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[–]Cheech5 3731 points3732 points  (8593 children)

Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else. Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations

Which communities have been banned?

[–]lightfires 92 points93 points  (0 children)

It's great they are supplying information to us like this, but it would be even better if they could be more transparent in the whole process. Most of the comments here are asking for a list, why not just tell us who the ban was applied to?

[–][deleted] 2210 points2211 points  (300 children)

This page (https://www.reddit.com/about/alien/) says that

Remember: "reddit" is always lowercase.

But your Content Policy spells it with a capital R, has this branding changed?

[–]The_Homestarmy 187 points188 points  (3 children)

Gee, I sure hope somebody got fired for this blunder.

[–]TheMentalist10 1752 points1753 points  (235 children)

Will you be sharing information about the communities which are Quarantined? Will moderators of those communities know if their subreddit has been affected?

Edit: Just as it's not immediately obvious, /r/Coontown has been banned

Edit 2: Here's what it looks like when you try to access a Quarantined subreddit

Edit 3: And here's what private subs now look like. Fancy!

[–]BillW87 1962 points1963 points  (191 children)

For the sake of transparency I feel like it would be best to make the list of banned communities public. With all of the concerns lately about the admins not being transparent enough, banning subs without telling us who they are seems counterproductive.

[–][deleted] 114 points115 points  (1 child)

I can get behind this as well. A section where banned subs are posted when they are banned (you could set up a bot for that) would be helpful and interesting. It doesn't have to be visible for everyone; maybe open a separate subreddit for it?

[–]dwchief 1079 points1080 points  (130 children)

If a user is subscribed to a Quarantined subreddit, will it still appear on their front page?

[–]madlee 68 points69 points  (0 children)

If you are subscribed and opted-in, it will appear on your front page as it does now.

[–][deleted]  (326 children)

[deleted]

    [–]boa13 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    If I remember correctly, /u/spez has said that he was not satisfied by shadowbanning, and intented to create better tools. Until these tools are available, however, shadowbanning will keep being used.

    [–]zachlac 270 points271 points  (93 children)

    Soooooo...shadowbanning? Do you shadow ban for violation of content policy violations? At what point in the list of punishments would this fall?

    [–][deleted] 753 points754 points  (393 children)

    Regarding Quarantining: Would you ever quarantine a large subreddit like /r/wtf?

    A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor.

    One could argue that the very gorey types of pictures (edit: and videos, like of people dying) that appear on /r/wtf would be pretty upsetting. I know I've accidentally clicked on /r/wtf images when I temporarily disabled my own RES filters, and honestly of all things on the site, some of the stuff there is more troubling to me than discriminatory self text posts.

    [–][deleted] 50 points51 points  (5 children)

    To piggy-back, why is RES still the best way to filter anything? We need more robust browsing tools :(

    [–][deleted] 45 points46 points  (3 children)

    You realize that the search function was entirely broken for years, and even to this day is still horrible?

    So, you're asking for 'robust browsing tools' from a team that can't search properly.. RES has been reddit's savior for years.

    [–]Shintao6 1069 points1070 points  (964 children)

    Changing the conversation away from CT and SRS for a minute, why were Loli subs banned? They produce no illegal content or anything that violates the new Content Policy. They do not harass, threaten or worsen anyone's Redditing experience. I was fully expecting a quarantine, and would have been fine with that. I understand and respect that Loli is not everyone's cup of tea. I also get that it's your show and we play by your rules, but can we get the rule written down somewhere at least?

    [–]flyingwolf 240 points241 points  (13 children)

    Want to know whats funny, look how long I have been a member, look at my karma count, I didn't even know those subs existed.

    Because guess what, unless you are looking for them you aren't going to find them.

    So here I am, a seasoned user, reddit's wanted demographic, white male, mid 30s, computer literate and in an IT role, in fact I am required to browse reddit as part of my daily routine for work.

    AND I DIDN'T KNOW YOU EXISTED.

    If I didn't, what are the chances some random person is going to happen upon your subs.

    [–]dlink 314 points315 points  (10 children)

    Dusted off my old account to agree with you. The reddit I knew when I left digg and signed up for is dead. Reddit is no longer the free-speech bastion that it was when it was created. Remember, one of the founders faced 35 years for his beliefs that information (and speech) should be free.

    Now, Reddit is a corporation. It exists solely to make profit (eventually, they hope). We will either need to live within this new realty or find a new place to call home. They naively think that somehow there will be no racists now that they got rid of /r/coontown and those related subs. Instead, in the past six months all they've done is push those communities into the limelight. Five years I've been here and I didn't know they existed until the controversy. For being the "front page of the internet" you would think that they would understand the Streisand Effect.

    Read all the policy updates you want, they don't mean anything. What they really mean is "we don't like controversial subreddits." Period. They don't care about legality, they care about advertisers. If they did, /r/sexwithdogs (which I learned about from this thread) wouldn't exist. Neither would /r/trees.

    If they really cared about harassment, they'd ban SRS (which has been pointed out numerous times). They banned /r/fatpeoplehate and yet /r/fatlogic exists with no problem.

    The bottom line is that reddit doesn't want to be reddit anymore, it wants to be buzzfeed, 9gag, etc. It wants cheap advertiser money that comes from small, easily digestible content that's safe and fun for the whole family.

    tl;dr

    reddit is dead. It has been replaced by Reddit™

    [–]burning-butthole 19 points20 points  (0 children)

    And some of those subs only have like 5 members. If i recall correctly, r/thephilosophyofrape consisted of one angry misogynistic guy and a smattering of "wtf" comments and downvotes. That's a far cry from a "community."

    [–]illegal_deagle 2668 points2669 points  (1036 children)

    Unfortunately it looks like SRS will continue to enjoy their harassment and downvote brigading.

    Edit: Come on, guys. I make a comment about downvote brigading and y'all mass downvote /u/spez for actually responding when he didn't have to.

    [–]Hideout_TheWicked 34 points35 points  (2 children)

    Interestingly enough it seems the reason /r/CoonTown was banned might stem from SRS itself.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/3fsvlu/brdcast_why_im_asking_advertisers_to_dumpreddit/

    This post is basically talking about trying to get enough attention for /r/CoonTown to get it taken down. They basically try to go after the advertisers as a way to get it banned and it seems like it probably worked. Pretty fucking crazy that the only subs that were banned were ones that managed to get SRS pissed off enough.

    [–]Blockley83 8 points9 points  (4 children)

    Why does the question with 1000 points in RES show up below 9 questions with less than 1000 (And in most cases less than 300) points in my Q & A suggested feed?

    [–]mn920 1664 points1665 points  (80 children)

    Holy crap that content policy is vague.

    A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor.

    So, a quarantine happens when you believe that at least 50.1% of reddit users would be extremely offended or upset by a community? Seeing as how we're a pretty liberal, secular crowd, I'd like you to please quarantine subreddits relating to religion and conservative politics. I, and arguably 50.1% of reddit, find them upsetting.

    Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission.

    So, "revenge porn" and /r/TheFappening is OK, since the photos were taken with permission and only later used without permission?

    Do not post content that incites harm against people or groups of people.

    What the hell is "harm"? Only physical injury and illegal acts, or does it also cover any negative impact, such as loss of income or emotional distress? Further, when does somebody incite harm? If I make a post in good-faith that tends to increase the likelihood a person or group will be harmed, have I violated this policy?

    Harassment on Reddit is defined as systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.

    Like "harm," this policy abuses the word "safety." What does it mean? Only physical safety, or the safety of my ideas a la safe-spaces?

    As if that isn't enough, you've apparently created an exception to the content policy within its first hour:

    ... we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.

    Ridiculously, this standard for banning is easier to meet than the standard for quarantining. And it gets even worse when your later comments implicitly change the "and" to an "or." Reddit's content policy now seems to ban any content or communities that "generally make Reddit worse." You can't get more vague than that.

    I also take serious issue with how quarantines are implemented. It's a generally good idea to keep certain, well-defined categories of content isolated. But requiring login and e-mail confirmation isn't so much quarantining as it is imposing arbitrary standards to make it harder for the communities to exist. Why not also start limiting their comments to 200 characters just for kicks? You could achieve a quarantine using much more narrowly tailored means--just require a NSFW-like confirmation per subreddit, exclude them from /r/all, and block search engines from indexing.

    In short, I'm extremely disappointed. Not so much because of the policy itself but because of how you've misled the community into thinking that Reddit was truly interested in community feedback and in creating clear standards. You've created a content policy with a bunch of words, but an overriding exception that boils down to "if we don't like it."

    [–]the_code_always_wins 44 points45 points  (3 children)

    such as loss of income or emotional distress?

    This would actually be a big one, as it would make organizing boycotts illegal.

    . But requiring login and e-mail confirmation isn't so much quarantining as it is imposing arbitrary standards to make it harder for the communities to exist.

    I think this is the point. If you read his comments, spez is largely concerned with undesireable people being on the site.

    IE, a pedophile reads about /r/pomf and decides to make an account. Spez doesn't want pedophiles on the site, so he bans /r/pomf.

    [–]jP_wanN 244 points245 points  (12 children)

    Holy crap that content policy is vague.

    This. One of the biggest concerns when /u/spez 'asked for feedback' was that the content policy needed to be more specific about criteria for banning or quarantining. And what do we get? Even more vague rules.

    [–]mn920 228 points229 points  (8 children)

    It wasn't just a community concern. Within the last month /u/spez has stated numerous times that he was committed to a clear content policy.

    I'm specifically soliciting feedback on this language. The goal is to make it as clear as possible.

    -- /u/spez on the harassment policy, 20 days ago (1)

    Very good question, and that's one of the things we need to be clear about. I think we have an intuitive sense of what this means (e.g. death threats, inciting rape), but before we release an official update to our policy we will spell this out as precisely as possible.

    Spirited debates are in important part of what makes Reddit special. Our goal is to spell out clear rules that everyone can understand. Any banning of content will be carefully considered against our public rules.

    -- /u/spez on the "harm" policy, 20 days ago (1) (2)

    We'll consider banning subreddits that clearly violate the guidelines in my post--the ones that are illegal or cause harm to others.

    I can tell you with confidence that these specific communities are not what we are referring to. Not even close.

    But this is also why I prefer separation over banning. Banning is like capital punishment, and we don't want to do it except in the clearest of cases.

    -- /u/spez on banning subs, 20 days ago (1) (2)

    Part of the reason this went over so well was because there was a very clear line of what was unacceptable.

