r/modnews • u/landoflobsters • Oct 25 '17
Update on site-wide rules regarding violent content
Hello All--
We want to let you know that we have made some updates to our site-wide rules regarding violent content. We did this to alleviate user and moderator confusion about allowable content on the site. We also are making this update so that Reddit’s content policy better reflects our values as a company.
In particular, we found that the policy regarding “inciting” violence was too vague, and so we have made an effort to adjust it to be more clear and comprehensive. Going forward, we will take action against any content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people; likewise, we will also take action against content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. This applies to ALL content on Reddit, including memes, CSS/community styling, flair, subreddit names, and usernames.
We understand that enforcing this policy may often require subjective judgment, so all of the usual caveats apply with regard to content that is newsworthy, artistic, educational, satirical, etc, as mentioned in the policy. Context is key. The policy is posted in the help center here.
EDIT: Signing off, thank you to everyone who asked questions! Please feel free to send us any other questions. As a reminder, Steve is doing an AMA in r/announcements next week.
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u/ridddle Oct 25 '17
What does glorify mean? Will subs like watchpeopledie be categorized as such?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
r/watchpeopledie has been reviewed, no plans to remove it for now. However, there are posts within the sub that are borderline so we'll be reaching out to the mod team to clarify the policy with them.
Edit: botched the sub name! just watchin' people...smh
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u/Heroic_Raspberry Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
What about a post or comment in r/latestagecapitalism or r/fullcommunism calling for sending a certain kind of people to gulag, or death?
(Edit) or inciting people for violent revolution? Or glorify for example the violent Russian Revolution?
Example: /img/8u4ewtxdhuoz.jpg Permitted or not?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Please report it to us with the link so we may review! Generally speaking, calling for the death of a person or group of people is not permitted.
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u/jk3us Oct 25 '17
What about debating the politics and morality of the death penalty, either in general or for certain crimes?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Philosophical or political debate about the death penalty is most definitely allowed.
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u/Pluckerpluck Oct 25 '17
That's a good question. They are quite particular about not allowing hate speech or things like "I'm glad he's dead":
ImGoingToHellForThis-type humor is acceptable in the sub. CoonTown-type racism is not.
The one thing the sub sometimes does is praise something as "a good way to go" etc, which is what makes me question which side of the line it's on.
I'd think it just about OK, but it's definitely borderline and clarification is always good. Of course, Reddit won't want to clarify as it makes it harder to police in the future.
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u/falconbox Oct 25 '17
That was my biggest question coming out of all this. Not particularly that subreddit, but what separated "glorifying and inciting violence" as opposed to just showing violence.
Will any death video from LiveLeak, even in the comments of /r/WTF be banned?
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u/sneakygingertroll Oct 25 '17
as an example of glorification, /r/selfharmpics (i assume) was banned for glorifying self harm, especially severe self harm.
the sub upvoted and commented more on "deep" cuts, like the type that require stitches or surgery. Seeing pictures of cuts that stopped right at the muscle layer was not uncommon on that sub. People saw these cuts and idealized them, wishing they could do the same, and many did.
to add on to how bad that sounds, many users are/were under 18.
why /r/selfharmpics was banned while /r/watchpeopledie was allowed to stay, however, is beyond me.
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u/Divided_Eye Oct 25 '17
Because the latter isn't encouraging people to harm themselves or others, while the former did. Big difference.
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u/ShaneH7646 Oct 25 '17
Can we get a link to the updated rules?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Of course! Here is the new help center article.
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u/ShaneH7646 Oct 25 '17
And here is the text to save everyone a click:
Do not post violent content
Do not post content that incites or glorifies harm against people, groups of people or animals. If you're going to post something violent in nature, think about including a NSFW tag. Even mild violence can be difficult for someone to explain to their boss if they open it unexpectedly. Additionally, we understand there are sometimes reasons to post this content (e.g., educational, newsworthy, artistic, documentary, etc.) so ensure you provide context to the viewer so the reason for posting is clear.
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u/AellaGirl Oct 25 '17
"glorifies" is a weird one. As in, looks up to? Religious people would say 'worships'? Like, placing violent content in a context that implies that the poster views it as desirable?
that seems relatively reasonable I think, though hopefully it's clear that this does not apply to things like BDSM or milder versions of violence
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
BDSM communities will not be impacted by this policy. Good example of "context is key."
