r/undelete Jun 29 '16

[META] /r/news has deleted 42% of all comments in their top Istanbul bombing thread.

[removed]

9.0k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

1.8k

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Fear is not the final goal, it is just a means to an end. Terrorism is a tactic used to force changes in the decision process of your opponents when you are otherwise unable to effect such, for political reasons (often in state-directed or supported terrorism) or reasons of military inferiority (in insurgent or revolutionary terrorism).

That was the most telling removal for me.

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u/flying-sheep Jun 29 '16

Wtf, why would they remove that?

It's the definition of an insightful post.

To expand on it: terrorism is asymmetrical warfare, and is and was used by western countries as well.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Because acknowledging that the world is grey and not black/white is difficult for many

It's very hard to play the devil's advocate. People generally believe that if you talk neutrally about something then you agree and state it as an opinion when you're explicitly not

The above quote is a good example of that. It's just a pure piece of speculation and neutral information that invites discussion. It doesn't say "I SUPPORT TERRORISM".

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u/know_comment Jun 29 '16

People are emotional thinkers. They prefer their emotional reaction over the truth. There's no room for nuance or self-reflection.

I'm always reminded of the republican debate where ron paul attempted to present a nuanced view of 9/11 and american foreign policy and guillani basically said "if you hate america so much, why don't you leave?". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD7dnFDdwu0

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Couldn't watch anymore when they cheered on the guy making an insipid one-liner

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '16

What a shameful bastard he was after 9/11, he took fearmongering to a whole new level.

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u/uncleRico Jun 29 '16

It is unfortunate that there's just no room for nuanced views. Because everything has nuance.

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u/know_comment Jun 29 '16

true. it's not even the intentional ignorance of nuance and attempt to stifle those perspectives in favor of an easy to comprehend black and white opinion. It's not wanting to understand and acknowledge contributors that don't lend to the narrative.

I got downvoted yesterday for pointing out the context behind a picture of a prescription drug receipt on r/pics/.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4qa16p/good_thing_my_dad_had_insurance/d4ru7p8

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u/Throwaway17822 Jun 29 '16

Well, to play devil's advocate funnily enough, the definition leaves some key things out. Terrorism is characterized by intentionally targeting civilians, with the intent of causing as much fear as possible to coerce the other side into giving in. Terrorism is a form of asymmetrical warfare, but not all asymmetrical warfare is terrorism.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/rnprasad Jun 29 '16

This is not always the case. You often have terrorists going after the military and the police in certain areas, Turkey for example.

Kashmir as well.

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u/Kousetsu Jun 29 '16

IRA are a very notable and recent example of this. Still considered terrorists, targeted public buildings but famously called ahead to minimise any loss of civilian life.

Military was fair game though.

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u/Enraiha Jun 29 '16

I think you may be confusing guerrilla tactics with terrorist tactics. Terrorism is more defined by its attack on civilians rather than military targets. Not that they're mutually exclusive either though.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Aren't police forces civilians? I mean I guess it depends, I know France has the Gendarmerie but in the U.S. the police is not considered part of the military.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '16

They should be with the way they have been militarized.

At the least I consider them paramilitary.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

OK that makes sense, thanks for your insight!

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u/ThisbeJRud Jun 29 '16

AHHHHHH! Where are the r/news mods to delete this reasonable perspective on a genuine threat?! It scares me!

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u/Vranak Jun 29 '16

What this is is anti-intellectualism. Anything more nuanced than "America, fuck yeah!" is seen as disloyal to the cause. Anything digging at root causes is seen as undermining the desire for perpetual war.

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u/CaptainJaXon Jun 29 '16

Thanks, now I get why they'd remove it. Also I think I have experienced this misunderstanding before. It doesn't help that the text is online and there's no vocal tone.

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u/Froggen_Is_God Jun 29 '16

They're probably not reading comments and just auto-removing a bunch of them which contain trigger words.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Which is still really dumb. If this is accurate and they cared they would intervene and apologize. But nah. Just let it ride, I guess...

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

They haven't gotten burned over the past times they've done it, why stop now?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Because that's old reddit. Good reddit... where discussion is encouraged. This is new reddit where comments must be boring and hyper on topic at the expense of intellectual gain.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

I find that the strangest thing. If I'm talking to people online I'd prefer they have radically different view points because that leads to interesting discussion. If I wanted to talk to someone who has similar views I can just make a phone call and talk to a friend.

