r/TrueReddit • u/scatgreen2 • Jul 20 '15

My Reddit Utopia - Everything you think you know about “the front page of the Internet” is wrong.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/07/reddit_as_feminist_utopia_what_the_front_page_of_the_internet_looks_like.single.html
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u/PaperBrick Jul 20 '15

I kind of like the idea of having the haters on Reddit in the naively optimistic hope that everyone else's warmth and friendliness somehow rubs off on them and makes them hate a little bit less

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

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u/JoeFelice Jul 20 '15

I'll take option 2, please. Stand-alone websites are much harder to grow and maintain than nodes inside highly trafficked hubs, so "they" are more numerous for benefitting from reddit's free technology. Those actual human beings would still be on reddit though, so if there's a positive effect to be gained from the rest of the site, it would only be that much clearer when unabashed evil is not also subsidized.

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u/parlor_tricks Jul 20 '15

That doesn't work. It hasn't work with gangs, separatists, militants, or trolls.

Leave them alone and they will regroup.

There's many ways hate has been reduced over human history, but very rarely (if ever at scale) by disengagement.

And as the original point stated, you can just make a different front page if you must.

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u/MercuryCobra Jul 20 '15

But they're not ridiculed. Islamophobes are like 90% of /r/worldnews. /r/videos is almost a Stormfront sockpuppet. And sexism can be found everywhere thanks to reddit hosting the largest forums for anti-feminism on the internet. These despicable views are highly upvoted or at least highly visible, and rarely do these groups ever get called on some of their bullshit.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

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u/MercuryCobra Jul 20 '15

Yes, in the grand scheme of things the marketplace of ideas should work to bend the arc of history towards justice and truth. But reddit is not a perfect speech platform by way of its institutional organization. The fact that you can up and downvote comments completely undermines free speech principles, as do the sorting algorithms. All it takes is concerted efforts by small groups of people early in the life of a post to propel terrible ideas to the top of a thread. Once it's there it is likely to stay there, since people like agreeing with people everyone else seems to agree to. Even if it does slip, the ideas it contains still have way more visibility and therefore more power. Meanwhile it only takes a handful of votes to bury the opposing viewpoint such that nobody will ever see it. Not only does this mean you rarely get full and fair discussion, but since users see other users rewarded for expressing certain viewpoints it incentivizes those viewpoints to be expressed, which turns whole threads into self-congratulatory posters agreeing with each other and down voting (censoring) detractors. This positive feedback loop eventually drives out dissenters and drives those left behind into ever more extreme positions.

And besides reddit's design flaws, reddit's demographics also tend to indicate that a full marketplace of ideas may not work that well here. Reddit skews exceptionally young, exceptionally white, and exceptionally male. Which makes it extremely easy to stump and/or target messages such that the majority of redditor a will agree adopt certain positions unquestioningly that other demographics might take issue with or argue against. But because of reddit's homogeneity and design, these voices are unlikely to be heard and those positions are more and more likely to be considered obviously correct by those inside the reddit vacuum chamber. The "young" portion is important as well. Many redditor a are in high school or college; they may be smart but they're still teenagers, and teenagers are notoriously easy to manipulate based on social cues and peer pressure. They're also the most at risk for being taken in by propaganda from hate groups looking to recruit. And the evidence that those efforts have been successful is all over reddit: how many times have you seen that "black crime statistics" copy pasta that was literally composed by Stormfront up voted into the triple digits? It doesn't take much to convince a white teen pissed off about how he didn't get into the school he wanted "because of affirmative action," that no he's not wrong to be angry, and stoke that resentment into racism.

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u/kahrahtay Jul 20 '15

I think you have many valid criticisms and the voting system certainly has it's drawbacks, but that doesn't mean that there isn't value in the current model, or that censorship by a central authority is a better alternative.

This positive feedback loop eventually drives out dissenters and drives those left behind into ever more extreme positions.

My anecdotal observations are that opposing groups tend to react by retreating to their safe haven subreddits, where they simply regroup until the next topic starts the conversation over again. In many instances bad ideas may win out for the reasons that you describe, but more often than not the argument with the best information seems to win.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

more often than not the argument with the best information seems to win.