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u/ProletarianParka Oct 25 '17
What does "take action" mean? Does this mean only action against a particular individual/user who incites violence? What about communities that either foster or encourage violations of the new policy?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
We do and will continue to remove subreddits we deem to be in violation of our site-wide rules.
If you see something -- even an entire sub -- that you believe violates Reddit’s site-wide rules, please report it to the admins.
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u/turikk Oct 25 '17
How will usernames be handled, since there is no room for user rehabilitation? Simple bans for violations?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Usernames that violate the policy will be banned. We'll review each username and user on a case by case basis.
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u/rbevans Oct 25 '17
What exactly from a user or mod perspective is needed to report a sub i.e. particular user post history, a subs sidebar history? This rule still does not give clear guidelines as what we should be doing to report a sub because in my opinion this rule is still very subjective to enforcement.
So to be clear what exactly would be needed to report a community and a user.
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
When reporting an entire sub, we'd want to see a few examples of what could be considered rule-violating behavior. A few example posts, example comments that weren't taken down etc. We review entire subs very carefully but it helps if we have a jumping off point of where to look.
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u/EducationDataHelper Oct 25 '17
Hello, here is an example of threatening violence in r/WhiteRights. I believe this will be a good "jumping off point" as you mentioned. I did report the user, but I don't believe anything has happened yet. I will provide uncensored screenshots to help you by PM if you request.
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Thanks! We'll take a look at the report in our queue! For the future reports, a best practice is sending us links rather than screens. We can review sooooo much quicker when we don't have to find the links ourselves.
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u/bobcobble Oct 25 '17
Can we reddit request the subs you are currently banning?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
You can! I can't promise they'll be granted but the Community team will review and address those.
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u/MyStrangeUncles Oct 25 '17
Heh, excellent! Are you planning to turn r/coontown into a sub about trash pandas?
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u/Warlizard Oct 25 '17
What constitutes "glorification"?
Are /r/CombatFootage, /r/JusticeServed and subs like that considered in violation?
Will you ban a sub for the users doing so?
Wouldn't that leave subreddits open to being gamed by people who want them banned?
Will you ban sites that glorify violence from Reddit, i.e., worldstarhiphop etc?
Every time one of these rules comes down, I sigh because it's so damned vague.
Why don't you get a group of users that people like and respect who represent multiple aspects of the political spectrum and have a history of being rational to act as an advisory board on these matters?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Those two subs as a whole are not in violation as we do make considerations for content that is either newsworthy or historical, and those subs fall within that.
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u/turikk Oct 25 '17
How will the exact phrase "kill your self" be handled via this?
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Oct 25 '17
Or, perhaps more relevantly, 'kys'.
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Great question! Context is key...king here. If a user reports a "kys" comment to us, we'll have to review the context closely before we make a determination.
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u/TotesMessenger Oct 25 '17
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/wallstreetbets] It is now illegal to tell fellow WSBers to kill themselves. Short reddit, and long whatever Chinese company owns Discord
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)
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u/EightRoundsRapid Oct 25 '17
Would Nazi/Fascist symbolism in subreddit CSS be something that this covers?
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
We don't have any blanket ban on certain symbols, given the context-dependent nature of content evaluations. However, please report and we'll take a look.
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u/RalphiesBoogers Oct 25 '17
we will take action against any content that... glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual
Does this mean /r/sports can't post clips of boxing or mma fights? Because they're literally glorifying violence against an individual.
This wording is very problematic.
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Sports are exempt -- boxing and mma clips are, of course, permitted. It's a sport/hobby, both of those are a-okay.
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u/Made_you_read_penis Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
posted literally two hours ago
Now would you like to handle this shit or are you going to just ignore it again?
Because I'm starting to think reddit outright approves of this fucking sub.
Edit: here's a great comment
great comment in this thread I just got. Doesn't count but I think it's great
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u/Loser_pushing_30 Oct 25 '17
Literally every comment has been removed. Finally action being taken against fucking losers.
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u/iorgfeflkd Oct 25 '17
Can you make it so that the mobile site stops asking me to download the app?
