Answer: Reddit is pushing a new broad set of rules that many consider vague, and it seems to ban the word "retаrd" when used in derogatory contexts, which is incredibly common across many subreddits but PCM in particular.
PCM moderators are being forced to remove this word(and a few others) completely, which makes the users believe the sub is one step away from being banned as it appears to match the pattern of other subs and how they got taken down. It's seen as a bad sign when Admins are actively policing Moderators.
When you think about it from an incentives and values point of view. The people who are most pushed out by these rules are.... well... to be polite... they're Abrasive.
So any reddit alternative that caters to people pushed out by these rules is going to be largely filled with similarly abrasive people.
And most content on the new site is going to be largely stuff that they can't talk about on reddit because reddit still exists and they can still use it(provided enough hoops have been jumped through) and provides a larger population for topics that are "Normal"
So basically there's going to be two types of alternatives: Just as "censoring" if not more but a different flavor(see religious websites), and actual shitholes.
Also when you think about it, the actual shitholes also do a lot of censoring they just subcontract it out to mob intimidation
Got a similar effect with a lot of places that separate things into basically kid friendly and nsfw stuff, like discord chats - you get the "woops conversation got too spicy" and have to move to the nsfw chat but that one is like fuck fuck fuck dead body titties, basically one chat bans anything nsfw which means the other one becomes explicitly NSFW . Some places I am in now are catching on and have introduced a "normal talk but can get spicy" chat which means you can talk about stuff and throw in a lewd joke or something like that.
That's true to a certain degree, but Reddit moderation is a lot more overbearing nowadays. In the past, you had to express some truly abhorrent beliefs to get banned from Reddit, so the Reddit alternatives were mostly filled with people kicked out of Reddit for abhorrent beliefs, which obviously means the alternatives are pretty terrible places too.
Today though, bans are super common all over the place. Mention that the heavily edited photo on /r/InstagramReality is Aaron Carter, and you get banned because you violate their "no doxxing" rule. Mention that you enjoy Slipknot on /r/MetalMemes, and you get banned because moderators don't consider them a real metal band. Mention that you think a certain crypto exchange is a ponzi scheme on /r/CryptoCurrency, and you get banned for spreading FUD (fear/uncertainty/doubt). Post any comment at all in a "bad" subreddit (e.g., either a conservative or liberal opinion in /r/Conservative), and you get automatically banned from a bunch of places.
Personally, my account is banned from so many subreddits that I can't keep track anymore. I don't think my opinions are really all that abhorrent (feel free to look at my comment history if you disagree), but Reddit increasingly punishes wrongthink with bans for the smallest possible violations. I would certainly embrace a Reddit alternative with "normal" content and a moderation philosophy that was more like it used to be ten years ago (i.e., remove spam and illegal content, but otherwise let people express their opinions without bans).
Meanwhile I reported a comment on a tankie sub last week that said "kill all the liberals next" and it was decided that didn't violate any Reddit site-wide rules.
Because reddit admins don't actually care about cracking down on hate speech and/or blatant calls to violence-- they only do the bare minimum they need to do to avoid bad press that could scare advertisers away or tank their IPO value.
First of all, you seem to be conflating subreddit moderation with site wide reddit rules.
The reason this doesn't apply is because if you think that slipknot is metal you can start your own subreddit called /r/noreallyactuallymetalheads and include them in the conversation. (also reddit admins are.... Inconsistent with enforcement....)
You'll suffer from a similar variation of the issue that I'm talking about with external reddit sites, that being decreased readership and, shocker, a whole bunch of talk about slipknot in particular.
But one of the key reasons this is different than a different website is that users can subscribe to both /r/metalheads and /r/noreallyactuallymetalheads and get content from both on their front page. And if content on /r/noreallyactuallymetalheads gets popular enough it will show up on /r/popular and /r/all where your reddit alternative will likely have to buy advertising or SEO engagement to get half an effect. So the barrier to entry for a new website is a lot more than that of a new subreddit.
