Bye and thanks for all the cute animal pictures.
I just deleted my reddit account and committed to no longer visiting the site. Why? Reddit refuses to ban openly racist and hateful subreddits.
What About Free Speech?
Reddit is based on the principle of uncensored speech, shielded by anonymity. Sounds good, right? Anonymity is especially important for activists working in countries with repressive regimes. Even in the United States, where you can often criticize your own government without fear of repercussion (I’ve done so many times on this blog, though higher profile dissenters do face risks), there is value in anonymity. Many commenters on this blog comment anonymously about health issues and the like, and thus write more freely, sharing more information than they would otherwise.
Uncensored speech is equally important. Speech (and writing) that goes against the prevailing orthodoxy is often jarring and even offensive to the mainstream. Galileo’s astronomical notions were once considered heretical. Values and beliefs change over time; next week my daughter attends “Camp Galileo”. The same is true for Darwin’s ideas, many of which the political right are still having trouble digesting. While heliocentrism is generally accepted today — as far as I know even Texans accept that the Earth goes around the sun — attempts to censor Darwin’s ideas are still quite active.
But problems arise when free speech and anonymity are combined with hatred and willful ignorance. The result is online communities that steer marginalized loners towards violence.
Seeing something in writing — including slurs and blanket generalizations about racial groups or women — legitimizes the hateful treatment of that group. For young people especially (who may not yet have fully developed critical thinking skills) participating in echo-chamber hate forums comes to no good. In the “kind of bad” scenario, a hypothetical heterosexual young man who participates in “men’s rights” forums views begins to view women as “the enemy” and is thus set back in developing joyful trusting relationships with women. In a “very bad” scenario a young man like Dylann Roof is incited to violence and kills innocent people. It’s not only racist forums that contribute to violence. “Men’s rights” and “pick-up artist” sites probably contributed to the misogynistic attitude of mass killer Elliot Rodger.
Is there a difference between racist forums (including subreddits), pick-up artists sites, and sites that promote actual violence (like jihadi recruiting websites)?
Sure there is, but reddit should ban all of them. Major content websites (and reddit is in the top 20) need to take responsibility for their content. Like it or not, reddit is mainstream. It’s possible that reddit is so popular because they so staunchly support uncensored anonymous posts, but reddit should ban hate speech even if it means they become less popular. Corporations should do their part in marginalizing hate speech. Otherwise mainstream consumers like me will leave in droves, and reddit will be left as a cesspool of racist and misogynistic hatred. There goes the neighborhood (and there go your profits).
Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman has recently returned as CEO and has given the racist subreddits a pass. Reddit’s new proposed content policy will “ban spam, illegal activity and harassment, as well as the posting of ‘private or confidential information’ and sexual content involving minors” but will continue to host subreddits that “violate a common sense of decency”. This list includes /r/coontown and dozens of other subreddits that foment hatred and prejudice.
From the wikipedia article on controversial subreddits:
Reddit’s general manager Erik Martin noted that “having to stomach occasional troll reddits like /r/picsofdeadkids or morally questionable reddits like /r/jailbait are part of the price of free speech on a site like this,” and that it is not Reddit’s place to censor its users. The site’s former CEO, Yishan Wong, has stated that distasteful subreddits will not be banned because Reddit as a platform should serve the ideals of free speech.
Huffman himself writes, “It’s ok to say ‘I don’t like this group of people.’ It’s not ok to say, ‘I’m going to kill this group of people.’” While I acknowledge that Huffman faces a difficult “lose lose” decision (any policy change will alienate both free speech advocates and people trying to marginalize and discourage racists), for me personally the line is in the wrong place. Huffman’s “I don’t like this group of people” is a euphemism for “I hate this group of people,” and the latter is very close to “let’s take real world measures to hurt this group of people.”
As entertaining as I have found the cute animal pictures, fascinating news stories, and in-depth discussions of Dungeons & Dragons rules mechanics, I no longer want to spend time on a site that hosts malevolent, noxious hate groups.