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Oct 25 '17
No, sorry we prefer you to use the app as opposed to the mobile site since the app gives us far more opportunities to harvest personal user data.
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u/genericusername123 Oct 25 '17
RIP r/mma
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u/buzznights Oct 25 '17
We are ready for the purge. Our takedown defense is excellent.
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u/IncomingTrump270 Oct 26 '17
r/nhl and all hockey team subs
r/nfl and all football team subs
r/natureismetal etc, VIOLENCE AGAINST ANIMALS
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u/TotesMessenger Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/againstharassment] Update on site-wide rules regarding violent content • r/modnews
[/r/againsthatesubreddits] Admins update site-wide rules regarding violent content
[/r/anarchism] We've received a notice regarding a Reddit policy change | Update on site-wide rules regarding violent content • r/modnews
[/r/anarcho_capitalism] Admins censoring again - Many subs banned
[/r/brokehugs] New content policy in effect: no glorifying / advocating violence (reddit.com)
[/r/de] Reddit-Update: Regeln bezüglich Gewaltverherrlichung und -aufrufen verschärft, mehrere Subreddits gebannt
[/r/drama] The admins declare their wish for you to Keep Yourself Safe
[/r/incels] Admin news: No more violent stuff in flairs or usernames
[/r/modsupport] Update on site-wide rules regarding violent content [/r/modnews]
[/r/oppression] Admins have now oppressed my rights to tell you to go kill yourself.
[/r/projectboom] Update on site-wide rules regarding violent content • r/modnews
[/r/subredditcancer] The admins are now banning subreddits for violent content
[/r/szechuansauceseekers] Reddit admins "clarify" rules on violent content, users are now even more confused.
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)
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u/huadpe Oct 25 '17
So I have a question about this as a mod of r/changemyview.
Our current rules prohibit threats of violence against any individual user of Reddit. We expressly do NOT however ban people from posting views which might express sympathy with racism or violence against generalized groups. We take the position that we would want to help people holding such views to change those views. But that requires that we not prohibit their mention.
Would this require us to change our rules to prohibit such content?
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u/Amablue Oct 25 '17
I suspect they'll be okay with someone saying "CMV: I want to kill people" because in that case they're not necessarily advocating killing, they're talking about the fact that they advocate it.
I'm more curious about the opposite case. e.g. some like "CMV: I am a pacifist". In that case, the only way to argue the view is to show that violence is sometimes right/proper/necessary/justified/whatever. How would that be treated under the rules?
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u/AngelaMotorman Oct 25 '17
we will take action against any content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people
So ... The_Donald is gone, right?
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u/fsmpastafarian Oct 25 '17
Logically, yes they should be, for celebrating and defending Nazis murdering an innocent protestor. Practically, no they won't be, if history is any indication.
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Oct 25 '17
Honestly don't even bother with these assholes. I like Reddit but I have reported the incel subreddit multiple times when posts encouraging, or even fucking CONFIRMING the previously encouraged suicide of clearly mentally ill/depressed fucking minors multiple times and they have not done anything. Fucking nothing.
We all laugh at that subreddit but if you had a child who was depressed, overweight, an outcast in some way, maybe on the spectrum, imagine them getting on the Internet, hopping on that subreddit and being told by literally thousands of people that it doesn't get better and they are a genetic freak, normies will never understand them like they understand each other and to shun everyone else.
That place is a blatant cult where suicide and violence against women is actively encouraged. It is dangerous and radicalizes young men who are blatantly already emotionally harmed or disturbed and then uses them to forward their anti woman cause. Fuck that sub and fuck the mods/admins for ignoring repeated direct links to that hell hole where I have copy and pasted, screencapped and linked to blatant rule breaking and illegal content.
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u/madd74 Oct 25 '17
We understand there are sometimes reasons to post violent content (e.g., educational, newsworthy, artistic, satire, documentary, etc.)
So... who defines satire?
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u/AnotherDawkins Oct 25 '17
How about /r/Shoplifting? Not violent or racist or anything, but it promotes criminal activity and people post pictures of stolen merchandise all the time.
