[shock-value]

You could say the same about Twitter's hosting individuals who espouse toxic views. I believe that Reddit essentially wants to be a Twitter for communities (as opposed to individuals), in that they aren't interested in guiding the moral ethos of its userbase (beyond removing illegal or harassing content). So, honest question, would you apply your criticism to Twitter? (and if not, why not?)

[psychometry]

I don't use Twitter, so I have no idea. But each company, despite their freewheeling public images, has a right to dictate how their services are used. If that means adopting a stronger stance on these toxic elements in order to improve their user experience (and attractiveness to advertisers), it's probably best to do it.

Reddit is not beholden to to their users to the degree that those users probably believe. Nor are they beholden to some imagined ethos about being a place where all speech is protected.

[axlprose]

> Reddit is not beholden to to their users to the degree that those users probably believe. Nor are they beholden to some imagined ethos about being a place where all speech is protected.

You're right, but it doesn't matter whether they're "beholden" to it or not, they're the consumers and they're telling the market that they want a platform with transparency and where speech is protected. It's just supply and demand, so if there are signals that reddit isn't satisfying what its market demands, how exactly is reddit immune from your average market forces here? It's a popular site, sure, but so were digg and myspace. Just because users have certain expectations of a site, that the site itself may or may not have actually promised, does not make the site immune from competition.

So in reality, it's not so much about users feeling entitled to anything, it's that reddit seems to have been getting complacent about what it feels it needs to deliver to stay relevant to its content producers and power users (which are the main drivers of a site like that).

Companies can dictate how their services are used all they want, but that doesn't mean they have an automatic right to remain successful/profitable/relevant, especially if how they went about dictating their terms hurt their PR (whether reasonably or not).

[psychometry]

Reddit needs to worry about what their advertisers want, too, which I imagine does not include a place where TheRedPill and CoonTown are thriving.

[axlprose]

We can imagine all we want, but that's up to the markets to decide, not you, advertisers, or anyone else. Advertisers just want to have an audience they can make money off of. If reddit scares away what it's trying to sell to advertisers because it's ideals aren't aligned with its product/userbase, then it deserves to be disrupted by competition.

It's not like we live in a dictatorship where we can easily designate what is/isn't appropriate for a site like reddit to be successful. If a competitor to reddit finds itself being more successful by hosting things like TheRedPill and CoonTown, then so be it, that's how the market works.

[shock-value]

> Reddit is not beholden to to their users to the degree that those users probably believe.

It's cliché at this point, but I'll say it anyway: Tell that to Digg

[gohrt]

> Reddit is not beholden to to their users to the degree that those users probably believe. Nor are they beholden to some imagined ethos about being a place where all speech is protected.

And yet, when those non-"beholding" users revolted, Pao apologizes to them, instead of continuing to ignore them.

> imagined ethos about being a place where all speech is protected.

"imagined" by... the Reddit administrators.

http://www.reddit.com/rules

"reddit is a pretty open platform and free speech place, but there are a few rules"

[psychometry]

Exactly, they are merely "pretty open" and can change the rules as they see fit. Like I said, any belief that all speech should be protected on reddit is false.

[blfr]

Every company has a right to dictate how their services are used but they don't have a right to keep their "freewheeling public images" if they do a lot of dictating.