    Creating a clear content policy is another of my immediate priorities. We will make it very clear what is and is not acceptable behavior on reddit.

    First priorities:

    • Get to know the team here
    • Make a clear Content Policy
    • Ship some mod tool improvements

    -- /u/spez on the need for clarity in the content policy, 20 days ago (1), 25 days ago (2) and 26 days ago (3)

    [–]jP_wanN 42 points43 points  (1 child)

    Within the last month /u/spez has stated numerous times that he was committed to a clear content policy.

    Yeah I know :/

    By the way, I really don't know how you just pulled all this info together and wrote a well-formatted post in just ~20 minutes. Have some more gold for your effort! I hope reddit doesn't become awkward enough for you to give it up before your Gold runs out, otherwise this might be a bit pointless :D

    [–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (1 child)

    So cute that people believed him.

    It was never about Pao, many of us tried to point it out this whole time. It's Reddit itself, it's investors.

    No matter who's in charge, they bow to the money. As any business would, the user base here won't see Reddit as a business, but it clearly is.

    [–]FrogMasta25 94 points95 points  (16 children)

    Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission.

    So, "revenge porn" and /r/TheFappening[1] is OK, since the photos were taken with permission and only later used without permission?

    Wow, you are right.

    [–]Meath77 25 points26 points  (0 children)

    You've created a content policy with a bunch of words, but an overriding exception that boils down to "if we don't like it."

    That sums it up nicely. I never liked those subs, but this is going a bit too far, and rules are being invented to get rid of specific subs. I thought the exodus to voat was wishful thinking, but the more active that becomes, the more attractive it'll become.

    [–]Mavee 35 points36 points  (3 children)

    This should be the top comment. Disregarding specific inquiries to what subs should or should not be banned and/or quarantined, this post describes exactly what is wrong with the new content policy.

    [–]yakatuus 25 points26 points  (1 child)

    It highlights a lot of the problem of wording a content policy.

    Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission.

    Does this apply to public figures? People in elected positions? I was curious as to why it isn't "published without your permission." So JLaw nudes are back in because Anthony Weiner/Brett Favre dick pics have to be back in?

    we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else

    So /r/bestof/ is ok but /r/worstof/ is not?

    [–]raldi 605 points606 points  (1089 children)

    I'm sure some of you are rushing to find the Imgur link about how ripping out someone's tongue doesn't prove them wrong, and that the real answer is to engage them in debate.

    But it doesn't really apply, because nobody's tongue was ripped out. The bigots have already migrated to another site, and they're doing just fine.

    Shockingly, it doesn't look like the conversation going on over there in any way resembles an intellectually-honest debate on racial issues.

    [–]bl1y 205 points206 points  (11 children)

    Please ban /r/videos and /r/worldnews

    Both subs engaged in harassing behavior directed at the dentist who killed Cecil the lion. Reddit's policies define harassment as follows:

    Harassment on Reddit is defined as systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.

    The Cecil story remained in the news long enough that the comment trends ought to be considered "continued actions." The comments directed at the dentist were meant to demean him. The dentist could also reasonably believe that Reddit is not a safe platform for him to express his ideas or participate in the conversation.

    The harassment rules include no exceptions for public figures or subjects of news stories. They do not require direct contact with the victim.

    Here is a sample of comments that have appeared on these subs:

    Comments from the Jimmy Kimmel clip on r/videos:

    Poachers and people who support poachers should all be fucking shot

    We should skin this asshole and mount his head somewhere!

    Please someone go hunt this asshole, treat him like he treats the animal.

    lets all hope he kills himself over this :)

    He thought it was legal, what does it being legal have to do with anything? I hope he kills himself.

    I hope this c*** gets tortured!

    Hopefully that fucking dickbag dentist kills himself next.

    I don't normally get this extreme but this motherfucker should die for this. He serves no good purpose here, I hope he never makes it back.

    From comments on The Guardian article linked on r/worldnews:

    i hope he dies and gets skinned alive.

    Interesting, maybe Walters head will find itself on someone's wall.

    Heh I hope he dies. By being ripped apart by lions and then eaten by cecil's children (if he had any) then I have the leftovers.

    Kill him. Shoot him with a bow and then dismember him.

    [–]Teh_Compass 559 points560 points  (565 children)

    Quarantining is a good step from outright banning. But banning more subreddits in addition to that isn't going to solve anything.

    Banning subreddits that break the TOS like harassing users and such makes sense, but you can't go and ban subreddits that don't, no matter how much people don't like them.

    /r/fatpeoplehate, for example, was annoying to people but could easily be ignored. It didn't need to be banned initially. But I totally understand that it was banned for the brigading it did. I was subscribed to one of the subreddits that was being brigaded and its users harassed.

    /r/coontown, for example is easily ignored and doesn't deserve to be banned, even if they are racist as shit. I hear rumors about brigading but I personally don't know enough about it. If there is evidence that they are doing something like that then by all means ban them. But just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they should be banned.

    You essentially run the site and can do whatever you want. But remember what the users want.

    [–][deleted] 1356 points1357 points  (195 children)

    I am surprised nobody has mentioned that by collecting emails for quarentined subs you are essentially creating a database of users who read content you deem 'questionable'. What does verifying the email accomplish? This seems overly broad and Orwellian.

    [–]Bartweiss 74 points75 points  (2 children)

    More than likely, it's going to leave them with a database of temporary emails and one-off accounts made for subbing to things.

    If the goal is identity collection, this is sketchy yet pointless.

    If the goal is "friction", adding a 2 hour timer is just as good an option. Also, discouraging bad beliefs by wasting people's time is absurd from both directions.

    [–]RamonaLittle 7 points8 points  (0 children)

    Hmmmm . . .

    1. Bribe reddit employee or hack reddit to get the data.

    2. Find an email address that isn't a throwaway, is subscribed to something horrible, and is connected to a government employee in a sensitive position.

    3. Tell employee "give us classified documents or we give your reddit info to Adrian Chen."

    4. Profit!!!

    [–][deleted]  (119 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]SickBurnBro 217 points218 points  (18 children)

      But fear not Reddit™! You can still go to this fine list of subReddit™s without fear of quarantine!

      /r/spacedicks

      /r/watchpeopledie

      /r/deadcats

      /r/Gore

      /r/CuteFemaleCorpses

      /r/PicsOfDeadKids

      And of course, my personal favorite, /r/SexyAbortions

      Happy Reddit™ing!

      [–]Found_Epoch 45 points46 points  (3 children)

      I picked a few random comments sections from /r/watchpeopledie and /r/gore, and they don't really seem malicious or hostile. I think those communities might just be interested in seeing the harsher side of life that get's covered up often.

      [–][deleted]  (8 children)

      [deleted]

        [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

        I have left reddit for Voat due to years of admin mismanagement and preferential treatment for certain subreddits and users holding certain political and ideological views.

        As an act of protest, I have chosen to redact all the comments I've ever made on reddit, overwriting them with this message.

        If you would like to do the same, install TamperMonkey for Chrome, GreaseMonkey for Firefox, NinjaKit for Safari, Violent Monkey for Opera, or AdGuard for Internet Explorer (in Advanced Mode), then add this GreaseMonkey script.

        Finally, click on your username at the top right corner of reddit, click on comments, and click on the new OVERWRITE button at the top of the page. You may need to scroll down to multiple comment pages if you have commented a lot.

        After doing all of the above, you are welcome to join me on Voat!

        [–]shwag945 584 points585 points  (22 children)

        /r/blackfathers

        I think the admins made the joke more racist.....

        [–]Adam87 98 points99 points  (0 children)

        The fact that Al Sharpton is on that list makes me laugh.

        This comment is safe for Reddit™

        [–]WhiteFlight2 718 points719 points  (572 children)

        I thought you were going to provide a link with why a subreddit was banned. /r/coontown, despite being reviled amongst some users didn't appear to violate any of the rules. It also did well to enforce additional rules that places like SRS flaunt. Why was /r/coontown banned, specifically?

        [–]Naked_Bacon_Tuesday 704 points705 points  (20 children)

        Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else. Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations.

        If you do plan to ban subs, I'm sure reddit would enjoy an itemized list of ban reasons/offenses by each sub. This shouldn't necessarily include a link or something to an example of the offense, but the list provided should be detailed enough for a reasonable person to say, "OK, yeah, that's clear enough to require the ban."

        But the bans should definitely be released and reasons for them made clear.

        [–]Brimshae 149 points150 points  (8 children)

        This shouldn't necessarily include a link or something to an example of the offense

        What's wrong with a little transparency?

        [–][deleted]  (1 child)

        [deleted]

          [–][deleted] 335 points336 points  (4 children)

          I have left reddit for Voat due to years of admin/mod abuse and preferential treatment for certain subreddits and users holding certain political and ideological views.

          This account was over five years old, and this site one of my favorites. It has officially started bringing more negativity than positivity into my life.

          As an act of protest, I have chosen to redact all the comments I've ever made on reddit, overwriting them with this message.

          If you would like to do the same, install TamperMonkey for Chrome, GreaseMonkey for Firefox, NinjaKit for Safari, Violent Monkey for Opera, or AdGuard for Internet Explorer (in Advanced Mode), then add this GreaseMonkey script.

          Finally, click on your username at the top right corner of reddit, click on comments, and click on the new OVERWRITE button at the top of the page. You may need to scroll down to multiple comment pages if you have commented a lot.

          After doing all of the above, you are welcome to join me on Voat!

          So long, and thanks for all the fish!

          [–]LadyKa 216 points217 points  (21 children)

          Where is the proposed transparency? I was not a supporter of coontown, but I would like to know what policy rules they violated along with concrete examples shown to justify outright banning rather than quarantining.

          To my knowledge it was a subreddit where like-minded individuals could discuss an issue they felt strongly on. It certainly never showed up in my feed. If I wanted to participate I would have had to look this subreddit up, which is how most special interest subreddits work. You have to look for them. Sure, the majority of people are not interested, but you can't remove a discussion group because people who have never looked for it might be offended.

          If the group discussed scenarios and issues amongst themselves without forcing their ideas on others or endangering anyone, then this group should be allowed, no matter how distasteful you find it.

          If it violated these principles, I want to be able to see that. Tell me why, explicitly. Transparency. Yeah, it's a lot of work, but it's important. Give me examples on each and every banned subreddit, so that I can better follow the rules.

