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Reddit is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups. Blatant racism on auto joined communities, sexism as the default, exploitation of women as often as possible. /r/Jailbait was over the line of sexualising children. But /r/creepshots not being immediately banned by the admins frankly scared me. Reddit will host a community that encourages people to stalk women and photograph them for personal gratification.



I think it would go without saying on HN, but with all the focus on the negative at Reddit lately, the positive gets lost. Just like there is some horrible stuff on reddit, there is some really amazing places. /r/askscience comes to mind immediately. or /r/suicidewatch or /r/randomactsofpizza. A very long list of very good things are hosted on reddit, and I think it's important to keep that in mind. The presence of these things does not negate the horrible things. Like most things in life, the goodness or badness of something is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.


It is not important to keep those things in mind. Not in the slightest.

All the free pizzas in the world don't make up for the fact the admins knowingly provide hosting for a community which encourages men to follow women around in public trying to take pictures up their skirts or down their blouses.


There are upskirt videos on youtube as well. I remember people trading them on AOL chatrooms, random popular forums, and Usenet before that.

The only way you can stop it is by censoring the Internet, thus human thought. That's going to prove unpopular no matter where you fall politically, but especially bodes unwell here.


> The only way you can stop it is by censoring the Internet, thus human thought.

Sneaking pictures of people's bodies isn't about human thought, but it is a part of institutional sexism.


>I remember people trading [upskirts] on . . . Usenet before that.

Not arguing with you, just curious. What year was this approximately? And which group?


I don't think there was a dedicated one then (at least I never took time to look for them when I was a teen, more focused on whatever piqued my interest at that point) but you could find people requesting and filling requests for them throughout alt.binaries.pictures.erotica and associated subgroups. My teens were mid-late 90s.

I just googled and see there is an a.b.p.e.upskirts one now, but I don't know when that was created. Could've been there all the while.


The issue isn't that communities can form on Reddit, but rather that the staff of Reddit welcome the creation of communities that actively perpetuate extremely harmful behavior. Ultimately the Reddit staff is free to run their site as they see fit, but the larger community of the Internet is rightly quite pissed about the fact that Reddit is supporting people who are actively violating others.


So where should the line be?

Should the people advocating for legalization of marijuana lose their community? Should /r/atheism be silenced for being offensive? Should MensRights be removed? Should MyLittlePony be banned for being vaguely creepy?

I don't agree in the slightest with the CreepShots subreddit and what it stands for but blatantly offensive subreddits might be doing a service as lightning rods for censorship advocates. If those firewalls fall we may find ourselves fighting for subreddits that might actually have some value even if some people don't agree with the views that are bred there.


I know I responded to you elsewhere in another thread, but you said something here that wasn't said there, so I want to speak to just that:

> I don't agree in the slightest with the CreepShots subreddit and what it stands for but blatantly offensive subreddits might be doing a service as lightning rods for censorship advocates.

This issue isn't about censorship, even though there are always those folks calling for censorship when stories like these break. The highly offensive subreddit communities that perpetuate racism and sexism are not helping anyone, but are instead creating a space that encourages continued racism and sexism, esp. physical actions like stalking that are directly harmful to people. These subreddits do not create a stronger community or provide some kind of example of how Reddit can or should be. That the Reddit staff continues to condone those subreddits while profiting off of that user traffic is the worst kind of behavior the owners of a site can take.


You should probably know that most of the groups clavalle named - in particular, MensRights, /r/atheism, and probably MyLittlePony - are ones that the people behind the current campaign against Creepshots have specifically said they want to see banned next. (And the targetting of MensRights isn't specific to that community either. From what I can tell, any community that actually considers forcing unconsenting men to have sex to be a form of rape has the same problem.)


"highly offensive subreddit communities that perpetuate racism and sexism are not helping anyone"

I disagree. They have helped me. How? I live in a very nice bubble, for the most part. In many ways, these issues don't exist in my day-to-day life. It is valuable to me to see that there are still assholes in the world. Granted, I know this on a very abstract level, but sometimes it is good to get smacked by the reality of a situation. It enhances my empathy and keeps me from the easy path of dismissal. This is also the reason, to a lesser degree, that I visit news sites that I know I will disagree with and I occasionally get in pointless internet arguments with their die-hard fans. Is that enough to keep them from censorship? Probably not, but there is /some/ value there.


Most real world problems exist on gradients. Reddit errs on the side of free speech. That's a tough place to be, everything exists on a continuum and being the person to draw stark lines is hard.

I think people are being a bit rough on the reddit crew, the decisions they have to make aren't clear or obvious.

FWIW, I'm fully on the side of banning reddits like creepshots and jailbait, but I understand that making those decisions takes time and deliberation, and that sometimes you make the wrong call.


>I think people are being a bit rough on the reddit crew, the decisions they have to make aren't clear or obvious.

They used to be, and that's one of the things that made the community great. The decision was always this: If it's illegal or spam, it's not allowed. If it's not illegal or spam, it's allowed.