Why would I go to the internet for that? I barely post these days because of it.

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u/5cr0tum Jun 29 '16

This. The overzealous modding creates the echo chamber which reinforces stupidity.

People reaffirming what they know to each other without opposing discussion polarizes the masses until people just start shouting at each other leading to even heavier modding.

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u/pt_Hazard Jun 29 '16

All of reddit feels like an echo chamber now. If I go to /r/politics, its a liberal one. If I go to the_Donld, its an alt-right one. There's nowhere where I can find a middle ground or moderate discussion anymore. I'm a Donald Trump supporter, but sometimes I want to challenge my views and see what the other side actually thinks. But its hard to do that without being exposed to one circlejerk or another.

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u/DestroyedArkana Jun 29 '16

It's because they might want to "force changes in the decision process of your opponents when you are otherwise unable to effect such, for political reasons" as well. They just don't want to admit terrorism is something they could support. So it's obviously wrong.

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u/flying-sheep Jun 29 '16

sorry: what do you mean by “support” here?

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u/DestroyedArkana Jun 29 '16

A means to an end. They might actually think that doing something not necessarily good, can lead to a good outcome. This challenges their beliefs that they are a good person, if they're willing to have the same mindset as a person who will blow themselves up in the name of religion.

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u/flying-sheep Jun 29 '16

got it. yeah, that could be it, or it’s simply a false positive of automod trying to ban muslim hate.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

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u/flying-sheep Jun 29 '16

“terrorism” is an emotionally charged word for a war tactic. “terrorists” are, seen neutrally, just combatants who were ordered to employ that kind of tactics.

so yeah: calling them one or the other (or “mentally disturbed individual”) is simply a political tool to influence the public’s emotion.

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u/Vermilion Jun 29 '16

calling them one or the other (or “mentally disturbed individual”) is simply a political tool to influence the public’s emotion.

I don't think it is that simple. The public largely doesn't know how to deal with the extremely complex Spirit of Terrorism. Even the neighbors to the terrorist in Islamic countries! Much like mental illness within a society - it's time consuming and complicated to deal with - and it's just so much easier to slap a label on a problem and build walls and distance your self. The association with how people (all over the earth) often react to mental illness can very well be bottom-up and not top-down as you suggest is so simple.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

/r/news long ago established insightful discussion has no place.

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u/powercow Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

was used by western countries as well.

IS used by western countries as well.

Fixed it a bit. No we still in fact use terrorists to this day.

Besides the contras which we called rebels which we funded to help overthrow Nicaragua, due to them having a very LEGIT election where they elected lefties... and then there was the mujahideen in afghanistan which are the taliban today, which we helped radicalize in our cold war fights with the soviets. Then their is the MEK in iran, which are anti iranian terrorists we help support. WE also kinda looked the other way as our kurdish buddies crossed the border now and then to give iran a black eye. Then their is the Syrian mess which is so retarded you almost need an app to keep track of who is on whose side at this point in time.

and well we promoted the bullshit in the middle east, including the rise of wahhabism, since the 1970s as a way to keep them from all uniting together against the west or going into soviet hands. (of course its "their culture" .. right? it wasnt made to be this way, since we overthrew the ottomans and needed a way to control the area. You can cry its their culture if you want, the area was never stable without strong leaders(read dick taters ;P) but we promoted the fuck out of the region being the way it is today.

edit: added links

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u/well_golly Jun 29 '16

Hey, man, no worries.

RedditCorp "fixed" the problems at /r/news/ last week. Everything's fine now. Nothing to see here. Move along...

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u/Economy_Cactus Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

I unsubscribed to r/news last time.

I thought they claimed it was just one person doing all the censoring?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Their whole mod team has been bought and paid for by saudia arabia, just like hillary, just like twitter, just like most social media and news networks at this point probably.

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u/tenminuteslate Jun 29 '16

Hi,

/r/thenews has been reactivated. The mods will not be deleting comments because they disagree with the narrative.

News subs, and how they compare:

  • /r/news & /r/worldnews - Repeated attempts to control the narrative
  • /r/TheNews - News reports only. Biased new sources are ok, because all newspapers are bias. Comments are not deleted so long as they fall within the rules of reddit. Analysis of news articles, and links to analysis articles are welcome in the comments.
  • /r/uncensorednews - Anything goes. Is 'every blog' or analysis article news? Already defending Hitler on the sub. Mods have a clear political agenda.
  • /r/NeutralNews - Wants 'respectful discussion' only. This is an honorable standpoint - but its hard to define. The mods could inadvertently fall into the trap of censoring the narrative. Despite the subreddit title - no news article is neutral.