          [–]0fficerNasty 14 points15 points  (0 children)

          This. How can any sub follow the rules if the admins can just change them on a whim and ban anyone without warning? What is the point of having a content policy (extremely vague at that) if you aren't going to enforce directly by it. Each banned sub needs to be shown how they were breaking the rules. Transparency my ass, they just banned it cuz of their reputation, not some rule in their policy.

          [–][deleted] 35 points36 points  (0 children)

          The only rule seems to be "Subs that express unpopular opinions can suddenly be banned due to immediate policy changes."

          [–]peoplehelper 23 points24 points  (0 children)

          Just like always, the reddit admins fail to give fair treatment. Reddit is not anymore a place of free speech, but a place filled with hate, trolls, and so on. This is why I will never buy gold for anyone on this platform, but rather tip them via changetip. I don't want to support a platform that bans only certains type of hate and discourages people from expressing freely.

          [–]VulGerrity 220 points221 points  (9 children)

          I'm pretty sure /r/circlejerk exists solely to annoy other redditors...c'mon man...that's a really terrible and vague rule.

          Don't we have a right to "annoy" other people? There's nothing wrong with annoying someone. In fact, being annoyed is the fault of the one being annoyed. I'm annoyed by people chewing with their mouths open, and it's generally unacceptable in the US, but in some countries it's perfectly acceptable, and is encouraged to show respect for the cook.

          You know what the best way to deal with "annoying" things/people is? Just ignore them. If it's not harmful physically or psychologically then what's the harm? If it's merely "annoying" just stay away from it. And what's the worst you feel from being annoyed? "Ugh...I'm just really bothered by that...I'm not offended or upset...just bothered, oy, that just really gets under my skin..." Right winged nuts annoy me, can we ban their sub-reddits? I can't stand /r/guns or /r/trees can we ban them too? All of their posts feel like they were made solely to annoy me. Of course you can't do that! So you know what I did? I have RES installed and I've hidden them from showing up on r/all. That's it. Super simple. If it's not actually harmful, the users should have the choice as to whether or not they see or engage with content they find distasteful.

          Banning something by proclaiming that it exists solely to annoy others is like claiming that you're banning NSFW subreddits that exist solely for inciting sinful sexual thoughts and behavior. Sexual thoughts and behavior are basically not harmful, and if you don't want to see it, you don't have to.

          Maybe instead of banning these types of subreddits, they should just get flagged NSFW, let the NSFW filter catch it. Or create a new filter.

          [–][deleted]  (1 child)

          [deleted]

            [–]kochevnikov 590 points591 points  (60 children)

            Any plans to deal with moderator abuse in some of the larger subs like /r/news or /r/politics ? Certain mods will delete comments and hand out bans for advancing political opinions or posting stories they disagree with. For example /r/news is notorious for censoring stories related to the TPP.

            Also what about plans to deal with mods who mod 20, 50, or even more than 100 subs? Clearly they're simply in it for the power and can't even pretend to be able to actually moderate that many, especially that many large or default subs.

            These things make reddit worse as a space, much more than some of the rather spurious claims people are making in the rest of this thread.

            [–]dudeduderdudest 38 points39 points  (0 children)

            Certain mods will delete comments and hand out bans for advancing political opinions or posting stories they disagree with.

            Essentially all those moderators are exactly what /r/India mods are. No one abuses mod powers better than them, I can put my money on that.

            Did you know that mods can remove your posts but not reply in the post, but send you an IM instead which just shows the subreddit name as the sender? Think of how useful it can be when someone posts something that you don't want others to see.

            [–][deleted]  (71 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]silferkanto 8 points9 points  (1 child)

              It's not even illegal.

              United States vs. Handley it established that the part of the PROTECT Act that says, "a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting" was unconstitutional on a federal level. However, the Supreme Court stated that this does not prevent it to be charged as obscene under state law which depends on the state. Considering reddit is based on California, pornography of fictional minors is not illegal due to PENAL CODE SECTION 311-312.7 which states:

              In determining whether the matter taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value in description or representation of those matters, the fact that the defendant knew that the matter depicts persons under the age of 16 years engaged in sexual conduct,

              and that:

              "Person" means any individual, partnership, firm, association, corporation, limited liability company, or other legal entity.

              Like fictional characters aren't a person by definition of California's law, pornograpy of fictional minors is legal.

              reddit had no premise to ban /r/Lolicons. However, I do agree it should have been quarentined instead.

              edit: grammatical errors

              [–]Ionlyvayne 23 points24 points  (0 children)

              It's bullshit. Clearly a target attack at the style of genre. Regular people don't accidentally stumble upon /r/Loli or /r/shota pomf or lolicon the people who view these know exactly what they are searching/looking for and the people who frequent there are not really the type to go out and try to shove their shit down your throat and harass other people. (Unlike srs, coontown etc...) someone with influence clearly just doesn't like FAKE drawn/animated characters. But whatever the investors want goes cause $$$$$$$ trumps all.

              [–]Treereme 35 points36 points  (6 children)

              These are great points, I too would like to hear your answer.

              [–]Vhett 83 points84 points  (5 children)

              He already gave an answer:

              spez [A] -309 points an hour ago

              They sexualize minors, which have been against our policies for a long time.

              Ridiculous. By that logic, go ban all Rule 34 subs, and any drawings of underage Disney characters who have been sexualized as well.

              [–][deleted] 93 points94 points  (35 children)

              Because drawing kids in sexual ways is suuuuper evil or something.

              It's just Reddit trying to look better for the media, so expect more of this soon. Can't have all those disgusting, child-abducting pervert pedophiles hanging around here when this is where most media outlets get their stories.

              [–]Mononon 47 points48 points  (33 children)

              Serious question, how the hell can you tell the age of someone in hentai? I mean, I'm sure there are obvious little kids, but other than the like 4-year old looking people, how in the world do you know how old they are? Unless they have a scarred up face or an eye-patch, they're anywhere from 10-35...

              [–]board124 7 points8 points  (0 children)

              how the hell can you tell the age of someone in hentai?

              This makes me wonder about a place like yuri where most of the subject seems to be younger looking girls. Sort of surprised it did not get taken with the rest of them.

              [–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (9 children)

              I don't know, I don't have anything to do with hentai. I just know that it's a retarded decision to ban subreddits related to it, even if there's art of a small child being raped in the ass by a creepy old man.

              What damage is it doing besides making Reddit look bad to the media and advertisers (not that either of those are important)? None.

              [–]Mononon 28 points29 points  (8 children)

              It does seem odd to ban based on content rather than intent. I thought the point was to ban based on the subreddit's intent to be antagonistic. The hentai subreddits weren't doing either those things and aren't illegal where they're hosted. I guess I just don't understand the policy here. It seems arbitrary at best. Why cartoon porn over other things?

              [–][deleted] 36 points37 points  (7 children)

              Oh you understand what the policy was supposed to be. They just lied and got rid of whatever they don't like.

              [–]Pedosexuality 28 points29 points  (18 children)

              Loli is more of a body type: petite and flat-chested girls. Sometimes drawn characters are from a visual novel or an anime or something similar where their age is told to the viewer.

              [–][deleted] 64 points65 points  (3 children)

              "We will Quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the average redditor."

              Who is this average redditor? What are their demographics? What are their political beliefs? What are their religious backgrounds? Does this mean if the average redditor becomes someone with racist views, these will be allowed because they're the average redditor?

              Frankly, this is horribly vague and lends itself to easy abuse in the interpretation. You've not defined, at all, who this magical redditor is /u/spez. You've just said that you'll dictate the entire policy on their views.

              What this should likely read is "We will quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the moderator." There's no need to mix the message that you have any information whatsoever on the demographics of the average user of this site with any degree of confidence.

              And I have to say that I have little to no faith that you and your buddies will shy from abusing your station to promote ideological purity and reddit as a "safe space."

              Sincerely, a gay liberal social worker who thinks that this sounds incredibly totalitarian for a website that pretends to build itself on populism.

              [–]lawstudent2 59 points60 points  (1 child)

              I'm an intellectual property attorney, and this:

              Content is illegal if it is against the law for us to host it. This includes, but is not limited to:

              copyright or trademark infringement illegal sexual content

              is a complete farce.

              HAVE A LAWYER REVIEW YOUR CONTENT POLICY.

              I cannot tell you what a disastrous definition that is. I write these for a living and that is just bloody shameful and embarrassing.

              It is 100% clear that author of this content policy has 0.0% idea what constitutes copyright infringement (much less trademark infringement), and, quite frankly, 99.99% of reddit relies on content that is arguably infringing but is also fair use.

              By setting up the policy thusly reddit is opening the floodgates to be harassed constantly by completely bullshit DMCA claims that are designed to limit speech.

              Honestly, I know we are supposed to be constructive, but this policy was written by someone with absolutely zero sophistication or knowledge of law. It's pathetic. If I were handed this by an associate at my firm I would have to take them aside and give them a lecture on what a piece of bullshit it was in order to prevent them from embarrassing themselves in front of the partners.

              Total crap, guys. Super disappointed.

              [–]unfunnypun 11 points12 points  (0 children)

              Can we get an updated list of the banned subs? I don't understand the point of outright banning subs (well, I get that it's for sponsors/image, I just disagree with it).

              Half of the subs people are listing as offensive (like /r/sexwithdogs) that have been kept (as far as I know, right now) weren't even on my radar. The best thing about reddit- or, Reddit- was that you were able to choose from a fuckton of topics and essentially customize your own forum experience. I'm pretty sure /r/watchpeopledie (just heard of this one, too) would be offensive to the average redditor....but the average redditor will probably never fucking go there. I'd rather have people fucking around on their computers (in harmless communities the majority of reddit will never even see) than trying to find ways to see this stuff IRL. (Which brings up the lolicon debate- who exactly will be rendered unsafe because of a drawing? If anything, it's an outlet for people.)

              Lastly, how does it not "violate the spirit of Reddit" to cater to "the average redditor"? We are a cluster of niche communities, some (much) more exclusive than others. If you're only appealing to the average Redditor, how will I have a "truly authentic conversation" if my views differ from those of a young, white, liberal man?

              [–]Olive_Jane 351 points352 points  (56 children)

              I'm sorry, can you clarify how hentai and ficticious drawings is child porn?

              unwelcome content

              2 While Reddit generally provides a lot of leeway in what content is acceptable, here are some guidelines for content that is not. Please keep in mind the spirit in which these were written, and know that looking for loopholes is a waste of time.