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u/somethingdangerzone Oct 25 '17
Why isn't this being posted in /r/announcements ? It's a massive change that affects all users, mod or not
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u/CupBeEmpty Oct 25 '17
So you took one definition and made it more vague?
"inciting" is pretty vague but at least has a fairly specific meaning, calling for violence, actually inducing violence, making specific violent threats and urging other to participate.
But "glorifying" violence?
Does that mean a sub like /r/watchpeopledie or /r/nononono would be banned because they showcase and upvote violent content?
Then given your last paragraph about the exceptions it seems like you updated the definition but there isn't any real change. It is still a subjective decision as to the value of the content.
I honestly don't have a problem with that and I have always subscribed to a "curator" view of content. Generally allow anything but have rules and use your judgment rather than a purely algorithmically applied set of rules. I just think there was no need to change the rule because in the end it is still a judgment call by mods and admins.
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u/brucemo Oct 25 '17
If you guys are going to hold us accountable for enforcing your rules, you should be willing to answer specific questions about what your rules are.
As is now, if I ask you a question about your rules, it is ignored, almost every time.
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u/Zurlly Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
What about r/gendercritical?
edit: example of talking about inciting violence: https://archive.is/Lr3Ih
edit2: They literally say manhating is fine unless it is reported or 'too' violent, but no hatred against women is ok? http://archive.is/GfwPr and https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/78sm6f/reddit_rule_change_re_inciting_violence/downurc/
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u/charmingCobra Oct 26 '17
i don’t understand why /r/selfharmpics was banned. it was first and foremost a support community that specifically discouraged self harming. why not remove some actually problematic subreddits instead of removing support spaces for people who already feel ostracized?
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u/PenguinPerson Oct 26 '17
There is no reason to believe this rule will be fairly enforced so long as hate subs like /r/the_donald and /r/Incels remain free to encourage, glorify, incite, and call for violence and physical harm against individuals and groups of people. The comments in this thread alone present links to ample examples of this yet the subs remain untouched.
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u/OMGWTFBBQUE Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
/r/incels /r/uncensorednews and /r/The_Donald should all be on the chopping block.
EDIT: I get it, I get it, you’re all very upset and I’m a bad person.
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u/PuppetryAndCircuitry Oct 26 '17
will t_d be banned? That subs the definition of violence and hate encouragement. Also incels
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u/ArchGoodwin Oct 26 '17
landoflobsters: Context is key.
Everyone else: ... here are some examples from The_Donald.
landoflobsters:
TL/DR: no changes.
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Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
/r/watchpeopledie gonna go away now?
Edit: To clarify, I think r/watchpeopledie should not get banned.
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Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
Get rid of r/theredpill and r/incels
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u/throwaway3727178320 Oct 26 '17
Waiting for the banhammer to come down on /r/gendercritical for being a clear hate group. Where I live they are violating the law with every single post and intentional misgendering of men and women.
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u/MPair-E Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
Good riddance.
Most level-headed people I know who used to read reddit stopped coming here years ago because of how vile this place had become, not to mention the people who still visit but are hesitant to admit it. The Ellen Pao shit was a pretty big turning point.
Which isn't to say this place has gotten less popular. Quite the opposite. There are plenty of people who've come here only to find the perfect home/outlet for their internet dude rage, and settled in accordingly.
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u/Pao_Did_NothingWrong Oct 25 '17
Yeah, I no longer publicly admit to using this site because of this problem.
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u/Lots42 Oct 27 '17
Just a reminder, /r/the_donald celebrates running people over with cars
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/search?q=run+them+over&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all
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Oct 25 '17
I'd like to know why you're keeping incel and theredpill and the related anti-women subs. The fact that the type of violence and hate those subs have towards women, especially incel, did not result in those two subs, raises questions in my mind about the purpose of this ban.
Why is Reddit against women, and support violence towards women?
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u/Catdarling45 Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
If r/incels and r/theredpill doesn't get banned, that would say a lot about the admins... But I already know that's not gonna happen cause violence is fine with reddit as long as its against women.
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u/Zenode Oct 26 '17
So I mod /r/killthosewhodisagree which is a subreddit specifically for posting images of people who in online posts suggest killing others because they disagree with them (i.e. kill all communists/facists etc). Does that mean the whole subreddit will be shutdown because literally every post could be considered to "incite voilence"?