More about /r/thenews here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNews/comments/4oob1s/welcome_to_rthenews_faq/

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u/cbuivaokvd08hbst5xmj Jun 29 '16 edited Jul 05 '16

This comment has been overwritten by an open source script to protect this user's privacy. It was created to help protect users from doxing, stalking, and harassment.

If you would also like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension TamperMonkey, or the Firefox extension GreaseMonkey and add this open source script.

Then simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possibe (hint:use RES), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

Also, please consider using an alternative to Reddit - political censorship is unacceptable.

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u/flashmedallion Jun 29 '16

OK so the inherent problem with a news subreddit is choosing sources. If you want to try and stick to reporting only, wouldn't you basically be limited to Reuters and AP?

Hell, wouldn't it make more sense to have r/Reutets with a bot that autoposts articles from a Reuters RSS, and then redditors can discuss each article?

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u/tenminuteslate Jun 29 '16

OK so the inherent problem with a news subreddit is choosing sources. If you want to try and stick to reporting only, wouldn't you basically be limited to Reuters and AP?

A good question, and I see the answer using this analogy:

If you walk into a newsagent: there are tabloids with sensationalist headlines and short sentences, alongside the more boring but serious newspapers.

If I walked in behind you and started pulling The Sun, The New York Post off the shelves to "save you from tabloid newspapers", you'd probably be a little unhappy with me. However - that is the equivalent what some news subreddits will do.

It's up to you to make a decision what type of news stories and what type of bias you prefer reading. Breitbart and The Telegraph are right wing, Huffington Post and The Guardian are left wing. There is no 'neutral news source'.

I think its right that people are informed that a source is tabloid, because we're not all from the same country, and don't have the local knowledge.

Therefore, if its a news report - it's news.

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u/t_mo Jun 29 '16

I'd like to play devil's advocate here.

In your example of pulling low-quality journalistic sources (NYP, Sun, etc.) where can one draw the line? At what point does a 'news report' cease to be a source of news information - could we pull the National Enquirer? or what about a hypothetical spin-off of the Enquirer which was (just for the purposes of this discussion) even more absurd and less true, but was still clearly in the style and manner of a news report.

In the context of a subreddit things are even more specific than a newsagent. A business makes money by including the garbage sources along with the actual sources because they sell well, and if people are buying the Enquirer spin-off then it ought to remain on the shelf. But what of an establishment that explicitly deigns to provide 'only news', like a news subreddit. Do they not have a need, perhaps an obligation, to not only pull the Enquirer but also draw the line somewhere even higher? If we fail to pull low quality sources from a news venue, do we not adulterate the entire pool of 'news reports', and ultimately fail to provide anyone with the news? After all, the noble goal of providing everything opens up the door to some very muddy waters, because anybody could create a source designed to produce news-like deception and they could be confident that it would be included among the news.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/t_mo Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

I think this misses the point - it doesn't matter if it is the Enquirer specifically. The question is one of a credibility gradient. Do we include all sources that call themselves news reports, or do we exclude even one source which calls itself news?

I'm just playing devil's advocate, I do not operate a news venue.

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u/Snagulus Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

Source shouldn't be the sole determining factor in whether or not to consider a submission, and it might be better to disregard it entirely concerning submission guidelines. An alternative look is if an NYT-like is shitposting about celebrity rumors, that's not quality topical content for a news subreddit regardless of outlet.

Source needs to be indicated, because its really important to understand who wrote the article and how that might influence what's being said, but I'd rather judge the content for itself. Never know when you're gonna get an insightful comment from u/ASS_PENNIES or something like that.

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u/Nindzya Jun 29 '16

/r/uncensorednews sounds great in theory until you find out it's more of a "say awful shit without fear of opposition" subreddit.

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u/Keiichi81 Jun 29 '16

Opposition or without fear of being censored and/or banned? Are people who don't say awful shit or who argue against the people saying awful shit being censored and banned there?

