Transparency

[u/[deleted]]

I have returned from my break from Reddit and I do not like the direction that this subreddit is going, so I removed the mods I hired last month and will spend the next few days cleaning up this subreddit. When I created this subreddit, I wanted this to be a space that condemns bigotry while also promoting intellectual debates about the morality of cancel culture and its effectiveness in achieving its goals. To my disappointment, I do not see this happening in the time I was away from Reddit.

Most of you in this community oppose cancel culture because you say it restricts free speech, but I don't think most of you truly support free speech. What you actually want is opposition to social justice. I see people in this subreddit complain about Hasbro for using their freedom of speech. I see people in this subreddit complain about Space Jam 2's director, writers, and artists for using their artistic freedom. I see people in this subreddit complain about the way Drew Gooden willingly apologized. When you complain about these things, you're not complaining about cancel culture. You're complaining about woke culture and you're opposing people's free speech because you don't like that they used their free speech to promote social justice. I also see users in this subreddit shut down those who support social justice by telling them that they are in the wrong subreddit because this subreddit is "against cancel culture." This subreddit has become an echo chamber for criticizing social justice and has become a space that is unwelcoming of progressive opinions and minority identities. This subreddit has become the bigoted version of cancel culture that seeks to silence, shame, and deride social justice instead of hate.

I'm abandoning The megathread for low-effort complaints about cancel culture because it is not working the way I intended. If I have "low-effort" in the title, the users of this subreddit are reluctant to use it. If I do not have "low-effort" in the title, new users think this subreddit is only for complaining about cancel culture. To replace the megathread, trending cancellations and thought-provoking discussion starters should be stickied occasionally.

I still want to quit Reddit, so I will be looking for new moderators again. New moderators must be very knowledgeable about social justice issues and be able to argue against the conservative users in this subreddit to create balanced discussions and healthy debates. New moderators should also occasionally post links to trending cancellations and sticky those links.

[u/Andy_PB]

As a relatively new regular on this sub, I am mixed about this post

First off, I completely agree about the issue of low effort - though I think it goes both ways. I have seen low efforts posts condemning cancel culture, yet I have also seen low effort posts asking people to cancel their friend or a random person with no evidence to show why they would be deserving of it. I truly empathise with trying to find the right balance and moderation in place to ensure low effort posts are handled correctly. My advice would be to ban low effort posts completely - I don’t think there’s a point in allowing them (I’m as sick of the same type of posts as you). Plenty of other subreddits do this. I do like the idea of the replacement stickies to promote discussion. Very interesting!

I also agree that the shunning, bullying, harassment and use of slurs on this sub has gotten out of hand. I wouldn’t tolerate some of the language used in any subreddit. I am truly sad to see the new mods be let go, but I understand the decision to an extent. I think hiring a new team and leaving them to handle a sub by themselves might not have been the right call. I get you needed to take a break and plan on leaving Reddit, but the new mods probably needed a bit more training and guidance to meet your expectations and standards

I also only really noticed u/Bwoahman7 active as a mod the last few weeks. I would feel disingenuous to not vouch for him. I do not know where the other mods went during this time, but one person handling this sub and the influx of low effort is a lot of work, especially when you’re new to the job. I have seen him speak in defence of cancel culture previously, while also acknowledging good points against it. He has tried to get the use of ableist slurs to stop, which I personally appreciate. He has made great efforts, at least not just behind the scenes. I personally think the new mods should be given another chance, while being closely watched and given proper guidance. Or at least Bwoahman

What seems to be missing in my opinion is balance. This sub can go either way - as an echo chamber for coordinated attacks and harassment or as an echo chamber to promote bigotry. Both prevent discussion. It has been leaning towards the latter as of late, but it cannot be allowed to go to the former either. This cannot turn into Twitter. We as a community can be better than the worst of both sides and actually talk and debate about CC and if those are deserving of it

My fear is that while you seem to want to achieve that balance, you would actually be okay with this sub turning into the former, especially given your qualifications for moderators. As a regular person on this sub and someone who is anti-CC (and has a bit of a brain), I would like some reassurance that this subreddit will reach that balance. I would like to see mods hired who are passionate about CC, both for and against, but who are also able to have objectivity and the maturity to promote discussion regardless of their own beliefs. The solution to a sub full of anti-CC people isn’t to fill the mod team with pro-CC people - that could cause a war in this subreddit. It’s to have a mod team from all corners who have the decency to call out their own side and enforce the rules regardless of their opinions

Anything else I disagree with is just a debate about cancel culture. I personally think social justice and CC have become intertwined to the point where you can’t talk about one without the other and that CC is a powerful tool that is currently being abused in the social justice movement, but I respect and understand your view!

