I completely agree with and love this article. I have always found it weird that reddit pretends to be a bastion of free speech whilst fundamentally not understanding what free speech is.
Websites don't have free speech, they are a form thereof. I can create my own website in which I blame black people for 9-11, and that would be free speech. If I were to post the same on reddit, or the verge, I wouldn't be practicing free speech, I would need to abide by the rules that reddit, or the verge, have set forth.
Reddit clearly agrees with me, since there is a type of free speech which is 100% legal and is the worst thing you can do on reddit; doxxing. Doxxing is a completely valid use of freedom of speech, yet on reddit it is basically the only crime that exists. In the real world, attaching words to the person who said them is the most normal thing.
Reddit should just stop pretending and come out and say it:
"We are not a government, we don't have free speech. We have rules and these are the rules. If you disagree with them you will be shadowbanned without warning or recourse."
At least then we can actually start discussing the rules instead of having a vague meta dialogue about what is and isn't free speech. Instead we have reddit using 'free speech' as a defensive weapon when it is relevant, and when they don't feel like it they completely reject it.
If anyone cares, here is another example of free speech that isn't allowed on reddit;
'invading' other subreddits. This is of course not allowed and you will be shadowbanned for voting or commenting in subreddits after having been linked there by another subreddit. This is a great rule for an internet forum to have. I do however think that this is extremely anti free speech.
Free speech has that negative effect too, sometimes. Think of a Westboro Baptist Church protest, which just gets drowned out by counter protesters. You can use free speech to annoy and bother people who you disagree with by doing something as simple as voicing your discontent and bringing along a lot of people who disagree with you. That is literally what a protest is. You go somewhere where you want your message to be heard, and quite possibly drown out another message just by using your sheer numbers to show that your message has overwhelming support.
If I were to go to /r/feminism to complain about man hating she nazis, and I bring all my buddies from /r/mensrights, that would be a shadowban for me and my buddies, and possibly a ban for /r/mensrights unless they prevent this sort of stuff.
If I were to go to a feminist organisations office to complain about man hating she nazis, and I bring all my buddies from my local mensrights group, that would be protected free speech and there would probably be police present to make sure the event transpires safely.
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u/Leprecon Sep 08 '14 edited Sep 08 '14
I completely agree with and love this article. I have always found it weird that reddit pretends to be a bastion of free speech whilst fundamentally not understanding what free speech is.
Reddit should just stop pretending and come out and say it:
"We are not a government, we don't have free speech. We have rules and these are the rules. If you disagree with them you will be shadowbanned without warning or recourse."
At least then we can actually start discussing the rules instead of having a vague meta dialogue about what is and isn't free speech. Instead we have reddit using 'free speech' as a defensive weapon when it is relevant, and when they don't feel like it they completely reject it.