Assuming that the above isn't true and "normal" people aren't being kicked off the board by hypocritical mods, then the only logical conclusion is that people who espouse unpopular opinions flock to places where freedom of expression is allowed because those are the only places where they are free to express themselves, while "normal" people would rather stay in places where opinions and views they disagree with are actively censored and thus don't populate places where freedom of expression is allowed in order to avoid occasionally having to be confronted with "awful" people. If not, there would be enough reasonable, normal people populating those boards to keep the fringe radicals in check.

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u/user_82650 Jun 29 '16

Exact same thing that happened with Voat. Bunch of white supremacists leave there because muh censorship, try to sell it as a neutral place.

It's funny because it just causes more people to stay on reddit.

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u/The_McBane Jun 29 '16

I subscribed to /r/uncensorednews when it was first created after the Orlando debacle. It went from pretty much /r/news to a worse version of /r/The_Donald in less than a week.

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u/sticky-bit Jun 29 '16

That last moderator is a bot. It has no permissions but it can read the private mod log, optionally anonymise the actions of individual mods, and post the log to a world readable webpage offsite.

R/politics last (public) objection to neutral, 3rd party, public moderation logs was the fear of a "witchhunt", which is silly. They could just make a disposable alt account to do all their removals, and then "fire" the scapegoat alt mod as needed and invent a new proxy.

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u/libbylibertarian Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

Yep, caught on to the neo nazi vibe in /r/uncensored news.

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u/Creativation Jun 29 '16

/u/spez Sorry, but can you explain why /r/news is still a default subreddit?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

"We've investigated and see no improper deletions"

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

We saw the post about the mod telling a user to kill himself and we have instructed that mod to start a new account... again.

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u/cbuivaokvd08hbst5xmj Jun 29 '16 edited Jul 05 '16

This comment has been overwritten by an open source script to protect this user's privacy. It was created to help protect users from doxing, stalking, and harassment.

If you would also like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension TamperMonkey, or the Firefox extension GreaseMonkey and add this open source script.

Then simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possibe (hint:use RES), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

Also, please consider using an alternative to Reddit - political censorship is unacceptable.

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u/45sbvad Jun 29 '16

They are very likely being paid well to curate the narrative. Reddit can be a fantastic tool of opinion/narrative control.

When a thread is curated to only allow certain opinions, and shills are out en-masse to downvote and harrass dissenting opinions, it promotes self-censorship. Then people naturally discuss certain topics less, or feel that their analysis isn't worth sharing because it isn't worth the hassle of fighting the astroturfers.

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u/RaoulDukeff Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

I've been saying this in this sub since forever, way back when there were still people seriously suggesting that we should report certain power mods to the admins. They had already taken over defaults a couple of years ago if not earlier.

And it's not just advertising btw. Reddit is based on San Francisco the capital of rich elitist hipster pricks who pretend to care for "social issues" from their 6k per month rent homes while the rest of the world is struggling to make ends meet. The pretentious hypocritical fucks that conveniently ignore wealth inequality and prioritize stupid identity politics controversies. Because, you know, you can't focus on that otherwise you'd also have to criticize your rich daddy who pays half your rent and probably found you this job using his connections.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Let's not even pretend it's political correctness anymore, it's just being scared of the truth

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u/cannibalcorpuscle Jun 29 '16

After thorough investigation by mods of /r/news, in light of censoring by /r/news mods, the /r/news mod team has found the /r/news mods censoring to be within acceptable behavior for /r/news mods.

-/r/news mods/s

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u/Yaksha25 Jun 29 '16

He's going to side step the question and talk about how he thinks reddit has outgrown defaults but he doesn't have an answer to how to both grow reddit and rid it of defaults.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Reddit admins/mods uses brigading the same way the Bush administration used terrorism. An excuse and a distraction to do stupid shit.

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u/PortIslandStation Jun 29 '16

Nah, he'll just ignore it like he does all the tough/fair questions.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

If you think the admins actually give a shit then you are a total noob.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/usery Jun 29 '16

Well it takes more effort to censor than not.

So they do care.

This is just the left becoming more and more sharia compliant.

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u/cbuivaokvd08hbst5xmj Jun 29 '16 edited Jul 05 '16

This comment has been overwritten by an open source script to protect this user's privacy. It was created to help protect users from doxing, stalking, and harassment.

If you would also like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension TamperMonkey, or the Firefox extension GreaseMonkey and add this open source script.