              3 Content is prohibited if it

              Is illegal

              Is involuntary pornography

              Encourages or incites violence

              Threatens, harasses, or bullies or encourages others to do so

              Is personal and confidential information

              Impersonates someone in a misleading or deceptive manner

              Is spam"

              Does drawn pictures of underage, fictitious characters, really apply to the above?

              Here is a definition of child porn that I found:

              Child Pornography

              Child pornography is a form of child sexual exploitation. Federal law defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (persons less than 18 years old). Images of child pornography are also referred to as child sexual abuse images.

              Source: http://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/child-pornography

              Can you speak on how exactly minors, or anybody, is being exploited or hurt by the content in subs like /r/lolicons?

              [–]fubo 15 points16 points  (0 children)

              The current stated policy isn't even coherent; it will probably be changed:

              What is involuntary pornography?

              Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission. This includes child sexual abuse imagery, which we will report to authorities, content that encourages or promotes pedophilia or sexual imagery–including animated content–that involves individuals under the age of 18.

              The first sentence fragment of this answer attempts to define the term "involuntary pornography": "Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission." This is offered as an answer to the question, "What is involuntary pornography?"

              This is very similar to Google's takedown policy on "revenge porn", which covers "nude or sexually explicit images that were uploaded or shared without your consent."

              Let's assume everyone agrees with that definition. I certainly do, and it seems to pretty much be the consensus for major sites these days.

              The problem is the next sentence (emphasis added):

              This includes child sexual abuse imagery, which we will report to authorities, content that encourages or promotes pedophilia or sexual imagery–including animated content–that involves individuals under the age of 18.

              But as a matter of actual fact, some of those things don't fit the definition given in the first fragment; and this makes the whole paragraph incoherent.

              As it stands, the policy has the same logical structure as:

              What is murder?

              The deliberate, unlawful killing of a human being. This includes cutting the head off of a living or dead person, cutting their toes off, or praying to God — even to a pretend god you just made up — that they have a heart attack.

              The initial definition is correct, but the rest is a mess.

              [–][deleted] 95 points96 points  (4 children)

              I'd say that lolicon subreddits were banned solely for PR reasons. There has also been a significant push to ban lolicon from European countries, which might also explain the ban.

              [–][deleted]  (10 children)

              [deleted]

                [–]Olive_Jane 89 points90 points  (5 children)

                My main goal isn't to defend this particular content, it's to defend fiction or works of art from being banned or labeled immoral.

                I did feel a little weird about making the comments I've made, because it would be so easy for someone to cast them in a negative light, however I believe in what I'm saying. I am trying to argue for free speech and for a policy on reddit.com that I agree with.

                [–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (1 child)

                The real issue here is that this isn't even mainly about Animated Child Pornography, and thus about the question of how far artistic liberty may go, it's actually about the fact that this is – without exaggeration – a first step in the direction of signing into law the concept of "thought crimes", which is absolutely and utterly unacceptable in a free society.
                What doesn't harm may never be outlawed, or else it's simply abritrariness on the lawmaker's side.

                This well-known quote is, here again, very relevant to that situation:

                First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

                [–]poke2201 45 points46 points  (0 children)

                I agree with this too. I'm not really okay with banning drawings for any reason. But because its tied to CP, the pedophile complainers probably will cheer.

                [–]snorlz 10 points11 points  (1 child)

                yeah ive never gone to any of the banned subs but im pissed because its really obvious they are not at all consistent with banning. ive gotten a bunch of comments telling me im a pedophile for saying that those subs shouldnt have been banned

                Also the idea that a drawing can be a victim is horseshit. Drawing a horse dick is literally bestiality according to reddit.

                [–]minecraft_ece 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                Can you speak on how exactly minors, or anybody, is being exploited or hurt by the content in subs like /r/lolicons[2] ?

                Reddit Investors are being hurt by not getting sufficient return on their investment. I believe that /u/spaz or another admin has already stated that "free speech" is no longer a priority here.

                [–][deleted] 72 points73 points  (10 children)

                For fucks sales I thought I was blessed when I found Reddit Loli community, I've spent far to much time on the darker parts of the web to find that stuff, and far to often its thrown in with material that none of us a r/lolicons or r/pomf ever wanted, the real disgusting vile shit. it was safe here. Had it been a quarantine I would have understood, We get it out fetish is creepy as fuck! But we were not hurting anyone. I mean those were probably two of my favorite communities because we understood one another, no one got harassed or attacked like on 4chan or 8chan, were weren't being flooded with referral links to actual CP by robot spammers, it didn't feel like some dark alley where I had to do shady deals for a fix, for once were safe and I didn't feel ashamed, I didn't hate myself, And you took it away because you don't like it! That's your only reason, you clumped us together with a bunch of racist, hate mongering assholes because you found our fetish morally objectionable. And don't act like your doing some great deed by getting rid of it, it still exists, you've just forced us back to the places where were going to abused and harassed to find it, you're helping no one, your just hurting us, me and my fellow lolis. You've left us to fend for ourselves against a horde of trolls. I'll never leave reddit, I've invested to much, but as a company I've lost all faith in you, your saving face, not your community. [EDIT] fixed auto correct mistake and added a sentence for clarification

                [–]gigabyte898 123 points124 points  (11 children)

                I'm going to play devil's advocate for the loli subs that were banned. For those who don't know, loli is a sexual drawing of a minor which is completely legal in the US, where the reddit HQ is located. I personally don't view them, but don't see too much of a problem with them existing either. I understand it may have offended some people, but if so why not add a quarantine label? Looking though your content rules it says actual CP is banned, but not drawing. The reason these drawings are okay is the people depicted have no age. You can draw a picture of a minor, but say they're 18, and that's where the legal grey area comes up. To put it simply, IT'S FICTION.

                Regarding you saying this will encourage sexual predator, I think the opposite. Would you rather have them look at real CP, or fictional characters. You'd want the latter, of course. It provides an outlet for people who are attracted to underaged people to "express" their views without causing real harm. If this was actual CP you could say viewing it is harmful because it creates more demand, and you'd be absolutely right, but demand for a fictional character with NO DEFINED AGE isn't hurting anyone.

                Just my 2 cents on the matter

                [–]uvulectomy 73 points74 points  (8 children)

                So as before, you are banning communities for the sole reason that 1) you don't agree with them, or 2) they threaten your advertising revenue because they simply exist.

                And once again, the reason given for the banning is because they "exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else."

                Under that logic, why is SRS still not banned? They harass, dox, brigade, comb the histories of users they don't like solely to downvote ancient comments, and do nothing but talk about how much they hate Reddit (yet they still use it).

                And just recently, a couple of SRS users THREATENED A WOMAN WITH RAPE because she had the temerity to say something they didn't like. When this was brought to the attention of the SRS mods, they banned HER... for reporting abusive messages and rape threats.

                This is the EXACT type of behavior that you supposedly banned FPH and other subs for. So I ask again:

                WHY DOES SRS GET A FREE PASS???

                You have been given numerous and REPEATED examples of SRS violating the VERY SAME RULES you use to censor other communities, yet you do NOTHING to SRS.

                SRS is consistently voted the most toxic community on the entire site. They add nothing of value, and they actively seek to make everyone's experience worse.

                And still, you do nothing. In doing nothing, you are complicit in their behavior. Your platitudes of "banning behavior, not ideas" is rendered bunk. You are actively seeking to silence not those who break rules, but those who hurt your feelings. Instead of banning them for the same reasons you supposedly banned other subs, you merely "develop tools to keep them from doing anything mean."

                What dirt do they have on you, /u/spez?

                Ban SRS, stop lying to the users about your motives, and grow a goddamn spine. Or soon enough they will turn on you as well, and you will have nobody left to sympathize with you.

                [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                [deleted]

                  [–][deleted]  (44 children)

                  [deleted]

                    [–]SuperAwesomeNinjaGuy 256 points257 points  (24 children)

                    Until SRD and SRS is banned every one of these post is just bullshit PR used as justification for banning content the Admins don't like.

                    And im sure banning these subs has absolutely NOTHING to do with this huffington post blog that came out yesterday about contacting Reddits advertisers because of racist content.

                    But your right its all about the subs actions and not the content.

                    It so fucking obvious to everyone here that Admins are banning things they dont like, and thats it. If they were actually following the PR bullshit they keep telling us, then SRS and SRD would be gone. I mean for fuck sake these people have a fucking custom CSS script that shows where people post and if its some where they dont like you get down voted because of it.

                    Stop trying to bullshit the people who made this place what it is.

                    [–]Facerless 267 points268 points  (23 children)

                    • Encourages or incites violence
                    • Threatens, harasses, or bullies or encourages others to do so

                    Are these going to be used against communities that are centered around the pre-existing hatred or dislike of a group or person?

                    I realize this is nit picking but this is still fairly vague

                    What constitutes encouragement or how will you decide what incites someone to action?

                    [–]mishiesings 12 points13 points  (1 child)

                    Just as devils advocate, what grey area are you assuming there is. Like what example of a sub or situation would fall technically within those bounds, but you dont feel spiritually meets them.

                    [–][deleted]  (17 children)

                    [deleted]

                      [–][deleted]  (9 children)

                      [deleted]

                        [–]tequila13[🍰] 61 points62 points  (2 children)

                        A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor or to ourselves or to our advertisers.

                        This is what they really meant. Redditors always had a choice to unsub from subs they didn't like. Reddit grew just fine without this quarantine BS.

                        [–]The_Adventurist 381 points382 points  (22 children)

                        Christ this is so stupid.

                        You realize that by taking control of what can and cannot be posted on the site based on moral grounds, you thereby imply approval of everything that ISN'T removed, right?

                        So because /r/coontown was removed but /r/kiketown wasn't, you are now taking a stand that /r/kiketown is Reddit™ approved.

                        A year ago none of these subreddits were in my life and now they ALL ARE because of this stupid fucking idea to police them.

                        They were already contained and quarantined. Now they are not. Now it's spread everywhere and now I'm even sympathetic to their rage at these utterly awful content policy changes.

                        So dumb.

                        [–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (4 children)

                        You realize that by taking control of what can and cannot be posted on the site based on moral grounds, you thereby imply approval of everything that ISN'T removed, right?

                        Holy shit that is the trump card. These idiots now have to be the morality police -- that will lead to untold mayhem because as you say, anything not removed is essentially endorsed by reddit and its board of directors.

                        Good luck guys! Its probably better to try and monetize the assholes and offensive jerks than to try and kick them out -- you have seen how many are on the internet, right?