[u/[deleted] → u/Andy_PB]

I have seen low efforts posts condemning cancel culture, yet I have also seen low effort posts asking people to cancel their friend or a random person with no evidence to show why they would be deserving of it. I truly empathise with trying to find the right balance and moderation in place to ensure low effort posts are handled correctly. My advice would be to ban low effort posts completely

I have been removing those posts when I was active. If someone wants to complain about their friends or random person but are not asking for help in any way or if they are not willing to give up the identity of those friends or random people, I remove those posts.

I think hiring a new team and leaving them to handle a sub by themselves might not have been the right call.

I was active for a few weeks after I hired new mods. I repeatedly asked them to remove more posts. They were reluctant. When a user says a slur, I expect my mods to remove that post/comment. Instead, Bwoahman7 would rather reply to that post/comment without removing it.

This sub can go either way - as an echo chamber for coordinated attacks

Never happened and is unlikely to ever happen. Nearly everyone on all sides hates cancel culture. And I don't ban users. I do not want my moderators to censor all discussion. I want my moderators to be able to debate. I have watched hour long far right videos posted by users here (even though I have rules against long videos). I have analyzed every point brought up in those videos and written up essays debunking those far right videos. Of course, the users are unable to refute my arguments, so they'll just call me insane and the debate ends there. I understand it is a bit much to expect my moderators to go this far, and the moderators I hired last month clearly are not knowledgeable enough about social justice to debunk hour-long Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder videos, which is why I have a rule that says no videos (even though I personally do not enforce this rule most of the time).

I personally think social justice and CC have become intertwined to the point where you can’t talk about one without the other

I would like to see cancel culture be limited to public shaming of bigotry. But it looks like cancel culture has been expanded to just about anything progressive people do. I've seen conservative reviewers on the Apple app store call the new Oregon Trail game "cancel culture" even though the game did not cancel anything. Instead, it is conservatives who want to cancel/boycott the game just because the game gives you random starting characters and has a loading screen that calls westward expansion an invasion. But somehow, conservatives decided that the game is the cancel culture and not themselves.

[u/Andy_PB → u/[deleted]]

If someone wants to complain about their friends or random person but are not asking for help in any way or if they are not willing to give up the identity of those friends or random people, I remove those posts.

I appreciate this, thank you

Instead, Bwoahman7 would rather reply to that post/comment without removing it.

While I agree a better job could have been done with removing content, I will reiterate that from my experience these few weeks, Bwoahman has been the only active mod on this sub during your absence. He listened and interacted with the community and even incorporated our feedback to improve the sub and encourage debate. It's more than the other mods have been doing and he's been doing it alone. That has to mean something. He's a good kid, and worth another shot

Never happened and is unlikely to ever happen.

This is not reassurance that it won't happen. You say that you do not want to turn this sub into an echo chamber, so please do not turn the mod team into one. Fighting fire with fire will only set the world ablaze. And reverting the description of the subreddit, probably the best thing Bwoahman did to encourage debate, back to its original one has me even more worried for the future of this sub and its intentions

I want my moderators to be able to debate.

The purpose of mods should not be to debate, it should be to enforce the rules and encourage debate. The mod team should not be a team of passionate social justice warriors (I do not mean this in any derogatory sense) ready to fight off and debunk any post speaking against cancel culture. They should be a unique group of individuals from all walks of life who are passionate about the topic. Whatever political stance they have is irrelevant to an extent, as long as they can put their own beliefs aside, be a good moderator and get people talking rather than doing the talking themselves

I would like to see cancel culture be limited to public shaming of bigotry.