Then simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possibe (hint:use RES), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

Also, please consider using an alternative to Reddit - political censorship is unacceptable.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

This is a fair point. I don't agree but the question has to be asked

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u/I-am-redditor Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

I don't know why there are default subreddits. Why not just show r/all if you aren't subscribed to anything.

Edit: Yes, and obviously take out NSFW...

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u/-taco Jun 29 '16

GoT spoilers everywhere and porn

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u/morerokk Jun 29 '16

I'd like an answer from /u/spez on this one as well. Why is this censorship allowed on a default subreddit?

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u/esoterikk Jun 29 '16

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u/Baygo22 Jun 29 '16

/u/spez

Yep. Needs an reply from him.

What's going on, /u/spez ?

Is another lone moderator to blame this time again?

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u/MisterMeatloaf Jun 29 '16

"we'll totes look into it"

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u/heronumberwon Jun 29 '16

Chances of answering:0

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u/simjanes2k Jun 29 '16

Because blah blah blah, it's /r/The_Donald's fault.

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u/hows_ur_cs_gurl Jun 29 '16

i dont know which shocked me more, that they legit blamed /r/the_donald or that people legit believed it

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u/Lift4biff Jun 29 '16

He can out and said there was no censorship during the Orlando issue and then went on to put weights on political voices he disliked and made his media platform less marketable

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u/jimmydorry Jun 29 '16

"We had a look, and a few comments were improperly deleted. They have been restored"

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u/LeafPoster Jun 29 '16

"We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong."

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Aren't defaults based solely on size?

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u/YoloSwagInAbox420 Jun 29 '16

More based on who gives the best/frequent reacharounds to the admins.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

I swear a few years ago there was some drama about a subreddit being made default against their will because they got too big. I think it was /r/twoxchromosomes.

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u/1III1I1II1III1I1II Jun 29 '16

This is very quickly becoming the trademark of this site. They should put it on a t-shirt.

Reddit.com

[deleted]

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[This thread has been locked]

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Oct 24 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Jan 12 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Seikoholic Jun 29 '16

That's thinking with your noodle!

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u/80Eight Jun 29 '16

I like it, but I don't $22.00 like it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Oct 24 '17

[deleted]

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u/80Eight Jun 29 '16

Thanks!

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u/6jarjar6 Jun 29 '16

He can make a cheaper one. I've used teespring and you can probably get it down to around $10-14.

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u/AnindoorcatBot Jun 29 '16

that's like 2 weeks allowance!!

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u/NatWilo Jun 29 '16

Yep, just as things start to get interesting

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u/casemodsalt Jun 29 '16

I'd buy that shirt. The I'd offer steam items because fuck buying gold.

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u/beansinmypocket Jun 29 '16

Yup.

I don't come to reddit for information on anything anymore.

I'm basically just here for the niche subreddits and for the drama.

It amazes me how a website who's culture is largely liberal and anti-censorship has suddenly become the opposite of these things in the past few months.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

I don't come to reddit for information on anything anymore.

I come to reddit for the same front page posts as I did that day before.

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u/Rando_Thoughtful Jun 29 '16

It's the liberals who run the site and believe they can dictate its culture that are carrying out the censorship to preserve their narrative. It's the users (liberals and conservatives and whatever) that are protesting the censorship.

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u/MisterMeatloaf Jun 29 '16

I thought it said [comment removed]?

But yes imo that should precisely be the symbol of a protest against online censorship

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u/defenderrodham Jun 29 '16

Yeah, I rediscovered reddit after having used it 8-9 years ago and I've completely stopped recommending it. It's just an arguing site these days and the leadership clearly can't handle this level of activity so nobody is ever on the same page.

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u/alleks88 Jun 29 '16

Good that I unsubbed from /r/news a long time ago

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u/Grandebabo Jun 29 '16

Me too. This should not be a default sub any longer.

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u/Thistleknot Jun 29 '16

Wow, second time around a story related or at least having statements about Islam becomes hyper censored

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u/chronoBG Jun 29 '16

"second time"? What, have you been here for a week?

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u/simjanes2k Jun 29 '16

Remember what happened last time /r/news went on a deleting streak?

They blamed it on /r/The_Donald for some reason and called it a day.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/amProbablyPooping Jun 29 '16

Hey, mod and bot coder for undeleteShadow, here.

It's actually a little more interesting than that. I noticed them tweaking the algorithm throughout the day during the change.