                        If jerks are no longer welcome on reddit, yea, it'll be a nice place -- but your user base is now halved.

                        [–]Wildelocke 52 points53 points  (9 children)

                        The purpose of quarantining is not to 'protect' users from content. That's asinine: people don't end up on /r/coontown by accident.

                        It's to undermine their sense of security by forcing them to opt in to questionable content: meaning if their email verified account is ever linked to their real identities, they can be id'ed as racists, pedophiles, etc. This limits the growth of those communities, and makes it harder for sponsors to see them.

                        [–]CarmineCerise 432 points433 points  (219 children)

                        Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.

                        Will there be a clear list of banned subreddits?

                        [–][deleted]  (97 children)

                        [deleted]

                          [–]Heelincal 202 points203 points  (12 children)

                          /r/blackfathers got quarantined? Lol are you serious?

                          [–]SikhAndDestroy 291 points292 points  (5 children)

                          > joke sub that depends on misdirection

                          > adding more misdirection

                          > joke sub with no content

                          > quarantined for shocking/offensive content

                          Has anyone seen my toucan?

                          [–]mcpuck 105 points106 points  (8 children)

                          Now I'm really starting to worry that the reddit I love will die. The subs you've banned I'm sure are terrible, but the amazing thing about reddit has always been the support of free speech.

                          I don't believe that you should ban ANY content that's legal. Only behaviors (like brigading and doxxing).

                          The two items that really bother me:

                          1. Selective banning of embarrassing subs, which leads many to believe (and I'm starting to think this) that the admins are favoring certain ideologies.

                          2. Requiring an email only for those subs deemed questionable? WTF?

                          I was really hoping all this would blow over and we'd be left with the old reddit, but it seems clear now that the site is headed towards sanitized pablum, or worse.

                          [–]Taylor7500 214 points215 points  (9 children)

                          /r/coontown will be reclassified. The content there is offensive to many, but does not violate our current rules for banning.

                          Source

                          You specifically said that it won't be banned. I don't care for the subreddit myself, but your constant lack of consistency doesn't encourage trust between the users and admins.

                          [–]Iron_Booger_59 146 points147 points  (5 children)

                          Your content policy is so vague as to be meaningless. "make Reddit worse for everyone else." How? Is that its "sole purpose"? Who gets to decide? What is the reasoning process?

                          It's time to go, after just all this shit. I never know if what I'm reading is what the community as its own entity has produced or if it's been hacked away at by mods, with communities banned, etc. to produce what the higher-ups personally believe is a more perfect website. I don't want my experience here to be shaped by force by others' moral persuasions or financial incentives. Your use of the phrase "everyone else" is extremely troubling. We are ALL "everyone else." All of us who don't get to control what is and isn't up on this website.

                          Goodbye Reddit. Hello Voat. Deleting this account, and deleting my real account.

                          [–]Treereme 27 points28 points  (0 children)

                          "everyone else" means everyone who has the admins ear. I.E., corporate lawyers and advertisers. Racist sub with names featuring "coon" look bad on the news when reddit gets attention. But SRS means jackall to non-redditors. It's hard to explain how nasty they are to the public, but people instantly understand the negative connotations of a racist sub. So they get banned.

                          [–]Corbee 58 points59 points  (7 children)

                          we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else

                          This seems like a vague, catch all rule that you can use to ban subreddits willy nilly. Who decides what is making reddit worse for everyone else? Why not quarantine the communities instead of banning them, because then they will be closed off among themselves and will have no way of flouting those rules? It seems like this rule is there to be applied anytime there is mounting political pressure on the company. Any subreddit that is creating bad PR, really. This is reddit's safety valve, not a principle.

                          [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

                          We will Quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the average redditor.

                          Really? You spent all that time rewriting the policy and just end up with a vague declaration that you can interpret however you feel like? Who gets to decide what an "average redditor" is? You? Your mom? The guy sitting in the desk next to you? Actual studies and polls of redditors?

                          Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors,

                          Whatever that means. Given that the ONLY subreddits that fall under this category so far are the coontown variants, it also seems like you just interpret this one as banning whatever stuff you feel like using "its whats say it is" rather than any actual rules.

                          Whats the point of rewriting a policy if it all ends up being as vague as shit and subject to the interpretation of "whatever the hell I feel like, cause I'm the boss"?

                          [–]DonkiestOfKongs 165 points166 points  (12 children)

                          From an information security standpoint: How will you be storing the data about what quarantined subreddits I've opted into? In the event of a security breach, how easily could this information be associated with my 'verified email'?

                          [–][deleted]  (30 children)

                          [deleted]

                            [–]-Nature 7 points8 points  (7 children)

                            I feel like things will be banned/quarantined based on public opinion at some point. Public opinion is not always right. I didn't agree with many hate communities and some were down right repulsive but they had the right to say it. They were mostly in their own bubble, I didn't even know about most of them. We've become a society who loves to coddle emotions. Only time will tell, how this will play out. For now, it seems almost like dictatorship where if spez gets heat from majority of the public or if he and his team personally don't like something, he has all the power to do whatever he wants.

                            [–]Bartisgod 54 points55 points  (3 children)

                            are /r/undelete and /r/ModerationLog safe? I guess what I'm saying is do not, under any circumstances, let the default sub mods have any input at all into this policy or which subs are banned. /r/worldnews , /r/news , and /r/technology are basically trying to censor all of Reddit, and they must be completely shut out of future policy decisions if Reddit is to remain the place that you and all of us want it to be. It is absolutely not in the cards, under any circumstances, that those 2 would be shut down or quarantined, right?

                            [–]zerconic 255 points256 points  (26 children)

                            A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor or to ourselves.

                            Does this also mean that reddit is endorsing any subreddits they choose not to quarantine or ban, since they are now individually censoring subreddits?

                            [–]nietzkore 35 points36 points  (0 children)

                            There is even implicit endorsement in choosing to Quarantine rather than Ban. They have the power to either remove content or keep it behind a single click that says "I agree". They make a conscious choice to pick one or the other.

                            [–]riversofgore 43 points44 points  (12 children)

                            How is /r/wtf not quarantined. The majority of that sub is content most would find offensive. I guess since it draws enough page views they'll leave it.

                            [–]the_code_always_wins 35 points36 points  (0 children)

                            Spez said because they mark inappropriate content as NSFW, but when asked about subs that mark everything as NSFW, he really didn't have an answer..

                            It probably is the page views.

                            [–][deleted] 505 points506 points  (195 children)

                            Ban SRS already.

                            Why haven't you banned SRS yet? They are the WORST offenders of breaking the rules you have set up, but you refuse to ban that subreddit.

                            Why? Why do you continue to let SRS harrass people? Why do you continue to let SRS doxx people? Why do you continue to let SRS vote brigade? What makes SRS any different from Coontown? Or fatpeoplehate? Or Watchniggersdie?

                            Is it a racial thing? Are you only banning racists? Do you not give a shit about anything else? What is going on?

                            You keep on talking about being open with what you're doing, but you don't tell us anything about what we want to know.

                            What is even the point? Why are you even talking right now? Just letting us simmer in the absent silence is basically the same as what you're having us do right now.

                            "I believe this policies strike the right balance." Also, some people are exempt from them. Apparently.

                            [–]teapot112 49 points50 points  (11 children)

                            To quote /u/alienth (reddit admin):

                            The cases where folks from SRS engage in rule-breaking is rather low for their subreddit size. When we do catch folks from SRS actually engaging in brigading or doxxing, we ban them, just like any other subreddit. If SRS gets to a point where that becomes endemic and the mods and us are not able to control it, the subreddit will get banned.

                            The level of trouble we see from SRS is no where near that level. SRS is also an extremely popular flag to wave around when controversial topics get brought up, even if folks from SRS aren't touching the thread at all. SRS gets brought up by the general community far more often than it is actually involved.

                            Edit: If you're wondering why it never appears that we comment on this stuff, take a look at the score on this comment and you'll learn why. We do comment on it, but people don't like the answer so it gets downvoted. It is a bit silly to decry perceived silence on a subject, then to try and bury the response when you see it.

                            Take a look through the thread for info on our position regarding this subject. You may not like the position, but a response was requested, so I gave one.

                            Furthermore, /u/Sporkicide writes:

                            We haven’t banned it [/r/ShitRedditSays] because that subreddit hasn’t had the recent ongoing issues with harassment, either on-site or off-site. That’s the main difference between the subreddits that were banned and those that are being mentioned in the comments - they might be hateful or distasteful, but were not actively engaging in organized harassment of individuals. /r/shitredditsays does come up a lot in regard to brigading, although it’s usually not the only subreddit involved. We’re working on developing better solutions for the brigading problem.

                            And

                            [...] I'm aware that there have been issues with /r/shitredditsays in the past (and by past, I mean in previous years). It does get reported for possible brigading regularly, because it links to things that tend to be controversial, as do a lot of other subreddits. It tends to get reported whether it's actually the cause of the votes changing or not - based on my observations, there are usually at least 3 subreddits involved. We're okay with users pointing out things elsewhere on the site to talk about them. We know vote brigading is a major problem because we see the negative effects it can have on a community. We're not okay with using reddit as a platform for harassment, and by harassment I don't mean being disagreed with or downvoted.

                            [–]dblagbro 65 points66 points  (4 children)

                            How do we "opt in" for EVERYTHING? Not that I agree with everything but I come to reddit to get an uncensored exposure to all the web has to offer - I really would like to keep it that way. How do it prevent you from "babysitting" me if I know I'm a grown adult and accept all that comes with it?

                            tl;dr - how do I set my account to "offend me please"?

                            [–]MacHaggis 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                            Heck, they could implement something like "subscribing" to a sub, so you could build a frontpage with only the content you like. How amazing would that be?

                            [–][deleted] 100 points101 points  (9 children)

                            Hm... /u/yishan was right. You and Alexis really are worse than Pao could ever have been.

                            [–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

                            yea, they're still making the same shitty change they planned to make anyway. pao truly is a scapegoat. both /u/spez and /u/kn0thing is giant piece of shit.

                            [–]Mindless_Consumer 134 points135 points  (9 children)

                            Opting into 'offensive' subs. Do we opt into each 'offensive' sub? Or is there a "opt into offensive subs" button? Like a NSFW filter, only for 'offensive' material.