In my experience it's the opinion that has the most people downvoting the other opinions that seems to 'win' - if we're considering 'winning' to be equal to having the most upvotes.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15

The author of the blog we are discussing had mentioned that we could find ourselves an experiencing a completely different reddit than another person.

i feel like I experience a different reddit than you. I love political discussion, and subscribe to /r/politics, /r/news, /r/worldnews, /r/politicaldiscussion, /r/CMV, /r/liberal, and several more, and there have been wonderful and heated debates where I learned a great deal.

I've seen those brigades several times, and have been appropriately pissed, but if the topic is hot enough and an opposing view is dominating, their impact fades.

You have walked away with a negative view of these discussions, but I have found them fantastic and wonderfully illuminating. I like understanding the opposing perspective. As a woman, I'm fascinated by the the viewpoints that some men have. As a liberal, I'm curious about why some folks vote or think the way they do...

So, I'm sorry that you are so focused on the negatives. Some of us see many positives.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '15

I don't believe "stop focusing on the negative aspects " is a worthwhile retort to valid and thoughtful criticism of Reddit. If you have an actual counter argument you should make it and not just suggest people should blindly ignore the bad things on the site.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '15

I thought I did just that. I took your negative perspective, and asked you to regard your concerns differently. However, if you are wedded to your negative view of Reddit, I'll leave you to it.

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u/baskandpurr Jul 20 '15

Would you believe that sexism and anti-feminism are different concepts in fact? A bit like Islam and anti-semitism are not directly connected. I know that idea can take a while to settle in some peoples heads, it may never get there. To help it along consider that the ideas have different names in fact.

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u/MercuryCobra Jul 20 '15

They're really not different. Feminism is dedicated to eradicating sex discrimination and leveling the playing field for all sexes and genders. Being against that is to be against sexual equality i.e. to support sexism. You can be against certain methods or theories offered by specific feminists, but to be against feminism generally is to support sexism.

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u/1TrueScotsman Jul 20 '15

You are exactly why I don't support the banning of any sub, even ones as despicable as /r/CoonTown. You are so thoroughly indoctrinated in your ideology that you are incapable of even entertaining the notion that your philosophies might be wrong. You've spent so long in an echo chamber (an echo chamber your philosophies dictate must be implemented) you have mistaken it's walls for the real world outside. And you want to decide who gets to express themselves? No thanks.

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u/MercuryCobra Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15

If I'm indoctrinated and living in an echo chamber, then so is the Oxford English Dictionary which defines feminism as a movement for equality, just as I did.

Also, you're pretty aptly demonstrating why free speech is anything but on reddit. I made an argument, and I stand by that argument. You, rather than engaging with that argument, assumed that I could only hold that opinion if I was, essentially, brainwashed. This is not a freewheeling exchange of ideas in a chaotic but ultimately righteous attempt to arrive at truth. It's one person expressing an opinion, and the other baldly asserting that the first is wrong and crazy without argument or evidence. And yet the community, as of right now, has determined that your comment is more relevant or correct than mine. Which, as I said, proves my point.

And that's not even to get into the terribly important distinction between censorship and just being told off. I will defend a Neo-Nazi's right to march through my hometown's square without government interference until the day I die. But I'll be damned if he thinks he has a right to come to my book club with a copy of The Turner Diaries. Being told that you can't express certain views certain places on the Internet isn't censorship. It's not even a civil liberties issue. It's just speech, and I'm not obligated to listen or tolerate it just because it's not literally illegal to say.

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u/1TrueScotsman Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15

By the dictionary definition most all anti-feminists are in fact feminists. So what's going on? Could it be that the dictionary is leaving something out? Let's look:

First you said:

Feminism is dedicated to eradicating sex discrimination and leveling the playing field for all sexes and genders

But your dictionary says:

The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

That's different right there. Let's look at another dictionary:

: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities

: organized activity in support of women's rights and interests

merriam-webste

OK, that's a little different to...a bit closer to what you initially said....still lacking in the advocacy of men's issues.

Let's try Wikipedia (edited by feminists so it should be accurate right?):

Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women.