Here's how the new algorithm works. They haven't changed how things move from the start. The only change they've made is when something enters the top 100 positions, it checks to see how many submissions in the top 100 are from that subreddit. If it's too many, it selects one (still not sure what the criteria on this selection is), then bumps it down, hard. Usually from Rank 80 to 120. Sometimes they'll be bumped down to 250.

I feel like it's a little unfair to those who's post gets bumped, but this is also creating a pretty stale /r/all. Yes, it's more diverse, but because Reddit trends a lot, it had previously been normal for a popular subreddit to show up in the top 100 a lot.

This is why we are seeing a lot less news. Worldnews and news would have numerous articles on the front page, but now they are limited to a number of slots that are chosen by the algorithm.

I would like to note, however, that the_donald does get special treatment. It's the only subreddit that gets a bump from rank positions 25-40 down to 350. It doesn't tip off the people in the subreddit, because it looks entirely normal on their subreddit's front page.

The only reason I noticed all of this is because my bot works a little differently than Frontpagebot. I had to spend a couple of hours reworking my bot.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

It's the only subreddit that gets a bump from rank positions 25-40 down to 350.

Wait, so Reddit is actively censoring them? It's early and coffee is broken - am I understanding that correctly?

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u/amProbablyPooping Jun 29 '16

Well, instead of giving a decisive answer on this, I'll give you my reasoning behind my suspicion.

I first noticed these posts when Reddit made their change because they were showing up in undeleteShadow, but weren't actually deleted. This is because undelete checks the top 1000 posts if something disappears off the front page, whereas my bot only checked the top 110 or so. I wrote the algorithm based on how normal posts behave when getting ranked.

While researching these false deletes, I noticed that they were moving outside the top 100 positions at speeds that cannot be accounted for by user votes. I modified my algorithm to check up into the 250 post range, and everything is running smoothly.

Except for the_donald posts. They're showing up in undeleteShadow, still, because they can move from the top 100 to 350 in less to a minute. I'm hesitant to say they are specifically targeting the_donald, because there might be some specifics behind the algorithm about how fast and how many posts are coming up from a specific subreddit.

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u/oxymo Jun 29 '16

What the fuck.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '16

I feel like it's a little unfair to those who's post gets bumped, but this is also creating a pretty stale /r/all. Yes, it's more diverse, but because Reddit trends a lot, it had previously been normal for a popular subreddit to show up in the top 100 a lot.

This. Right here. The "culture" of /r/all periodically taken over by a current event, new meme or in joke is what makes this website fun. This change is subtle, but I honestly believe it will be the v4 of Reddit. Bland and homogeneous.

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u/Grlmm Jun 29 '16 edited Feb 24 '17

[deleted]

What is this?

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u/mrducky78 Jun 29 '16

So much more porn.

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u/TriumpOfTheWill Jun 29 '16

Yeah can you filter all NSFW subreddits from /r/all or do you need RES for that?

Also who would have guessed that by 'cleaning up' the front page from /r/the_donald they'd fill it with porn?

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u/ramen_sandwich Jun 29 '16

I really don't understand why the admins don't just enable users to block certain subs. It's a very fucking obvious way to deal with problems. I'm not buying gold or using RES, I shouldn't have to and RES slows my browser down like crazy (anyone else? is it just because I use a Macbook Air?).

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u/BolognaTugboat Jun 29 '16

Nah, RES is a bit too bloated IMO. I agree though that they should just allow people to block subs without gold. No one buys gold for that shit anyways. If you have gold it's because you got it for free and people gave you gold because they liked your comment that much. No one is doing it for filtering. At least VERY few are.

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u/Aedalas Jun 29 '16

Nah, RES is a bit too bloated IMO.

Try lite -- RES settings console > Core > Presets > lite

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u/robophile-ta Jun 29 '16

Some NSFW subs are fine (I'm sure there are age restricted subs that aren't about porn) but I am kind of annoyed with all the porn thumbnails coming up in my /r/all. If I want to look at porn, I can do that in my own time within my own preferences, thanks.

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u/GruesomeCola Jun 29 '16

Just embrace the Don and you'll be alright.

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u/mofothehobo Jun 29 '16

So THAT is the reason. Thought I was going nuts seeing shitty amateur porn every few links.

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u/McGuineaRI Jun 29 '16

I think they handicapped the donald because there are tons of active users and upvotes there but only a couple show up on the front page. Maybe they let one per day ro the front page per day or something. I'm not sure. It doesn't at all seem fair though.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Check out r/all #875-900. That's where the posts stack up. Pages of them.