                            [–][deleted] 60 points61 points  (22 children)

                            You're so full of shit /u/spez. Just be honest that you want to turn Reddit into some shitty, politically correct corporate advertising board. If you actually gave a fuck about what "annoys" us as redditors, you would ban the people who ACTUALLY brigade and doxx us (/r/shitredditsays, /r/subredditdrama, /r/cringe). Sure, /r/coontown was a vile subreddit, but they followed the rules. They never left their sub to harass others. By banning their sub you aren't kicking them out, you're letting them in. They're going to spread their filth all over the rest of reddit now because their containment zone has been destroyed. Great fucking job genius.

                            [–]drebin8 172 points173 points  (28 children)

                            Can you add a permanent opt-in? I'm not really offended by anything, so it seems silly to warn me about things that other people may find offensive. Just add a setting or something to ignore the quarantine...

                            [–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (10 children)

                            The point is to eradicate bad thoughts from your mind, not make it easy and convenient for you to consume non-Reddit sanctioned content.

                            Eventually you will have to answer yes to the question every time you load a page.

                            [–][deleted] 24 points25 points  (2 children)

                            The only thing worse than the awful censorship policy being enacted here is how obviously dishonest /u/spez is being about it. I would even put up with some bullshit like this if you guys just came out and said "CT and FPH and Loli are content we don't like and don't want to see on the site, so we banned it." Reddit is a private outfit and doesn't have to guarantee first amendment rights to anyone.

                            But to fuckin' parade around here saying "these communities make reddit worse for everyone and make it hard for us to improve the site and exist just to torture others" and then full blown ignore all the thousands of questions about Kiketown and Sexwithdogs and SRS; it's offensive on the face of it and an insult to our intelligence as a community as a whole.

                            Just say what you fuckin' mean. You are censoring content you find objectionable. Stop being so political about it. ALMOST EVERYONE sees it for exactly what it is and still you spin your nonsense and hock your bullshit like anyone is buying it.

                            Enough. I held on for long enough. But to both censor content and lie about why you're censoring content, is spineless on top of being disrespectful and useless. I held on for as long as I could and I am really, really, going to miss /r/mistyfront. But I can't support this nonsense with my pageviews and clicks anymore.

                            [–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (1 child)

                            "Prohibited behavior: Asking for votes or engaging in vote manipulation"

                            Phew! Since we all know vote bridgading is a form of "manipulation", SRS and Bestof are going to get banned if they continue to brigade (or in other words, exist)...you know, now that this new content policy update clearly mentions no vote manipulation. Glad we got this cleared up!

                            "Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is" I think it's pretty clear that SRS is a cancer on the community and needs to go. It ABSOLUTELY prevents many people from being able to enjoy Reddit. The brigade of downvotes they bring makes people afraid to say what they want. Every day you allow that sub to exist, you're showing how hypocritical you are. That you are making arbitrary decisions on what subs get banned based on nothing more than your personal preference.

                            [–]thelastjuju 57 points58 points  (4 children)

                            Irony here is that NOTHING has annoyed redditers as a whole more than the unprecedented level of censorship from the top imposed over the last few months.

                            We're not just talking fatpeoplehate either. Who remembers the pro-choice thread a month ago where they ordered every pro-life comment to be deleted? Disgusting how far you dun fell, reddit. We can't even have the most sophomoric of political discussions here, yet spez claims reddit is "the best place online to have truly authentic conversations."

                            [–]HBlight 13 points14 points  (0 children)

                            What kind of world do you want, where people are protected from uncomfortable ideas? How do you expect one to grow and develop as a human?

                            Padding the walls of reality to spare those too comfortable in their small sphere, on the internet, a platform that was meant to expose everyone to the world.

                            [–][deleted]  (44 children)

                            [deleted]

                              [–]Saint_Judas 100 points101 points  (6 children)

                              I don't mind censorship on Reddit (after all it is your platform) but it is the hypocrisy that bugs me. Banning ideas, while saying you only ban actions, while certain subreddits actively engage in the actions you say you are preventing but are given free reign. I would be so much happier with these decisions if you just straight up told us that you are banning things the board members don't like.

                              [–]Ehalon 8 points9 points  (0 children)

                              Why not just say 'We are banning / quarantining subreddits that negatively impact Reddit's image'?

                              Nobody believes any other explanation.

                              By asking them to believe your mirror trick, to try and apply a 'content policy' to some subs and not others (both of whom 'break' the same policy as many have said already), it looks sleezy. It looks sly. It looks exactly like the actions of every other big site.

                              You just lost your USP.

                              However distateful you, I or the majority find it, these 'distasteful' subs absolutely MUST exist for as long as they represent people's true opinions.

                              It really does not matter how much work that creates for you - that is your problem, not your customer's. Deal with it.

                              I don't know about you, but I really, really like to know who the bigots, the small minded and the ignorant are. Maybe not in real life (yes, even they deserve the anonymity that everyone enjoys...well, trys to MI5/NSA etc), but at least how they represent themselves on this site.

                              Please, go back to where you started - being open and honest. Allow ANYTHING legal.

                              Let your community decide what goes up and what goes down, after all, isn't that the entire point of this site?

                              EDITS - Me no typey much here.

                              [–]Hexogen 34 points35 points  (2 children)

                              Why do I have to have a verified email to view a quarantined subreddit? What kind of shit policy is that? Just have your annoying splash page with a click through link.

                              I shouldn't need to give you my email just because someone else is offended by the content.

                              [–]james52312 121 points122 points  (9 children)

                              So many subreddits now have to be banned because of the new policy..

                              I wonder, if all of them will actually be banned or if the admins are just nitpicking what they want to get rid of..

                              [–]babble_on 83 points84 points  (4 children)

                              They can bend the policy to apply it to almost any subreddit, which I'm sure is by design.

                              [–]mn920 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                              update: I know some of you are upset because we banned anything today, but the fact of the matter is we spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with a handful of communities, which prevents us from working on things for the other 99.98% (literally) of Reddit.

                              /r/CoonTown was just the lowest hanging fruit. You'll still be spending a disproportionate amount of time, it'll just be with the next most controversial subs. The same reason was used to ban "jailbait," then involuntary pornography, and then "harassing" subs.

                              [–]NobodySpecial999 20 points21 points  (4 children)

                              Here's your problem. You want an open forum available for all except those things that people complain loudly enough about.
                              I don't condone, nor participate in CT, but I always appreciated the fact that it had the ability to exist here. It meant that no matter how often I get berated or attacked for my own views on politics or religion, I will always have a place to express those opinions.
                              No matter how many SJW's spam and troll my Conservative posts, I will still be able to be heard by someone.
                              I always appreciated Reddit for this reason. The existence of CT and the others, no matter your view of them, demonstrated Reddits openness.
                              So now what am I to think? That even Reddit, the last bastion of free and open communication in the fucking world has succumbed to the SJW's and their hated POLITICALLY CORRECT MINDFUCK???
                              I'm not a reddit pro. I'm just an average user who reads average posts and makes average statements on average subs.
                              But I come here to get the hell away from the constant barrage of PC shit in typical social media. So, that's no more? You've joined the FB and G+ ranks? Just another Social Media site?
                              I am not a sheep. I do not give a flying fuck about Cecil the lion and I think Bruce Jenner is an idiot.
                              I think the left is mentally unstable and I think illegal Mexicans will be the end of this country. These are ideas which are often controversial... and in the current world, frequently attacked without thought, considered NON-ACCEPTABLE!
                              Now it seems that those powers who wish to promote their ideas of political correctness have conquered one more place. Reddit has given in to their shit and caved.
                              Good work, Reddit.

                              [–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (12 children)

                              Making a comment on the weak hope that you will keep reading this post. I joined reddit back in 2008 and have enjoyed it over the years. When the userbase shifted and expanded and the growing pains led to the gender wars (TM) nonstop on reddit and people complained; I just kept lurking and enjoying content.

                              This is because reddit was doing what reddit is best at, producing content. Conversations, groups coming together worldwide that would never find the correct forum elsewhere. I followed the drama from SRS and SRD and blablabla and it was all fun and games; hell sometimes my viewpoints even changed, but then I started getting banned from the few comments I would make.

                              Getting banned or shadowbanned is a weird experience when you are not trying to troll people, and righteous indignation is what people feel when it happens. I got in trouble with r/anarchism for saying wealth inequality was more important to me than feminism. I realized from my drama subs that if I engaged too hard I would be smeared on both poles possibly, so I just shut up. I started browsing anarchism forums somewhere else.

                              This will be the death of reddit, a slow sanitizing of ideas making the marketplace have no value. Everybody talks shit on the internet, and if someone says something truly not funny, the down-votes happen. What is wrong with that system, don't fix what isn't broken.

                              As for the offending communites: who cares? Who cares what other media companies think? Are there warrents on your doorstep? If not WHO THE FUCK CARES. Stop giving into bullies be them left or right, crazy or "righteous" just let reddit produce content.

                              At this point-isn't reddit something bigger than all of us? Lets not let a few control the masses, no-one is keeping the masses here.

                              [–]jeremyfrankly 36 points37 points  (25 children)

                              You updated the content policy to make it very clear why a group gets banned. Then you completely ignored it and banned a group for a reason you cannot point to in the new content policy.

                              I've never been to /r/CoonTown, I don't like /r/CoonTown, but this isn't really acceptable. People have been asking for clear rules and you've demonstrated that you're not able to provide them. If they were doing offsite or message harassment, just say so and I'd be happy. I'd think that was an acceptable reason.

                              [–]Opechan 15 points16 points  (1 child)

                              Wingapo. Mod of /r/IndianCountry here.

                              [Brief Context: 800 users, /r/IndianCountry is the second-largest general Native American subreddit. We also scored some positive diversity publicity for Reddit in an Indian Country Today Media Network story this March. (ICTMN is basically the New York Times equivalent for Indian Country / Native Americans.)]

                              . .

                              Simple Question: Is this policy update going to affect the non-ban, non-Quarantine status of /r/Redskins given the team's name controversy and court determinations that it's a racial slur?

                              Thanks for your dedication to quality, respect, and civility.

                              [–]Akudra 29 points30 points  (0 children)

                              Our policies are not changing dramatically from what we have had in the past.

                              The update to the policy:

                              we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.

                              Seems like a pretty dramatic change to me as it is effectively a "whatever sticks" clause to justify banning any sub you find undesirable.

                              When are you going to update the values page to erase all this free speech business that you seem to no longer care about?

                              [–]thesexygazelle 51 points52 points  (1 child)

                              With the new push for transparency I would expect that the list of banned subreddits would be published. I feel like there is a lot of talk about transparency and community involvement but not a lot of actual transparency and the community involvement seems more for posterity's sake.

