them. (It was done in satire [even "the dog is fat"]

[unbudgingprawn]

Is Imgur required to host FPH content?

Imgur is a private website that can moderate content as it sees fit. They didn't want to be associated with a hateful community, imgur generally tries to encourage positivity from what I've seen.

The appropriate response is not to harass people. It's amazing how difficult that concept is. What might seem like "satire" to you is pretty messed up behavior, and in others contexts would be an outright threat

[monksy]

They are free to choose not to host the content anymore. I believe that any hate mail that they recieved, that was the reaction due to their decision. (Not endorsed by the subreddit it's self)

[unbudgingprawn]

The mods were posting photos of imgur staff, and included the photos in the subreddit's css.

Seems like strong endorsement to me

[s73v3r]

If you're one of the people who agree with the behavior of FPH and many of the more vile comments about the CEO, then you're part of the worst.

[monksy]

Thanks for the judgement.

[ramy_d]

    Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them.

Which means, by their own judgment, since voat.co isn't "correct" they deserve no warning, no refund, and no negotiation in good faith - only termination. How can you say that isn't surprising?

[bluecalm]

I don't like you labeling those people "slimy runoff of Reddit's worst element". I think this kind of labeling is commonly used these days (and especially on Reddit) to shut down unpopular ideas. There were 150k subsribers to fph and probably several times more readers. It was one of the most active subreddits at the time of the ban. How is it "slimy runoff of Reddit's worst element"? Maybe you know, there were many reasonable, frustrated with PC culture in there who just wanted to vent sometimes.