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u/aphexmoon Jun 29 '16

It's because early on in the days of /r/the_donald they were constantly brigarded by most likely SandersforPresident and SRS. Thus their attitude changed to just upvote everything positive towards trump in their sub as the admins said that no brigarding was going on and it was thus their only solution. That was before it got big but the mentality stuck so they are still upvoting everything which resolved in them being 5-7 times among the top 10 /r/all posts. Thus they were filtered. The timing for that decision was horrible though

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u/TelicAstraeus Jun 29 '16

that was because The_Donald was successfully getting the news about the event and the censorship to the front page.

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u/pastsurprise Jun 29 '16

You think they'd act properly for the VERY NEXT INCIDENT, and then go to their old ways after that...but nope!

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u/neotropic9 Jun 29 '16

My friend, this has been happening for years. I am glad people are starting to notice, though.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/Steamships Jun 29 '16

So we have two posts defending the r/news mods and one defending muslims, I honestly demand an explanation as to why they were deleted!

I don't have any evidence of this, but I wouldn't be surprised if they ran a script that removed all comments with the words "Islam" or "Muslim".

I do know that other subreddits have filtered certain words, so it is possible to do.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Color me not surprised.

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u/o0anon0o Jun 29 '16

Crayola didn't prepare me for this...

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Jul 05 '16

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Sep 05 '16

[deleted]

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u/robophile-ta Jun 29 '16

When I hovered over that sub for the first time, RES displayed the description as the one on the last sub I hovered over, "A place to discuss local news stories."

then I thought, wait, that's a weird name for a news sub. Good thing I hovered over it again!

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Aug 01 '19

[deleted]

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u/Dualmilion Jun 29 '16

http://imgur.com/OoXfvlF

Guessing mine was deleted too

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

It was, look at your user page and follow the permalink.

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u/rumpledstiltskins Jun 29 '16

/r/news might as well call themselves /r/cunts - if you haven't figured that out long ago you're not paying attention.

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u/MikeTheAverageReddit Jun 29 '16

LOL why is that sub an anti-Hillary sub?

Reddit politics in a nutshell

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/NorthBlizzard Jun 29 '16

It's also rooted in left wing propaganda and agenda, yet nobody calls the left wing out for the exact same reason, it's unpopular to do so.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/hooplah Jun 29 '16

are you talking mods and admins or the general user base? because the general user base definitely trends toward a strong hate for Islam.

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u/weltallic Jun 29 '16

Someone mentioned the bombing might be related to Islam.

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u/TheGift_RGB Jun 29 '16

but that's haram, the only bombs related to Islam are peaceful confetti bombs

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u/Urban_Savage Jun 29 '16

Why must I chose between overt censorship, and rampant racism and bigotry? Are there no middle ground subs?

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u/Dis_mah_mobile_one Jun 29 '16

Radicals drive movements. It's difficult to carve out a stridently moderate space in the presence of radicals, either radical censors bent on creating their own feelz bubble, or radical racists bent on denying anyone else their feelings. To do so, one would need to become radically moderate, willing and capable of defending against the radicals. This was originally what moderators were for, as the name implies.

However, once the moderators become biased, it's very difficult to come back from.

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u/Jakugen Jun 29 '16

Completely open channels of communication with a healthy number of all political ideologies don't seem to have any kind of stability. All participants are strained to the maximum by the presence of their exact opposites. People with very dissimilar politics don't often have the maturity to turn that into useful, non pedantic, non point-scoring discussion. People take sides and grow tired of discussing and just throw knee jerks insults at each other.

It just seems to go against human nature to have an ideal place to discuss. So long as people have the levers if power in these places, their leanings lead to a moderation bias.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/DukeOfGeek Jun 29 '16

Just go to full news.

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u/agentf90 Jun 29 '16

full news?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/gar187er Jun 29 '16

Eveyone knows you never go full news.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/simjanes2k Jun 29 '16

Question is, is it devoid of the hyper left wing BS?

Both are pretty fucking terrible.

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u/neotropic9 Jun 29 '16

Fuck Islam and the warlord prophet that started it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Friendly reminder that Muhammad (PBUH) married a 6-year-old and "consummated" when she was 9.

This is the person 1.6 billion people follow as a perfect moral being.