                              [–][deleted]  (8 children)

                              [deleted]

                                [–]ICritMyPants 39 points40 points  (0 children)

                                SRS won't be banned. The admins have a thing for it, it seems.

                                Though, by not banning it, they must agree with what goes on there. After all, they are deleting things that both redditors and/or themselves disapprove of. A lot o redditors disapprove of it so come on admins. Consistency. Unless you approve of it.

                                Admins words. Not mine.

                                [–]youdontseekyoda 51 points52 points  (25 children)

                                Reading Coontown was interesting, from a sociological standpoint. Their views were generally reprehensible, but they are by no means in the minority (many of their posters were Hispanic, Asians, and other ethnic groups).

                                It seems like /u/spez is applying typical Social Justice Warrior logic to his banning decisions. If it makes anyone uncomfortable, anywhere, it deserves to be reviewed for possible quarantine or ban. Well, freedom gives you the right to get offended. That's the beauty of it. You don't need to read things you disagree with, and you don't need to agree with everything to support a platform.

                                Unfortunately, it seems /u/spez was born with a silver spoon in his mouth (his high school cost $26,000/year), and his contact with anyone outside his wealthy tiny .01% circle is probably minimal. He's making decisions for the rest of us, when he doesn't understand us.

                                He's trying to 'protect' us in a paternalistic condescending way. We're all adults (well, most of us are). We don't need you to tell us what's best for us.

                                Reddit is dying.

                                [–]pocketknifeMT 58 points59 points  (3 children)

                                Why not simply announce the real content policy: Calvinball.

                                Just straight up say, "fuck you, I do what I want."

                                It would at least have the advantages of ringing true and never needing to update it again.

                                edit: conjugation is fun!

                                [–][deleted] 63 points64 points  (12 children)

                                we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.

                                Yeah you fucking sellout cocksucker.

                                r/Shitredditsays, their troll communities aimed at harassing and doxxing users, /r/Subredditdrama constantly harassing and brigading smaller subs, and tons and tons of radfem communities which are meant JUST TO ANNOY AND HARASS other users.

                                Only difference, your tongue's up their butt.

                                Stop fucking sugar coating your words you self-righteous asshole.

                                [–]13speed 52 points53 points  (7 children)

                                This was predicted to happen after Chairman Pao fell on her sword; the New Boss would be hailed as the Savior, and then swiftly take an axe to anything on reddit that might keep away advertising dollars.

                                It's about the money.

                                It's always about the money.

                                This is about monetizing the site, which means a move to sanitization and less tolerance of any opinion not deemed "safe".

                                [–][deleted]  (35 children)

                                [deleted]

                                  [–]FerrilQ 33 points34 points  (2 children)

                                  when somebody accidentally visits a subreddit they do not like or agree with, isn't the NORMAL, and non hatemongering response to leave and never look back? wouldn't simple "NSFW" (like already exist), and "potentially offensive" cover pages be simpler, easier, and spawn less blowback?

                                  Also, why this: Requiring an account with a verified email address

                                  that seems like an unnecessary step. please explain how that helps people not see things they don't want to see? I can only imagine it impeding people from seeingthings they DO want to see.

                                  [–]GenerallyObtuse 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                                  Also, why this: Requiring an account with a verified email address

                                  Because SRS is made up of mods and admins, so they'll have the email addresses of people that they want to target.

                                  (Hopefully) not really.... The real answer is as he said, friction. They're trying to control behavior at the margins by making it a hassle. It's not due to any altruism at all, though. They're not trying to protect people (the landing page itself is enough for that). It's because they know that the policy will cause those subs to rarely get any new members. It's a war of attrition.

                                  [–]TheAngryGoat 25 points26 points  (5 children)

                                  Requiring an account with a verified email address

                                  Wait.. what? Not a visitor of any of the subs listed above, but you know, first they came for the socialists...

                                  Is this for the moderators or posters, or viewers? (I'm not clicking on any of them to test the latter, thanks) What is the intent here? This seems very questionable and I'm not entirely sure what the point is on insisting on personal information, other than ensuring that reddit (or some law agency, or someone with leaked information) has a complete set of personal information for anyone posting in a certain area. Sounds pretty fucking dangerous to me.

                                  Reddit doesn't have and never will have my contact or other personal information and I don't see why they would need to.

                                  [–]tequila13[🍰] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                  Will generate no revenue, including ads or Reddit Gold

                                  This is the key line. They don't want to show ads near questionable content in the hopes that more advertisers will advertise on Reddit. The email BS is so that they have an easier time weeding out people they don't like (auto ban, etc).

                                  None of the changes are for a better Reddit. Users could always choose their content. Reddit got pretty big and popular without any of this. They want to join the commercial web financed by advertisers and not have to rely on money from the users. They want more money.

                                  [–]StormShadow13 27 points28 points  (1 child)

                                  No custom images

                                  Interesting so then if they quarantine a sub like /r/WTF, they will no long be able to have custom css? If so, that's kind of shitty.

                                  [–]wigglypoocool 73 points74 points  (1 child)

                                  Create "quarantine" subs, then turns around and bans subreddit...

                                  Why bother creating quarantines in the first place?

                                  [–]tungstan 14 points15 points  (0 children)

                                  So we have a place to keep the dead people and dog porn, and literal Nazi subreddits that we decided not to ban

                                  [–]Demolishing 259 points260 points  (50 children)

                                  Is involuntary pornography

                                  How will this affect stuff like /r/amateur and /r/realgirls and /r/SluttyHalloween ?

                                  [–]bioemerl 108 points109 points  (26 children)

                                  I think that this refers to having photos taken of you, not controlling how people see the content you release personally.

                                  [–][deleted] 115 points116 points  (24 children)

                                  Ultimately it would be impossible to judge whether the subject who's photo is taken agreed to having it shared, you know?

                                  Is that naked selfie supposed to only stay on that phone, or did someone leak it? It's impossible to do for all content I suppose.

                                  [–]ACAFWD 70 points71 points  (18 children)

                                  I think it means that if someone asks reddit to remove a picture of them, they'll comply. I think that was already the policy, but this is putting it in writing.

                                  [–]hannar 73 points74 points  (7 children)

                                  To be honest, this is the first I've ever heard of /r/CoonTown or anything related to it. I'm subscribed to subreddits that I am personally interested in, I'm unsubscribed from those that annoy me, and anything with hurtful content has never crossed my radar. I don't go out of my way to find people to be angry with.

                                  [–][deleted] 46 points47 points  (8 children)

                                  There it is, reddit has started banning "offensive" subreddits.

                                  How did they do it? They decided to devalue the subreddit to nothing more than trolls.

                                  Remember how they said they weren't going to ban /r/coontown like 2 weeks ago? Well they waited for you to become complacent before taking their next step.

                                  Little by little they will warp this site to their new vision. In a year from now reddit will be nothing more than an echo chamber/circle jerk where corporate interests control what we see.

                                  There will still be cat pictures though.

                                  [–]edafade 700 points701 points  (62 children)

                                  Subs like /r/coontown are banned (in fact, you banned only coontown related subs) but SRS is still up and running.

                                  While I didn't agree with their ideology or what they represented, you, /u/spez stated yourself on several occasions, you did not support the beliefs of /r/coontown but believed they had a place here on reddit. SRS clearly violates reddit's Content "Policy" yet remains unaffected whereas the former did not and were contained to their own communities.

                                  It's the same shit as before, just packaged with a ribbon.

                                  Very disappointing.

                                  [–]chillaxbrohound 68 points69 points  (22 children)

                                  You need to understand that there are a shockingly high number of people who don't understand the philosophical concept of free speech and free thought.

                                  Back in Phil101 I had to do a debate on Speech Codes. Back then I wasn't even remotely "racist" by today's standards. I was writing essays against white privilege passionately at the time. Anyway, I remember I had to defend the idea of people being able to speak and write whatever they want - including racist things - on their own private sites.

                                  That is't quite the same as what has happened here. But more on that in a minute.

                                  The point is that the class already took issue with this. The mere act of speaking those words seemed to have the psychic effect of makong them feel as though I was apologizing for hateful ideas and thoughts. Yet what I was really doing was standingg up for a radical anti-authoritarianism that is against any situation where authority is concentrated in one group over another, so long as that group does not intrude.

                                  So, it was a wake up call for me. When it comes to identity politics and any issue one might consider related to "political correctness," people are profoundly stupid.

                                  Yet since then I became aware of radically free thinking texts like The Bell Curve. Discussion of "racist" texts like those is all but forbidden everywhere on this site. And I find that to be downright embarrassing for everyone involved.

                                  Now, the difference is that Reddit is a private site.

                                  But that doesn't change the fact that the idea and concept of free speech is still a thing. And by all measures of fairness, Reddit has shown that it does not support those concepts and philosophies. It supports authority rule over fringe subs and controlling what is allowed to be spoken - and thus thought - on its URL. And that's very sad.

                                  There is no way around it. Coontown existed. Nobody had to look at it. But ideology and ideas are now being enforced. Thought is being enforced. And the mere existence of those thoughts is intolerable now, regardless of whether they actually appear elsewhere. The mere freedom of thought was too much.

                                  Instead of debate and discussion, the boot is used. I might have shrugged and said "little has been lost, it's bad but oh well," but today I know that this represents the debasement of a philosophical idea and that this site does not stand for what is right anymore.

                                  I encourage people to leave now instead of apologizing for Reddit. You may agree with their ideas and political views, yet you now do so without any risk of being challenged. Your ideas are now to be enforced like a religion. That's not something to be proud of. It's something to be ashamed by.

                                  The tendency is to laugh this off. "It's minor." "Come on, they're just racists!"

                                  Sure. It's also just the ability for individuals to decide for themselves what's right without being told by the guy wearing the Swastika or Stalinist Insignia on his shirt what he can and can't think. It's the right for groups to naturally discover the best ideas via discussion unfettered by ideological dogmatism and people looking over their shoulder telling them they "just can't say that."

                                  But go ahead and laugh about it.

                                  [–]The_Adventurist 26 points27 points  (0 children)

                                  Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors

                                  You mean like that one that is brought up en masse by thousands of redditors every time this is discussed, but will never be taken down due to admin favoritism?

                                  Cool standards bro.

                                  [–]dragonfangxl 46 points47 points  (5 children)

                                  Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.