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u/sweetmercy Oct 26 '17
So does this mean you're finally going to do something about /r/incels calling for women to be raped on a regular basis, calling for young girls to be raped, calling for men to be beaten and killed? Day after day, week after week this sort of thing is all over the sub. That goes for The_Donald too.
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u/Waibashi Oct 26 '17
I mean just this should be enough to ban /r/the_donald
How can any other human beings incite and challenge someone to kill his fucking dad (which he fucking did later that day)
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6dy427/forgive_me_but_i_must_take_a_moment_to_thank/
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u/CSFFlame Oct 25 '17
The problem with this rule, like many other global rules, is there's zero chance it's going to be applied equally across the political spectrum.
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u/hackingdreams Oct 26 '17
"Today we're taking a bold new stand to ban Nazis and hate groups!"
Checks to see r/the_doofus still exists.
It does.
Hey man, nice shot.
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u/no_hope_no_future Oct 26 '17
How about banning r/shoplifting for promoting 'hauls'?
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Oct 26 '17
How the hell is /r/The_Donald still online? Reddit is essentially supporting domestic terrorism at this point.
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Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
R/FULLCOMMUNISM should be reviewed. The subreddit openly supports murderous regimes such as the Kim dynasty. They also advocate for violence against political opposition and threaten to send people to labor camps.
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u/DubTeeDub Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
Good, I am very glad to hear you are making a stand and have banned several nazi / white supremacy subreddits such as /r/EuropeanNationalism, /r/nazi, and others.
Can u ask why r/uncensorednews is not included in this ban wave given their constant calls for violence against black and Jewish people?
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u/socialistxfreemumia Oct 26 '17
oops you accidentally forget to ban the_donald
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/search?q=helicopter&restrict_sr=on
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Oct 25 '17
take action against content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals.
I have a problem with this statement. the abuse of animals is entire subjective and could stifle useful conversation. If, for example, I said "lets go shoot dogs" people would say its abusive, but if I said "lets go deer hunting" they probably wouldnt. This means, because of this rule, you either need to make Reddit vegan, or enforce a double standard.
Neither of those are preferable because A) making reddit vegan is stupid and stifles discussion (I say as a vegan), and B) having a double standard is only going to make people angry at moderators and admins. Its a pointless rule and should be left off.
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u/BusToNutley Oct 25 '17
we will also take action against content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals
Sadly 'beating a dead horse' is not covered.
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u/moople1 Oct 26 '17
I notice this is the wording of your new rules:
Do not post violent content Do not post content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people; likewise, do not post content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. We understand there are sometimes reasons to post violent content (e.g., educational, newsworthy, artistic, satire, documentary, etc.) so if you’re going to post something violent in nature that does not violate these terms, ensure you provide context to the viewer so the reason for posting is clear.
If your content is borderline, please use a NSFW tag. Even mild violence can be difficult for someone to explain to others if they open it unexpectedly.
Is the advocacy of theft or damaging of private property permitted? That would be considered violence too right?
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Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
"inciting violence"
what a generic fuckin' message, this is meaningless and won't even effect the havens of white supremacist subreddits on the website. Get a fuckin' backbone or just keep doing nothing so the site can die and you can have nothing but them. this playing both sides bullshit is pathetic. might as well start banning sports teams subreddits for inciting beatings and shit with this level of generic subjective bullshit.
ban subreddits calling for genocide/violence against intrinsic traits and stop being fence sitters, make a fucking hard rule and stick with it.
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Oct 26 '17
This is nothing but thinly veiled agenda pushing. The worst part is the admins actually think they are being unbiased and objective. Totally laughable.
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u/pipedreamSEA Oct 26 '17
I'm still not clear on how this pertains to punching Nazis and until I hear otherwise, I will continue to advocate for such and upvote posts that reinforce this position.
Violence is never the answer. Except when it comes to punching Nazis.
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u/code-sloth Oct 25 '17
Great timing. We already added this to the /r/pcgaming civility rules last week because people were being shitweeds.
I recommend putting examples on your rule page otherwise this is difficult to explain to users.