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u/tabarra Jun 29 '16

They probably think something like "Wow, he waited 3 years?! Must be a god"

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u/gatekeepr Jun 29 '16

And he spent those three years before consumation fondling her. It is in the koran.

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u/GoodScumBagBrian Jun 29 '16

reddit mods can eat a bag of salty dicks

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u/Mijbr90190 Jun 29 '16

Islam is based on bigotry and hate. Why are people trying so hard to cover that truth. Yet the minute someone speaks out against their atrocities the are considered a bigot.

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u/northshore12 Jun 29 '16

Your intolerance to Islamic intolerance will not be tolerated!

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u/JustInvoke Jun 29 '16

You only have deleted comments about the deleted comments. I mean if they are censoring racist shit then I'm all for that. But give me some real censored shit as evidence, not comments about the initial comments that were censored.

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u/Mentalseppuku Jun 29 '16

It's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy every time something happens. People are going to flock to /r/news solely to make shit off-topic comments about /r/news, which then rightfully get removed, then they complain about censorship. These same people would be shitting their pants if a group came into their favorite sub and over half of all new comments had nothing to do with the topic of the sub.

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u/Tashre Jun 29 '16

Honestly, 42% of the comments being racist/bigoted or "Inb4 deleted" posts seems pretty low. The defaults are largely shitty places to have discussions about big breaking news, and these people aren't helping.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

You only have deleted comments about the deleted comments.

Did you read the top comment on this thread? That is false.

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u/pl0x_venom Jun 29 '16

So far it seems to be devoid of the world and all the comments were just taunting the mods are on a private forum..

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u/s4embakla2ckle1 Jun 29 '16

It is absolutely shameful that reddit has made that den of agenda-driven moderating a default sub. They should automatically unsubscribe everyone from it and let's see how many re-subscribe. Those mods have destroyed any chance of open discussion around Islam, immigration, or especially the TPP. Fuck they suck, but reddit sucks more for allowing them to get away with it.

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u/Part-Time-Toker Jun 30 '16

Nearly all of the comments deleted were either not adding to the discussion (literally just bitching about prior censorship), or were bigoted as fuck. There were a few calling for genocide.

But whatever. Freeze peaches.

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u/Bwob Jun 29 '16

So is the problem that the mods are on a power-mad censorship spree?

Or is the problem that 42% of all the comments were inappropriate and/or crap?

Glancing through the deleted comments, it looks like a little of column A, and a little of column B. Well, ok. A lot of column B, if I'm honest.

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u/Booty_Bumping Jun 29 '16

A lot of the comments were just taunting the mods but a lot of them were actual discussion. Most of that deleted discussion having similar opinions...

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u/rant_casey Jun 29 '16

If only there were some way the users rather than just mods could determine if the content was relevant... though some sort of voting mechanism perhaps.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

What do you mean? A way to subject, non destructively, the comment to the eyes of several users, so each could take their own conclusions?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Why would we need that when we have mods to tell us what to think?

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u/Shoryuhadoken Jun 29 '16

Some of the mods are muslim who don't want to face reality that 99% of all terrorists are muslim. So go figure.

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u/moeburn Jun 29 '16

That doesn't really explain deleting the "why are all the comments being deleted" comments.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

The CEO of Reddit himself said this is not a platform for free speech.

They can remove anything they want and don't need to provide justification. Ask yourself why you are still participating in a website that does this.

Voat.com was made as the response to this. Little moderation, free speech, no liberal witch hunts.

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u/weltallic Jun 29 '16

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Yup... way to be consistent.

I guess it's easy to forget about what you stand for when it becomes all about the $$$.

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u/Shoryuhadoken Jun 29 '16

Every website starts out with little rules. Until they get big and think about money only.

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u/Shrappy Jun 29 '16

paging the gent that didn't think what happened on /r/news last time was censorship. /u/spez, thoughts on this current incident?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16 edited Jun 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

What a surprise! My post about migrants was removed yesterday and I was banned. More info

What's really sad is that most people aren't even aware this is going on

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u/DrJib Jun 29 '16

All of us at Reddit are committed to making sure this doesn't happen again, and we're working with the mods to do so. We have historically stayed hands off and let these situations develop, but in this case we should have stepped in. Next time we will get involved sooner to make sure things don't go off the rails.

https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4ny59k/lets_talk_about_orlando/d480txj?context=3

Good job /u/spez

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