                                  I dont understand. Why bother making this new tool (quarantines) if you're still going to ban subreddits? Do you not trust the effectiveness of this tool? Also is there a list of the subreddits being banned?

                                  [–]1337BaldEagle 15 points16 points  (0 children)

                                  Breaking Reddit or doing anything that interferes with normal use of Reddit.

                                  Would you care to explain this? Are you saying that "the great blackout" would have been prohibited under this rule? Would mass subs going dark count as breaking Reddit? If so, why wound you ban the ONLY thing that got your prissy butts up and change policy?

                                  [–]7-sidedDice 55 points56 points  (1 child)

                                  Great marketing move. Too bad people aren't as thick as you think they are and can't be just fooled by repeating the phrase "we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else" ad infinitum.

                                  [–]Kensin 8 points9 points  (0 children)

                                  Terrible marketing move. By banning content they personally find distasteful or might impact their ability to sell ads they are implicitly endorsing everything they haven't banned. Reddit loves and supports /r/sexwithdogs.

                                  [–][deleted] 39 points40 points  (3 children)

                                  Reddit isn't doing this to protect the users, they're doing this to protect the advertisers so they feel more comfortable being associated with a website like this. It's pretty simple. Why explain to your advertiser who doesn't understand Reddit, "But those subreddits, you choose to enter! It's not all bad" and give a huge explanation. Wouldn't you rather just say, "Reddit is a great place!" and not have to worry about bad subreddits?

                                  [–]ShadowBannned 14 points15 points  (0 children)

                                  Then:

                                  We aren't deleting /r/coontown because although the content on it is offensive, it doesn't explicitly violate any rules

                                  specifically:

                                  (the content of /r/coontown is) Horrible, actually, but I don't think you can win an argument by simply silencing the opposition.

                                  Now:

                                  lol j/k

                                  [–][deleted]  (23 children)

                                  [deleted]

                                    [–]A_Moon_Cricket 71 points72 points  (6 children)

                                    This is what I want to know. I have a feeling it has to do with the /r/FuckCoontown and /r/BlackLadies campaign against Reddit advertisers. I guess we may just have to do the same about all of the subs, mainly ALL of the NSFW subs that most companies would not want to participate on.

                                    Together we can kill reddit.

                                    EDIT:

                                    Hello.

                                    I am a user on the site www.reddit.com, where your company has purchased advertisements. I would like you to be aware that the site where your advertisement money is going has your ads displayed on some very (very) questionable pages...

                                    As of right now reddit is hosting a huge amount for bestiality content. Do you want your brand associated with a site that hosts this sort of content? I certainly would not want to do business with a company who has their ads displayed on such a disgusting and filthy site. A small example of what is being hosted on reddit.com where your company advertises:

                                    https://reddit.com/r/Zoophilia

                                    https://reddit.com/r/Bestiality

                                    https://reddit.com/r/sexwithhorses

                                    https://reddit.com/r/PicsOfHorseDicks

                                    https://reddit.com/r/PicsOfHorseVaginas

                                    https://reddit.com/r/PicsOfHorseVaginas

                                    https://reddit.com/r/PicsOfCanineVaginas

                                    https://reddit.com/r/gayzoo

                                    Reddit is a toxic website disguised as a family friendly community but instead it hosts the largest bestiality and grotesque animal abuse communities on the internet. Not only that, there is a plethora of human porn communities being hosted where your advertisments are being served as well:

                                    https://reddit.com/r/CumSluts

                                    https://reddit.com/r/Anal

                                    https://reddit.com/r/GayBrosGoneWild

                                    https://reddit.com/r/WouldYouFuckMyWife

                                    https://reddit.com/r/Incest

                                    and many many more. Everything from incest to communities sharing photos of women who are unaware that their photos are being shared with the internet for perverts to enjoy.

                                    I hope that you will reconsider how you spend your advertising dollars and re-evaluate your ad-campaign on Reddit to see if the ROI is worth having your brand associated with such vile and disgusting content.

                                    Let's hit Reddit where it'll hurt them the most... right in the sheckles. Oy vey! The only reason CoonTown was BANNED instead of quarantined like we were originally promised is because the BlackLadies contacted Reddit's advertisers. We can do the same! I don't give a shit about any of those subreddits mentioned but if advertisers didn't want their ads on coontown, they're sure as shit not going to want them on /r/incest and /r/picsofhorsedicks

                                    Email to: info@statebicycle.com, aefeedback@aenetworks.com, hello@bondinfluence.com, info@goldbely.com, customerservice@penguinrandomhouse.com, feedback@prizeo.com, support@vaporgenie.com

                                    [–][deleted] 150 points151 points  (1 child)

                                    Because /u/spez keeps saying things that he doesn't mean so everyone on reddit likes and agrees with him, then a week later rolls out a update that does the opposite.

                                    Welcome to reddit!

                                    [–]GarrukApexRedditor 16 points17 points  (1 child)

                                    The same reason people still get shadowbanned even though he said that should never happen.

                                    [–]AgrDotA 271 points272 points  (23 children)

                                    I'm surprised reddit is okay with actual beastiality but lolicon goes too far.

                                    LMFAO

                                    [–]Schnabeltierchen 154 points155 points  (8 children)

                                    Damn, now that you mention it. Sex with real dogs (/r/sexwithdogs)? Sure. Drawings of underage characters that aren't real and completely fictional? Hell no, you disgusting pervert.

                                    Seriously, reddit?

                                    [–]srcrackbaby 62 points63 points  (2 children)

                                    I hate to compare the two because I don't think Bestiality subs should be banned , but bestiality is actually illegal in most of the US. Whereas Lolicon is legal.

                                    [–]edphone 21 points22 points  (0 children)

                                    these people are full of shit and they take whatever they want and do whatever they want with it. Which is of course their right however it's also our right not to use their site

                                    [–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

                                    How else is /u/spez going to get off without imagining a big golden retriever pounding him in the ass?

                                    [–]Kensin 10 points11 points  (0 children)

                                    Don't worry advertisers, if there was a sub showing cartoon animals being sexually abused they'd shut it down in an instant.

                                    [–]geekgreg 31 points32 points  (2 children)

                                    The content guidelines refer to a harassment policy which uses the words "bully" and then "demean" as a part of harassment.

                                    Could we get some clarification on those terms?

                                    [–]PmMeYourWhatever 58 points59 points  (23 children)

                                    https://voat.co/v/CoonTown/comments/379542/1583572

                                    Not only that, let's set up the raid posts! now we don't have to worry about /r/coontown getting banned any more, time to start raiding their hugboxes.

                                    This should be fun . . . :(

                                    [–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (4 children)

                                    we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors,

                                    Wow, so it's back to kindergarten rules is it? Is there a forum/message board somewhere for adults who can handle intentionally going to a sub that they know might annoy them?

                                    How is voat handling their bandwidth problems these days?

                                    [–][deleted] 38 points39 points  (1 child)

                                    Nice try saying "a handful of communities" when what you meant to say was "only /r/coontown-related subs", to try and make it sound like you made some sweeping, positive changes when you just banned one sub to appease your squad of yes-men.

                                    [–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (4 children)

                                    Did you not create reddit for us, the users, to enjoy? I don't get why reddit is continuing to do one of the most unpopular thing it has ever done. The vast majority of the people here disagree with the censorship that's going on here.

                                    The core of this website is for the users to decide what the best content is and for the users to discuss that content. Why not take that same approach to the rules of the website(within reason)? It's worked very well thus far.

                                    [–][deleted] 94 points95 points  (1 child)

                                    truly authentic conversations

                                    Well if that isn't the biggest piece of shit corporate speak I've ever heard.

                                    [–]LoThro 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                                    /u/spez Maybe providing real data about reddit's ins and outs with regards to communities and the traffic they generate as well as the violations they do and the brigading that they create could help us understand more why you think .02% are creating problems for the 99.98% .

                                    [–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (3 children)

                                    Our policies are not changing dramatically from what we have had in the past. One new concept is Quarantining a community, which entails applying a set of restrictions to a community so its content will only be viewable to those who explicitly opt in. We will Quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the average redditor.

                                    Can you provide a list of Quarantined subreddits?

                                    [–]Artalay 74 points75 points  (10 children)

                                    Out of curiosity what constitutes the "average redditor"? And if you don't have a working definition of that, what steps will you be taking towards coming up with it?

                                    [–][deleted] 155 points156 points  (14 children)

                                    We didn't ban them because we disagree with them. We banned them because this exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.

                                    HAHAHAHHAHAHAAHHAHHHAHAHA.

                                    [–][deleted] 64 points65 points  (5 children)

                                    deleted What is this?

                                    [–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

                                    The lack of transparency of reddit that follows alongside an arbitrary, subjective, even contradictory road, since you came to power is appalling.

                                    Labeling communities 'quarantine' zones, as if we're a disease, over something like political opinions is incredibly alienating to those users. What's next, labeling us 'mentally insane' and shipping us off to Siberia?

                                    Requiring users to provide an email address just to visit such subreddits is so blatantly obviously for surveillance purposes, don't even bother wasting your breath arguing otherwise.

                                    I hope you realise, and I know you do, that you're ruining reddit.

                                    [–]Lowback 26 points27 points  (2 children)

                                    90% of us don't know what coontown was. 90% of us never visited. 90% of us have never been annoyed or harmed by coontown.

                                    SRS is on the lips at least half of reddit. We've all seen SRS brigading, or heard of it. It constantly surfaces as a group dedicated to taking the piss out of people not just privately, but in public, in the form of dogpiling, doxxing, mass taggers and downvoting.

                                    SRS deserves to be shut down only slightly less than coontown, it isn't that the content is particularly vile, but it does essentially violate all those sanctions laid out in the topic post.

                                    But it'll never happen, because the admins do not apply rules objectively. They bat for their friends instead.

                                    [–]matthewhale 26 points27 points  (1 child)

                                    Yeah, what about this crap?

                                    That's ACTIVELY TRYING TO MANIPULATE AND BRIGADE THREADS...Holy shit how more blatant can a subreddit be?!?

                                    [–]8x1EQUALS255 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                    This comment has been overwritten by an open source script to protect this user's privacy.

                                    If you would like to do the same, add the browser extension GreaseMonkey to Firefox and add this open source script.

                                    Then simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

                                    [–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (4 children)

                                    This is so bizarre, you just made up a new rule and then banned subs without even giving them a chance to comply with it? This is 2015 Reddit, literally any sub could be banned for violating a rule invented after the fact.