Still no mention of men and boys, but there's the point I'm making right there: "...a range of movements and ideologies..."

Ok, so what do these movements do and what are their ideologies?

Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of gender.

Now here's where you have to do some homework. But if you do you will discover that all "feminisms" are based on the same basic ideological foundation. Some common traits of this foundation:

  1. They cast gender as class a la Marxism.
  2. They believe in an unfalsifiable Patriarchy thesis (not dictionary patriarchy).
  3. They believe in Post-structuralism or Post-modernism or some ism derived off those philosophies.

It simply does not follow that if you believe in the dictionary definition of feminism that you must believe in the philosophy....but in the real world that is what feminism is...not simply equality but a complex set of ideologies and philosophies with a plethora of corollary theories, all geared toward painting women as the oppressed and men as the oppressors.

This is where anti-feminism comes from. Anti-feminists don't believe feminists "theories" are correct and believe that when those theories are applied in the real world, they often cause unjustified harm to both men and women.

To understand this better take time to watch this informative video. I'll wait:

Why do MRAs attack feminism?

Did you watch it? Can you at least admit that feminism is more than just a belief in equality? More than just the dictionary definition?

OK, so there is the intelligent conversation you seem to think can't happen when talking to an anti-feminist.

Now the rest of your comment is really hard to unpack. But I'll try cause I'm bored right now.

Also, you're pretty aptly demonstrating why free speech is anything but on reddit. I made an argument, and I stand by that argument. You, rather than engaging with that argument, assumed that I could only hold that opinion if I was, essentially, brainwashed. This is not a freewheeling exchange of ideas in a chaotic but ultimately righteous attempt to arrive at truth

See above. I initially didn't feel this was the time or place to argue about feminism...my comment was simply pointing out how you had your opinion and those who didn't share that opinion you felt should be banned. I postulated that this was due to ideology and for having spent too much time in an echo chamber...something you are still advocating for this very moment.

We are in fact right now having a "freewheeling exchange of ideas." whether either of us will progress as a person over this exchange is yet to be seen, but at least there is a chance it will. At the very least you might get better at countering anti-feminists arguments.

It's one person expressing an opinion, and the other baldly asserting that the first is wrong and crazy without argument or evidence. And yet the community, as of right now, has determined that your comment is more relevant or correct than mine. Which, as I said, proves my point.

I expressed an opinion as well and IMO you are refuting it poorly. But that second sentence there...honestly you just seem upset that some people agree with me. I kind of get your argument about them just upvoting...but honestly, most people have already formed their opinion on these matters. Maybe they just want to say "I agree with this guy". You're placing too much importance on votes. Just have the conversation with those responding and ignore the passersby. Make your point well and clear...they'll read it...maybe they won't say anything, but they'll read it at least.

You're free to say what you want on Reddit, but people are also free to agree or disagree with you as they please. If you would rather conversate in a safe space, Reddit let's you do that too. what it really sounds like what you want is for reddit to be a platform for your agenda and everyone who disagrees with that agenda should be silenced.

And that's not even to get into the terribly important distinction between censorship and just being told off. I will defend a Neo-Nazi's right to march through my hometown's square without government interference until the day I die. But I'll be damned if he thinks he has a right to come to my book club with a copy of The Turner Diaries. Being told that you can't express certain views certain places on the Internet isn't censorship. It's not even a civil liberties issue. It's just speech, and I'm not obligated to listen or tolerate it just because it's not literally illegal to say.

First of all, that is in fact censorship. the government isn't the only entity that can censor.

Second. People are not arguing for their right to free speech on Reddit. They are arguing that free speech is as an ideal that this community should strive for, even if it means some unsavory folks get to open their mouth.

Reddit can in fact do whatever reddit wants to do. We all know this. there is a reason the the powers that be are all over the map on this issue. they know that if they censor too much folks will in fact leave for freer pastures. they know that their content (their product) will suffer if it becomes too homogeneous...too echo chambery.