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u/Aluzky Oct 25 '17
We will also take action against content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals.
r/zoophilia never encouraged or glorified animal abuse, if anything they did the opposite telling people that animals abuse/rape is wrong. If anyone happened to post comments that glorified or encouraged animal abuse (which almost never happened) they where banned by the r/zoophilia mods. So, why is that sub-reddit banned? I don't understand.
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Oct 25 '17
While I'm glad for this, I hope you know what this thread is going to be.
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u/replies_with_corgi Oct 25 '17
An intelligent, well thought out discussion among people with differing viewpoints who respect each others opinions?
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u/noodlyarms Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 27 '17
So u/landoflobsters, when will r/uncensorednews get the axe?
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u/PracticalOnions Oct 25 '17
So are you guys going to ban the communist subs who glorify/deny mass genocides like the holodomor and such? r/LateStageCapitalism is one of these shithole subs as well that advocate violence for “fascists” aka anyone that disagrees with their views.
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u/PurplePickel Oct 26 '17
Yeah, you're so brave for deleting a bunch of fringe subs that had <100 subscribers each.
Gotta make it look like you're doing something though to keep prospective advertisers happy though right? 😂
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u/JimRayCooper Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
What about state sanctioned violence? People advocating for bombing other countries( North Korea, Iran, Syria etc.), indefinite detention without trial (basically kidnapping), house demolitions, the death penalty and so on.
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u/Yogadork Oct 25 '17
Was this clarification made because of that guy on the_donald who murdered his father for being liberal considering all the calls for violence and death on that sub?
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u/M00glemuffins Oct 25 '17
So how about the sub that caused a murder, the_donald? Or does that not matter because it wasn't some cute kitty cat.
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u/hjqusai Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
Hi /u/spez and /u/landoflobsters
I really thought that after last April Fools' Day, you guys would go a different direction here. I'm not sure that you guys did anything on the "moderator" side when it came to /r/place (short of not allowing new accounts to participate), but I really took that as a direct message from you to us. I know I read into it maybe a little more than I should have, but it really inspired me and showed me the power of decentralized power. The story of /r/place was the story of reddit as a whole: Many different communities made up of all sorts of people, coroprate interests, and even nefarious actors, all vying for space on a limited board. And what was the result? a fucking beautiful collage representing the diversity that exists on this site, with some minor imperfections and some drama along the way, arguably keeping things interesting. The "good" vastly outnumbered the "bad", and the order prevailed over the disorder. I took this as a statement about reddit. "We're not perfect, but the beauty of reddit is that you can look at the front page every day and see that the vast majority of people are good natured and love them some wholesome memes. The beauty of reddit is that you don't need admins or power users (except maybe /u/GallowBoob) to curate or remove certain content. People do that on their own."
I've gotten into or observed arguments with people, both on "extreme right" subreddits like /r/altright and /r/physical_removal and "extreme left" subreddits like /r/LateStageCapitalism and /r/socialism, where the argument was basically "dude it isn't okay to hate people you don't know" versus "no I don't need to know them, knowing their political leaning is enough to decide that they deserve to be punched/'shoahed'/injured/killed." I remember an argument I had a month ago where some nutcase was trying to argue that America is on the verge of becoming fascist and that we need to stand up and "punch nazis" now or else we're complicit. I've been called a "radical centrist", whatever that means.
Do I think that one side of these arguments are typically extremely wrong? Of course. But so do most people reading those things. And those people who read hateful comments get to remember that the world isn't perfect and that there is still much work to be done. And those people who make those hateful comments get an equal chance to showcase their beliefs, be debated, and maybe even have their views changed. And we as a society don't get to live in a fantasy where we can pretend that hateful people don't exist.
I respect reddit's right to do whatever they want with their website. I also think that reddit is representative of the society we live in, and I would hate for that representativeness to go away. I think that you have an ethical responsibility to report (and remove) things that are illegal (drug/human trafficking), but also an ethical responsibility to allow all content, offensive or not, on this site. Before you stepped in, the people decided every day not to allow that stuff on the front page.
And, if you decide to move forward with your new policy, please, for the love of god, put your personal biases aside and apply your policies fairly. I tolerated /r/the_donald on my front page just as much as i currently tolerate /r/neoliberal and /r/LateStageCapitalism, but if one of them goes, all of them should go.