That was a refreshingly transparent way to run a community, and had they stuck to that principle, their decisions would have continued to be simple and obvious. But as soon as they started to feel some media backlash, they turned their back on the idea of transparency and instead opened Pandora's Box of vague policies and case-by-case judgment calls.

I sympathize with those who say that r/jailbait was "over the line", but reddit's decision to ban it was the Wrong Call.


Agree, and I'm disappointed that the conversation on HN is still in terms of “free speech”. Do people know what kind of content Violentacrez posted? According to Zeynep Tufekci’s account:

    Children focused “jailbait” forums typically
    include photos of minors on a beach in splashing around
    in bathing suits, a youngster practicing gymnastics,
    students in school with the picture taken from a
    low-angle, from-the-behind etc. and are peppered with
    comments about genitals, looks and rape. The more
    adult-oriented “creepshot” forum typically include
    non-consensual “upskirt” photos of women’s crotches,
    breasts, as well private photographs that were shared
    with boyfriends, exes, being circulated for commentary
    and leering.
I never visited the communities in question, so if that summary is materially inaccurate, please correct.

If that is accurate, I don’t see how anyone could think the actions of taking such photos, sharing them publicly and encouraging more to be taken, are victimless actions, or are even remotely defensible under the banner of “free speech”. Intimidating and harassing others and sharing recognizable photos without their consent is not “free speech”.

If Reddit wanted to take the moral high ground they would need to realize that while certain content may technically be legal, it should not be encouraged and welcomed by their community.

More in this great (but long) article by Zeynep Tufekci, which I've quoted above: http://technosociology.org/?p=1135


I'm not sure you're bringing in the full picture. Reddit is a media community, not a media outlet. The parent company is a bastion of an authentic (however defined) self-policed system; to a limit, that includes the good and the bad. You might point fingers at the community, but you're talking about a lot of people, so you'll have to make inaccurate generalizations.

I think Raganwald's points are well taken because they relate to the Reddit company's mission as a provider of free-speech, not as a provider of things you find distasteful.


> Blatant racism on auto joined communities,

I have never seen this on reddit, ever, unless you don't understand sarcasm or can't take a joke.

> sexism as the default,

Really? That's funny, because I'm pretty sure there's a preponderance of Internet White Knights on reddit, and I've never seen sexism that went ignored.

> exploitation of women as often as possible.

That's a gross hyperbole. I don't see how reddit 'exploits' women in any way.

> /r/Jailbait was over the line of sexualising children.

/r/jailbait was sexualizing young adults, many of whom were be perfectly legal in their given jurisdiction, many of whom were going out of their way to be sexualized. The moderation of /r/jailbait was exceedingly strict in preventing the sexualization of children.


This comment is an excellent summary of my problems with reddit. I spend way, way more time than I should arguing with people who think that "it's just a joke" is a defense of anything. Or with people who treat the pointing out of sexism as worse than sexism. If you don't think /r/CreepShots was exploitative of women, we have very different opinions on this subject. And finally, you defend /r/jailbait, going as far as to blame the people in the photos.

I hope people upvote you just because you provided such a concise summary of every bad argument used to defend reddit.


"It's just a joke" is a defense of everything. It's a reflection on the human condition - it's how intelligent people cope with the horrors of humanity.

Or do you think we should still be mourning six million Jews? Slavery? Cancer? AIDS? Terrorism?

We're all going to die some day. We're all going to go through some horrible shit before we die. At least some of us can laugh about it.

I'd never been to /r/creepshots, and I'm not blaming anyone with regards to /r/jailbait - I don't know what blame there is to place.


/r/videos and /r/funny often have blatantly racist submissions or posts. Basically, someone will find an example of bad behavior on worldstarhiphop and then a bandwagon will attribute the behavior to race. It's hard to miss.


> /r/jailbait was sexualizing young adults, many of whom were be perfectly legal in their given jurisdiction, many of whom were going out of their way to be sexualized.

There were many pictures in /r/jailbait well below 16, which is the lowest common age of consent in the US (which is where most of the photos seemed to be from). That's far from "young adult".


Frankly, i'm exactly on the other side with this issue. I'm appalled and, if not scared, at least apprehensive, that Reddit throws freedom of speech under the bus at the sight of trouble. I understand that, from a business point of view, it's the logical thing to do, but i find it morally problematic.

To quote Noam Chomsky:

> Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech.


I don't quite agree with your analogy. If Reddit closed down /r/trees, that would be censorship of people with non-mainstream opinions. There is no narrowing of discourse in society if creepshots gets shut down.

There are free speech issues at play here, but I think they have more to do with balancing people's need for privacy versus the right of people to make and share media of things that happen in public.

(That said, a lot of images in those communities are just stolen from other people's Facebook streams anyway, so it's also an issue of privacy.)


If there are things that harm people, they should get banned.

Draw a clear line. But be careful where you draw the line. In the 50s, a reddit about interracial marriage might have been considered harmful and in some places illegal.

Wherever you draw it, remember the right is going to use it to say any subreddit about gays is actually about pedophiles.

And mob justice against people who violate your social norms goes both ways. In many countries that serves to further victimize victims of oppression, e.g. http://feministing.com/2012/10/18/well-you-did-dare-to-speak...