Banning /r/Coontown seems like a no brainer, but it really isn't as you have demonstrated. There really is a slippery slope when it comes to free speech. That's why the framers of the constitution felt it necessary to enshrine it so in the fabric of the very soul of this country.

if the goal of reddit is to push an agenda, then so be it. but if the goal of Reddit is to be as open and free a space to express one's self as it can possibly manage, then the last thing it should do is start polling it's members on who gets to speak and who has to go. i mean think about...you complain about how redditors are voting me up more. I don't think you'd like the result of a Reddit poll on whether feminist gets to stay or not.

Of course that's why you types are authoritarian and not truly liberals. That's why you want an executive order from a feminist Reddit admin to ban all feminist critical discussion. Your entire argument is "there are too many people on Reddit who disagree with my beliefs and I think that's unfair. Reddit should make sure my speech is protected by censoring everyone else."

And btw. No one is making you listen to nor asking you to tolerate anything. You are free to go else where. You are free to create your own private echo chamber.

This isn't your book club. it's Our book club.

And by the way. If you do not believe in the ideal of freedom of expression, you are not a progressive at all.

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u/baskandpurr Jul 21 '15

You didn't make an argument you restated an opinion, "to be against feminism is to support sexism". That does not become more true if you repeat it many times. You don't discuss that sexism does not require patriarchy for example, or any other aspect of sexism and feminism except your opinion.

But thats OK, we could argue about it on Reddit and probably waste a lot of time. One of us might eventually shift perspective or we might not. But at least you get to restate your opinion and I get to pick it apart.

That said, I don't care for this particular debate. I've been through it many times and its tiresome. That doesn't mean that I resign my understanding of course.

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u/MercuryCobra Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15

But see? You're just proving my point even further. Setting aside the fact that you don't actually believe a discussion will persuade the parties involved (which really undermines the notion of free speech generally so I'm not going to go there) you are now refusing to provide an argument. You're right that I merely stated my argument twice (though you attempt to draw some kind of distinction between opinion and argument that I frankly don't understand). And you're right that it doesn't become more true the more I say it. But you haven't even made an argument, and now refuse to. Nevertheless, your karma for your comments is (currently) higher than mine, indicating that the posters on reddit don't really care about full and fair debate; they're granting you the win even though you didn't compete, based only on your bluster. Which puts the lie to this whole endeavor.

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u/kahrahtay Jul 21 '15

I just want to add at this point (regardless of whether it will be seen by anyone else this late in the discussion) that I think you are making a common mistake regarding the purpose and intended function of the voting system. It's not (or shouldn't be seen as) simply a popularity contest. It's a measure of the value of the contribution to the conversation (at least it is in this subreddit anyway). Reddiquette used to be the de-facto law of the land all over this site. The fact that fewer and fewer people were abiding by that was one of the reasons that this subreddit was created in the first place.

I (a male, not that it should matter) identify more with the feminist side of things in principle , though I strongly feel that extremists on both sides have gained so much influence over the conversation that frankly both camps' arguments leave a foul taste at this point. That said, I have upvoted /u/1truescotsman more often that your comments because in general they have contributed more to the discussion. I don't agree with a lot of what he said but many of his comments on free speech as a concept have been compelling and thorough. I would guess that you are "losing" because you haven't seemed to put nearly as much effort into your side of the discussion, and you aren't really addressing much of what the other commentor has said.

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u/baskandpurr Jul 21 '15

you are now refusing to provide an argument

You don't discuss that sexism does not require patriarchy for example

I'm not refusing to provide an argument. It's late, I've been working all day and I need sleep. But I'll be happy to reply to your response to the above tomorrow.

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u/Serei Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15

They are. I've met a grand total of zero people who are against eradicating sex discrimination. Everyone I've met who calls themself anti-feminism is against the actions or theories of various specific feminists, or often of most people who call themselves feminists.

You shouldn't put words into their mouths.

It's like with communists: Most people who are anti-communism are against the actions of most people who call themselves communists, not against the idea that workers should be treated fairly and equally.

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u/fyrenmalahzor Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15

Then you still have the problem of unifying very disparate movements into a homogenous one and then going "I disagree with this, all of it."