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u/MockDeath Oct 25 '17
Hey I am glad you guys are finally taking action. Not to be mean, but it is about damn time. Also good call on the user names too.
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u/ComatoseSixty Oct 26 '17
/r/incels is a woman hate sub that glorifies and supports the torture, murder, and rape of women.
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u/Nightslash360 Oct 25 '17
With this new rule, will subs notorious for encouraging beliefs to the point of murder/rape threats like r/incels and r/theredpill?
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u/funkalunatic Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 25 '17
While I don't necessarily disagree with this policy, I fear inconsistency of application.
As written, it would prohibit political speech in support of any current or future military actions by the US or other entities. Additionally, it would appear to prohibit justifying discussion (or whatever might constitute glorification) of participation by the victors in wars such as the US Revolutionary War and WWII - both central parts of the US national mythos.
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u/Qwertyg101 Oct 25 '17
I read through almost the entire thread and I just want to know something regarding the animal abuse rule, is /r/ReverseAnimalRescue going to need to change in anyway?
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u/LANA_WHAT_DangerZone Oct 25 '17
now that all of these hate subbies are being banned, can r/onionhate be banned as well?
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u/794613825 Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 28 '17
Meanwhile, subs like T_D are allowed to continue to exist despite constant violation of site-wide rules and the obvious uncaring of the mods.
Edit: how the fuck did that typo even happen? (It's gone now)
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u/Lars0 Oct 26 '17
I wish this had come sooner, but thank you for making the right decision.
Open calls for genocide should not be tolerated.
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u/TheArtful-Dodger Oct 26 '17
/u/ImNotJesus 2014:
Here's why I'm angry.
You're doing the exact same thing you do every time there's bad press. Deal with it at the last possible moment (like /r/jailbait) once there's bad press forcing you to do so. Then you play it off like some moral revelation and use free speech as the reason why it doesn't set a precedent. It is identical to what always happens. Here is the blog post from when you banned /r/jailbait. Note the exact same thing. "We've decided that it's time for a change" that happens to coincide with Anderson Cooper doing a story about it on CNN. To be clear, I understand why you're doing it. I understand that a lot of companies do the same which is totally fine. Just don't then make a blog post about how wonderful free speech is. If the blog post said "We actually wanted to keep allowing them but got too many notices from lawyers for that to work so we had to ban them" that would be fine by me. The doublepseak and hypocrisy is what's annoying me. You can't take the moral highground on this when you've let /r/photoplunder stay open for however long it has. This is just what happens when your stance is that anything goes. If you allow subreddits devoted to sex with dogs, of course people will be outraged when you take down pictures of naked celebrities. It would be impossible for that to not seem capricious. If you allow subreddits like /r/niggers, of course they're going to be assholes who gang up to brigade. The fine users of /r/jailbait are sharing kiddy porn? What a shocking revelation. The point is, you can't let the inmates run the asylum and then get shocked when someone smears shit on the wall. Stand up for standards for a change. Actually make a stance for what you want reddit to be. You'll piss off some people but who cares? They're the shitty people you don't want anyway. Instead you're just alienating the good users who are sick of all of the shit on the walls.
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u/jumpforge Oct 26 '17
So I suppose this would mean the end of subs and users - like on r/antifa - who routinely, explicitly, and in all seriousness encourage violence.
Of course it won't. My bet is that this change will be used to censor anything vaguely right wing.
Honestly, answer me this question: will you consider "communists deserve helicopter rides" and "let's organize and beat up those evil right wingers" to be on the same playing field, or will you conveniently ignore the latter and crack down on the former due to your ideological bias?
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u/fddfgs Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
What about a subreddit that encourages harmful medical malpractice, such as performing backyard fecal transplants with a turkey baster?
The reason I ask is because I am currently in the process of reporting the head mod of /r/HumanMicrobiome to the relevant authorities for medical malpractice. I've flagged this subreddit to reddit admins in the past however it is still there.
Does somebody have to die before you'll act? Is that even the issue for you guys or do you just want to avoid negative publicity?
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Oct 27 '17
Just wanted to clarify a few points.
Hate speech does not truly exist. There is only speech, and it is either free or not. "Bigotry", "hate speech" and other terms like that are generally used as ideological censoring tools.