"But be careful where you draw the line. In the 50s, a reddit about interracial marriage might have been considered harmful and in some places illegal."

And that's the point. What is and isn't acceptable is fluid and subjective. Reddit says "If it's not illegal, it's OK. Talk to your lawmaker if you don't like it." Which is the same stance search engines take as well.

Reddit doesn't have to be, and I don't think should be, an arbiter of legality, let alone taste. People are complaining at the wrong people, just because they're closest.


Thank you. Really wishing there were more women actively commenting in these threads as they're the ones actually affected by these types of behaviors. It's easy to say "Things are fine, leave it alone" when you're not the ones being targeted and victimized.


Firstly, it's not that "Reddit is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups", but that humanity happens to contain some fairly horrible groups. Reddit is just software. The same groups would otherwise use vBulletin, Usenet, or whatever other forum software to band together. You're conveniently forgetting that the same software + website are host to /r/fitness, /r/mensrights, /r/GetMotivated, and other very positive groups.

Basically, reddit is the early-21st century's Usenet. That's all there is to it.

Why not generalize a bit further and say, "The Internet is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups"?


Thats where the question of morality enters. Vbulletin could choose not to sell their software to racist hate groups, the same way a newspaper chooses not to publish a racist screed in their editorial section, the same way a hosting company can choose not to host pro-anorexia sites.

Reddit could choose not to allow the horrible side of humanity to use their platform. Even tumblr has standards. There will always be awful parts of human nature, but through our moral choices we minimize or promote them.


I, personally, can't see a big difference betweent creepshots and the abundance of upskirt/downbluse paparazzi photos that tons of media outlets are happy to show.


One is Lindsay Lohan and one is your wife.


Lindsay Lohan isn't a person? She doesn't deserve any respect for her privacy or her feelings? Publishing pictures of her crotch is totally cool because she's (in)famous, but publishing pictures of some random woman fully clothed standing in line at the grocery store is horrible and abusive? I fail to see any logical way that anyone can be against one and not the other.


Not at all what I'm saying, but one of them went into a profession where publicity was the name of the game and the other is just trying to buy groceries with your kids. The paparazzi has been harassing celebrities for decades; it isn't right but it isn't new, and people look down on the people those photographers and often grief them. Cyberbullies taking pictures with their phones behind someone's back for fake internet points that give them some sort of credence in their community is just flat-out disgusting.


Cyberbullies? Are we playing Buzzword Bullshit Bingo now?

And just because it's been done for decades doesn't make it right. Remember, this whole thing is about morals, not about law.


>and people look down on the people those photographers and often grief them

And in this case, the people publishing those photos (gawker) are hypocritically bashing other people for publishing much less invasive photos (reddit). So the idea that the invasion of celebrities privacy is looked down on already seems a bit unrealistic.

>Cyberbullies taking pictures with their phones behind someone's back for fake internet points that give them some sort of credence in their community is just flat-out disgusting.

You just keep stating your opinion as if it were a logical answer to the question. I understand that you feel that way. I am not asking what you feel. I am asking how gawker's photos are less bad than creepshots. I don't think taking pictures of fully clothed people in public areas is disgusting, so expecting me to suddenly just take your word for it is pretty silly.


Gawker has nothing to do with this at the core of the issue; these subreddits exist with or without them. They've been a burden to users who see them as the embarrassing drunk uncle and the reason why Reddit isn't taken more seriously. Your community is only as good as you shape it to be, and if you want to boast that you're the front page of the internet, you are expected to sustain worthwhile content that isn't overrun by village idiots who end up pushing the key contributors away.

Having standards isn't throwing freedom out the window. Regardless of whether or not Reddit's stance is to be as neutral as possible, those involved with the growth and monetization of the site need to address this before someone else does if they want the site to continue to thrive.


> you are expected to sustain worthwhile content that isn't overrun by village idiots who end up pushing the key contributors away.

That's why there are subreddits.


Yes, gawker does have something to do with it. You said it is ok for them to post pictures of celebrity crotches, and it is horrible and disgusting for other people to post pictures of random people just standing around fully clothed in public, where tons of people can see them already. You were asked for clarification as to why you feel one is ok and the other isn't, and you just said "one is Lindsay Lohan". You still haven't explained why you think one is ok and the other is not, and your posts continue to try to drag things further and further from that question.


Didn't actually say that. Gawker is and has been a terrible company for as long as I can remember. But their actions have nothing to do with these ongoing issues that keep cropping up with Reddit. If they didn't do the witchhunt, someone else would have.


Again, you have ignored the question. What makes posting pictures of Lindsay Lohan's crotch more acceptable than posting pictures of fully clothed women standing around in public?


The difference is that celebrities know that they will have to deal with paparazzi as part of being a voluntary and willing participant in the public spotlight.

The random woman on the street does not voluntarily choose to have a picture of her posted all over the internet for perverts to ogle.

Note that this difference is important legally -- beating up a paparazzi is a crime, but beating up a pervert taking creepshots of your wife/daughter is either not a crime or would not be realistically prosecutable.




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