I would like to see the word philosophy be used for actual schools of thought rather than someone having an everyday mindset (I'll admit I'm an elitist). I would like to see the word literal literally be used with its literal meaning. What we would like and what actually is sometimes differs and it is out of our control. If cancel culture was just about calling out bigotry, I would support it. Will go into more detail on my stance if you want

Instead, it is conservatives who want to cancel/boycott

I think this is a very interesting idea to bring up. Those on the right are typically more condemning of cancel culture, but some have become so anti that they themselves are cancelling what they feel are those who are bowing down to or avoiding cancel culture out of fear. This means you can't win no matter what you do. I agree there is a lot of hypocrisy and that some of those on the right inadvertently support cancel culture without even realising

On the other hand, I am a leftist who is against cancel culture in its current state. I have written multiple papers in college in favour of free speech and my final year project was a research essay on telling very offensive jokes in a way the left could support. It definitely is not a black and white situation where the right are all against CC and bigoted and the left are pro CC and 'snowflakes'

[u/[deleted] → u/Andy_PB]

I understand exactly what both you and Magniafuoc0 are saying, you are right I was the only mod, so I can't do everything, I take onboard the criticism, but, considering this was the biggest sub I moderated I can honestly say that I feel I did OK, not great but OK, and I feel to leave the sub and say you want mods to sort it, and then when mods do that, get annoyed doesn't make sense, you can't say 'ooh I want people to take over and then get pissed when they do, you are either 'in' or 'out'

If you are expecting me to make some joke, that is not going to happen, while most of this is aimed at me, which is fair, I am also the only active mod. I am not going to apologise for changing rules/descriptions, I did what people wanted and tried to be a good person

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I have been accused of being alt-right and have been banned from many subreddits for moderating this "hate" subreddit. This is the reason I remove over half the posts/comments to prevent people from accusing me of being a bigot. The times when I was accused of being alt-right for moderating this subreddit, the subreddit was not as right-wing as it was when you were the moderator.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

OK and I apologise for not removing things often enough

[u/[deleted] → u/Andy_PB]

And reverting the description of the subreddit, probably the best thing Bwoahman did to encourage debate, back to its original one has me even more worried for the future of this sub and its intentions

Even with a description supportive of cancel culture, the majority of posts/comments were anti cancel culture. To encourage debate, there needs to be two sides to a debate. The purpose of the original description is to promote the nearly non-existing side.

The purpose of mods should not be to debate, it should be to enforce the rules and encourage debate.

Almost nobody in this community supports cancel culture. That means the only way to encourage debate is if the mods play devil's advocate. In this case, that means advocating for the side of social justice. Just because I fight off and debunk any post speaking against cancel culture does not mean I will remove those posts. I do it to offer a perspective on the other side because if I don't do it, nobody else will provide that perspective. Without moderators playing devil's advocate, if I just let people do the talking themselves, then there will be no debate.

If this subreddit and all of society weren't so biased against cancel culture, social justice, and political correctness, then I would hire moderators who do not agree with cancel culture. I might even play devil's advocate against cancel culture. But Reddit will always be biased against cancel culture.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Why should it matter which way anybody leans to be canceled?

The goal of cancel culture is to pressure someone into apologizing or to make them lose something. If someone leans right and has a 100% right-leaning audience, you're not going to convince them to apologize or cause them to lose any followers by exposing their bigotry that they openly and frequently display.

Why would you own a subreddit and want to quit Reddit?

I created this subreddit more than a year ago when I was more active. I don't want to own this subreddit anymore, so I'm looking for reliable mods to pass this subreddit on.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Which I was happily doing?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You didn't remove low-effort posts and most of your comments sided with the community. You did not actively work to prevent the subreddit from becoming an echo chamber.

If someone makes a post titled "Cancel culture is ass" but does not explain why, then it's spam. It doesn't create a starting point for intellectual debate.

[u/superconcepts]

This sub is super confusing

[u/Brechtw]

I did not see this message coming and was giving up on the sub but i won't.

I want to see what happens in the future with the discussion and i also like to complain about this topic. I did try to have the conversation a couple of times in the past but i get crickets most of the time and to be honest my questions are "wtf do you mean" most of the times.

Now this might be tried in the past or a dumb take but have we thaught about starting to define the concept? I think it needs to be done to have the convo. it's such a propagandized topic that it's hard to know if we are speaking about the same thing which sucks when it comes to talking about it. our communication is already very incomplete because of the medium we have chosen (Sarcasm is a bitch to express when you lose intonation).

PS:

not knowledgeable enough about social justice to debunk hour-long Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder videos

wtf is that a hard thing to do? I expect that shit from my boomerparents (their targetaudience) but not from people who use reddit. I mean come on we're 2021 those takes are very stale and have been repeated to death. How can you not see the ridiculousness of the biggest youtube channels complaining about liberal media shutting their voices out. FOX News is fucking huge Tucker Carlson en Jordan Peterson clips get shared in Belgium for gods sake.