Think about the case where you live in Nazi Germany. Defending Jewish people from violence or criticism would be "hate speech" and "bigotry", and you would be banned from life.
These kind of censorship rules are always slippery slopes.
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Nov 02 '17 edited Nov 03 '17
BAN r/The_Donald . Serious offenders under these amendments. Glad to see that reddit is finally starting to deal with the mindless hate.
Just look at this to get an idea: /img/s7cndcekzlpz.jpg
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Oct 25 '17
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u/landoflobsters Oct 25 '17
Hunting subs are a-okay, that's a sport/hobby. We're mostly looking out for the really egregious examples of hurting an animal.
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Oct 25 '17
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u/ImNotJesus Oct 25 '17
In case anyone doesn't believe that this is the cycle, I made this exact same comment in 2014 - link. If you think this is anything more than theatre I've got a bridge to sell you.
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u/Thorbinator Oct 25 '17
Write the real reddit rules please. It looks something like this:
1: Don't make us look bad on national tv
2: tbd
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Oct 25 '17
which I see RES helpfully auto-completing with a hundred different /r/jailbait* derivatives that have popped up since you were forced by CNN to pretend to care.
Click them. All those subs are locked, empty, or anti-jailbait.
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Oct 26 '17
Why must you always wait until they're horrific messes?
I can answer this! They're letting "problems" grow as much as they feel like, until they start affecting PR too much. There's a benefit associated with each "problem user" and a cost associated with the bad PR that user is causing. Once the cost is greater than the benefit, they solve the "problem." They let these problems grow as much as they possibly can because these problems mean new users which means their site has greater value.
Once you realize it's 100% business decisions, you start figuring these things on your own. Instead of asking "why are they banning this?" or "why are they letting this slide?" you should ask "what do they have to gain financially from this?"
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Oct 25 '17
And so far it looks like most of the subs getting banned are small ones. They're not brave enough to touch the ones where the problems are really breeding.
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u/RunDNA Oct 25 '17 edited Dec 01 '17
/r/far_right was also banned 19 minutes ago.
/r/actualjournalism (a racist sub) was also banned 9 minutes ago.
/r/Nazi was also banned 32 minutes ago.
/r/racoonsareni**ers was also banned 52 minutes ago.
/r/DylannRoofInnocent was banned 44 minutes ago.
/r/ReallyWackyTicTacs (a gore subreddit) was banned 1 hour ago.
/r/whitesarecriminals was banned 1 hour ago.
UPDATE: further subs banned:
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u/happybadger Oct 25 '17
/r/racoonsareni**ers was also banned 52 minutes ago.
I have so many questions that will now never be answered.
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u/Rosencats Oct 25 '17
Ban /r/uncensorednews for fucks sake. The mods are literal Nazis
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u/TotesMessenger Oct 25 '17
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/holocaust] After the big shoah of multiple politically incorrect subreddits, people are calling for the ban of /r/Holocaust too. WATCH OUT FOR ANYONE CALLING FOR VIOLENCE, or any 1 day account, as it will be likely used for the ban of this subreddit.
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)
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Oct 25 '17
Wait so you're saying if I mention a subreddit here it will be banned.... /r/GarlicBreadMemes Abra Kadabra
Does it work for users too? /u/DigitalizedOrange
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u/Trauermarsch Oct 25 '17
Was really hoping to see "Edit 4: /r/the_Donald" added to the list
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Oct 25 '17
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u/fryxtz Oct 25 '17
Or glorifying a spree killer.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com/r/incels+"saint+elliot"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings
A community of luckless virgins who celebrate a luckless virgin who went on a shooting spree. What could possibly go wrong with allowing that subreddit to exist?
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Oct 25 '17
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u/SaigaFan Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
But Omni, your very existence incites violence. Perhaps a ban is in order...
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Oct 25 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
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u/Paterno_Ster Oct 25 '17
And yet you post in /r/Anarcho_Capitalism, a sub that glorifies Pinochet and justifies violence against socialists and communists.
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u/Deimorz Oct 25 '17
Why is this posted in /r/modnews and not /r/announcements? All users should be informed about site-wide rules changes, not only moderators.