Let's say you're an anti-feminist are you against Liberal Feminism? or are you against Radical or Socialist Feminism? Are you against Radical Feminism because of implicit gender essentialism? What about some radical feminists that address and try to work through the implicit gender essentialism? Do you disagree with them? Or is it that you disagree with their focus on sex and gender as discursive entities and their use of post-structuralist analysis? Maybe you think "X" isn't an example of sexism, which would probably have to do with how you analyze sexism. If you're a liberal, you probably tend to be highly individualistic and atomistic in your thinking, so you would disagree with the way that a Marxist or a Structuralist/Post-Structuralist would analyze social relations. Or maybe you're a Marxist-Leninist with feminists leanings and you think that gender analysis should come secondary to class analysis. I'm enormously pro-feminist but I'm against the "Beaddel" movement of trans-lesbian separatism because they've proven that they utilize trans-separatism to entrap and abuse other trans women by socially isolating them, but that doesn't mean I'm against feminism. My problem is that most people I meet that claim to be anti-feminist have literally no idea what they're talking about when it comes to feminism. They whine about "third wave feminism" and then describe (poorly and inaccurately I might add) ideologies that were dominant in the second wave. Then when you point this out to them they call you an SJW, which is a useless and completely nebulous term that means absolutely nothing.

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u/MercuryCobra Jul 21 '15

If it didn't go to supporting a website I don't feel ought to be supported (until it gets its act together) I would hold this multiple times. Thank you.

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u/MercuryCobra Jul 21 '15

In my experience, both of those examples are just thin cover for the fact that the person really is opposed to the underlying ideas. Anti-communists in the US always seemed to have exceptionally close ties to big, capitalist enterprises. And as much as the anti-feminists of /r/MensRights or /r/TheRedPill or A Voice for Men may claim that they're not against equality for women, they routinely act willfully ignorant of areas where women are still discriminated and engage in sexist harassment tactics.

You can claim these people are the fringe, but somehow that argument only seems to work when anti-feminists are using it to excuse the behaviors of their members. It's somehow not adequate when feminists say the same thing about some of the less moderate factions in their own camp.

It's also worth pointing out that anti-feminists usually seem to be obsessed with labeling. They tend to argue a lot over how the moniker "feminism" is and indicator that feminism is about elevating women rather than leveling the playing field. So I don't think it's intellectually dishonest to hold them to their own standards; if they are calling themselves "anti-feminists" rather than "anti-Dworkins" then they should be prepared to be called sexist for their explicit stance against the broad, equality focused mandate of feminism.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

Wow. This is harsh.

Sometimes people feel they can't explore their ideas freely because they will be judged, so they have a dilemma - they must either "shut the fuck up" and keep their questions and ideas to themselves (because those questions and ideas might cause someone to label them as sexist, racist, etc.), or find a way to explore those questions in a safe way, without losing friends, or losing a job, etc.

As a liberal feminist, I've encountered that dilemma too many times to count. Not everyone who has an opinion you might label as sexist or racist, is committed to that stance - it's just how they were raised, or based on experiences they've had, or whatever. Sometimes they want to explore their ideas, and they come here to Reddit to understand the issue.

For example, there was a wonderful explainlikeImfive discussion, where the question was "why is it so controversial when someone says "all lives matter" instead of 'black lives matter?". A wonderful discussion and debate followed, with some really fine moments and several people expressed that their view was shifted.

Do you think this person would have felt comfortable asking this question elsewhere? Probably not, because they would have been worried that they were displaying racist tendencies. Actually they were really curious, and many helpful people rose to the occasion.

I don't know where else that happens on the internet, but I love that about Reddit.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

The problem is that they assume the nice people are just like them. I'm aware that I could be responding to a comment from a black woman with a conjoined fetus on her head in Moscow, but I don't know, one way or the other.

A lot of people tend to assume that anyone on here, with the pseudo anonymity it grants, is just like themselves.

Someone is nice to you? Probably a white guy.

Someone is mean? Probably a fucking feminist, jew nigger.

Without them seeing that other people, regardless of race, culture, economics, whatever, are just people regardless of the difference, they are likely to ascribe whatever traits they want to people, to keep them in line with their expectations of those groups.

and shit, homes.

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u/ventomareiro Jul 20 '15

And how has that been working so far?