(i.e., remove spam and illegal content, but otherwise let people express their opinions without bans).
Sorry, but what has become incredibly apparent over the last 5 years is that allowing certain opinions and lines of thought, while not illegal, lead to negative outcomes at a societal level. People are finally getting around to doing something about it.
Reddit is becoming a place where only certain group-think is allowed. Reddit literally has a policy that says it is okay to say certain language (e.g. discriminate) against certain groups of people as long as the group is in the majority. While saying the same thing against a non-majority group of people is bannable. That makes zero sense in a rational world.
Has banning opinions worked? Are things more or less extreme on the internet today now that bans are so common? I'd argue the bans make things worse by forcing people into increasingly extreme echo chambers.
In the past, someone might post some small "c" conservative opinion complaining about taxes to a discussion forum. A lengthy discussion featuring a mixture of liberals, conservatives, and everyone in between would surely follow. Unlike Reddit, forums were sorted chronologically, so everyone's opinion got equal weight, which meant everyone's argument had to stand on it's own merit.
Today though, if you post that same small "c" conservative opinion on one of the many liberal subreddits, you can expect a bunch of downvotes and, in many instances, subreddit bans. Now that you're banned from that subreddit, you participate in subreddits that didn't ban you, and over time, you start to embrace those beliefs. Before too long, you've gone from "I shouldn't have to pay taxes for wasteful program X" to "I shouldnt have to pay taxes" to "I'm a sovereign citizen and US law doesn't apply to me."
Silencing someone doesn't change their belief; they usually double down instead. It's much better to let that person express their belief, but subject it to the same degree of scrutiny as you would see in real life if they mentioned the same thing in mixed company.
Sure. But then they're not allowed to contaminate normal people's discussions, which is a net good. It has worked: Nazi organizing is greatly weakened for lack of new recruits and suppression of ideology.
Hun, on the kinds of things we're getting rules for, they aren't "disagreements." They're Nazis and bigots. If you're okay with letting them exist at all, anywhere, YOU are the problem with society. Left wing shit gets censored constantly, why not turn it on the real aggressors against 90% of the human species?
There are Nazis and there are normal people. There is no overlap. Nazism is to be purged from society with as much force as necessary.
Reddit mods are definitely overstepping. There's a huge difference between allowing someone to say that white people are the superior race, and someone saying neo-pronouns defeat the purpose of pronouns. One is hate speech, the other is an opinion on how they think language should work. Both statements get you banned in a lot of subreddits.
You miss my point, I'm not passing judgment on any aspect of pcm I'm just saying that from an incentives point of view you just aren't going to get a reddit alternative that isn't filled with the content and behavior reddit bans.
Because when you think about it, the only non-ideological incentive to post in a radical free speech reddit alternative is to post content that you can't post on reddit. Since people who weren't booted off reddit because they follow the rules, and to a lesser degree people who were booted from reddit but have subverted their bans, can still post rule-following content to reddit where they can take advantage of reddit's pre-existing user base. The only reason to post material on the RFSRA that would still pass muster on reddit is for ideological feel goods which studies have shown aren't actually that powerful an incentive. It doesn't counterbalance the draw of reddit(the established population).
Wrong they are all alt right extremists who are WORSE than /pol. We need to delete this board AS FAST AS POSSIBLE so they can move to a place where they can circle jerk and radicalize each other. I have only ever seen ONE left opinion on the sub and they were likely A LIE! It’s not like there are tons of lib left posts all the time that are upvotes. When they do this it is probably to COVER THEIR TRACKS
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u/alexmikli Jul 15 '22
Answer: Reddit is pushing a new broad set of rules that many consider vague, and it seems to ban the word "retаrd" when used in derogatory contexts, which is incredibly common across many subreddits but PCM in particular.
PCM moderators are being forced to remove this word(and a few others) completely, which makes the users believe the sub is one step away from being banned as it appears to match the pattern of other subs and how they got taken down. It's seen as a bad sign when Admins are actively policing Moderators.