Update Nov. 2016: reddit has commendably banned some of its more noxious subs. I do sometimes look at reddit these days (though I haven’t recreated an account)–it’s a fun break as long as I don’t get sucked in. Social policing is not censorship; it’s protecting users from harassment, bullying, and sometimes even death threats. It’s a hard thing to understand as a white male because you just don’t see the worst of it. If you’re a white male on the fence on this issue, ask your female and non-white friends about their social media experiences. I’d like to see Twitter be at least as responsive on this issue as reddit has been. Maybe then they could sell the company. – JD
janetkwest
It’s time for Reddit to grow up. When free speech has hate as it’s intention, I don’t think it’s just speech anymore. Some call that a crime.
J.D. Moyer
I agree Reddit needs to take responsibility! But there’s no legal distinction between free speech and hate speech (barring specific threats). Both are equally protected under the 1st amendment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/07/no-theres-no-hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/
sierraschwartz
The problem lies with defining ‘hate speech’. We need to protect even extremely distasteful or hateful freedom of speech or eventually we will all be controlled and censored. At this point, as a christian, I could be potentially be charged with hate speech by simply quoting a non-p.c. scripture. It’s pretty easy to avoid reading crap that offends me. Not so easy to regain a freedom lost.
J.D. Moyer
I have no problem with the First Amendment as it stands. I think reddit’s corporate policies are a different issue.
Tom H
I am no fan of hate speech, either. And I do wish people would be more sensitive of how our words affect each other. But I’m not sure how to handle censorship of “hate speech.” It seems there can often be unintended hurtful consequences to censorship. For example, recently I was part of an online university discussion group about China’s now defunct one-child-per-family policy. We all agreed that the unintended effect of parents discarding their female offspring was horrible. One female student shared that anthropology had “proven” that men are “expendable.” She went on to detail how civilization would be “benefit” if most of the men were “removed.” When a male student pointed out that the former student was referencing a hypothesis, at best, and, further, that the claim that half the human species was “expendable” based on its gender was sexist, the former student attacked him as being … obdurately sexist. The result was the university moderator removing the male student from the discussion. The male student was well behaved throughout and even offered citations referencing the controversy over the anthropological concept, including the contrasting views of several eminent biologists. The female student, on the other hand, punctuated her insults with copious “LOL’s” and shockingly juvenile ad hominems. Yet no one, I’m ashamed to include myself, came to the defense of the young man. Speaking with colleagues after the fact, I learned that, like me, they were too afraid to speak up on the young man’s behalf, fearing professional repercussions despite the fact that we were all in a university chat room. You’d think that such controversies would be discussed in light of the weight of published evidence, not ideology.
I mention this because I have been witnessing this type of response to even polite challenges put forth to members of traditionally marginalized groups who nonetheless express intentionally hurtful opinions. When several of us contacted the university moderators in the above case, the response we got back was that the university felt a responsibility to err on the side of those who’ve historically faced, and continue to face, significant oppression. The moderators went on to say that women globally suffer greatly under male dominance and so comments that even tangentially malign women would not be tolerated–this despite the fact that no where had the young man “maligned” women. At worst, he’d opined that a woman who makes the claim that “civilization” would benefit if most men on the planet were “removed” is herself being sexist.
So whose “free speech” should stand in instances such as the above? Is it sufficient that a speaker be a member of an historically marginalized group to allow his or her potentially offensive claims to stand? Should people who are not members of historically marginalized groups be censored for challenging the validity or ethics of disenfranchised group members’ arguments? These questions may seem to have obvious answers when asked abstractly, but in practice the answers become far murkier. I see this regularly at my large university among mixed groups of marginalized students (such as among our university’s LGBTQI community and its ethnic or racial minorities). As we censor people, we run the risk of exacerbating the very underlying bigotries we (may) intend to excise. No, I’m not in support of open hate speech. But that’s rather easy to spot. However, I think we need to dialog more about the more subtle cases of perceived offensive speech as censorship here can have the unintended effect of perpetuating bigotry.
J.D. Moyer
Hi Tom, thanks for your comment. I appreciate your point, and I think it’s true that in some academic environments there is a problem with aggressive irrational SJW self-expression, such as in this case:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/12/reed-college-engages-soul-searching-after-posters-and-shouts-insult-director-boys
But on reddit and Twitter, the problem is with blatant expressions of racism, death threats against women, and that kind of thing. I don’t think conservative opinions are being censored on either platform. And reddit has done a pretty good job of shutting down the most vile subs.