Absolutely. And I think it’s worth noting that by allowing creepshots, but banning doxxing those who post creepshots, Reddit is expressing the moral preference that it’s okay to harass women and photograph them in compromising positions, but it’s not okay to call someone out on that.
I find that position repugnant, and I’m sickened people keep talking about this situation as if it’s Michael Brutsch who’s the victim here.
Adrian Chen on Twitter: “Why I felt OK outing Violentacrez: Anonymity should be valued mainly to the extent it helps protect powerless from powerful. VA wasn't that.” (https://twitter.com/AdrianChen/status/258703898695593984)
> "Reddit is expressing the moral preference that it’s okay to harass women and photograph them in compromising positions"
Oh come on, that's bull. This is the exact same line of reasoning as "if you're not with us you're against us" - not being against something does not indicate that one is for something, or even condoning of something.
Reddit's position against doxxing means Reddit is against doxxing - any further extrapolations are your own. Reddit's stance on doxxing may result in women being harassed and photographed in compromising situations, but that in no way means that, quote, "Reddit is expressing the moral preference that it’s okay to harass women and photograph them in compromising positions".
That is a patent falsehood, and I find your entire post deeply offensive. This is the same exact argument right-wing politicians have used in the past to take us to war.
By your logic, the burger you had for lunch last week expresses your moral preference for factory farming practices and the grave environment impact of meat consumption. Guilt by association much?
You quoted only part of the sentence. “...but it's not okay to call someone out on that.”
Reddit has decided to allow one form of legal(?) content (invasive, sexually exploitative photos) but disallow another (publicizing the name of people who post such photos). By doing so, they are explicitly privileging the former over the latter and that is a moral preference.
The Reddit community is all in favor of free speech when women are being harassed, but opposes free speech when the name of a harasser is being published.
In other words, this is not about free speech at all.
That isn't the part of the post that's offensive, and therefore wasn't the part I quoted.
I do not take issue with your line of argument re: free speech, though I disagree with it.
I do take strong issue with your baseless ad hominem attack against every person who works for Reddit. Their actions (or rather, lack thereof) is not an "expression of moral preference" for the harassment of women.
That portion of your post was deliberately intellectually dishonest to the highest and most vindictive degree.
It's not terribly surprising though. This isn't actually the first time I've come across a bunch of left-wingers using the exact same bullshit arguments as the right wing this week; ran across the incident described in http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/09/frankly-i-dont-care-how-du... a few days ago which is about typical.
I said nothing about “every person who works for Reddit”. Wikipedia says Reddit has 20 employees. I would sure hope that at least one of those employees doesn’t hold harassers as more worthy of privacy and protection than their targets. But that is the apparent position of the company as a whole based on the company’s actions.
Note that if you take my “okay/not okay” sentence that you half-quoted, and substitute “allowed on Reddit/not allowed on Reddit”, it is literally fact. I do not agree that going from “allowed on Reddit” to “okay” is dishonest. The company is aware of both the harassment and the doxxing, and they have chosen to allow the former but ban the latter, and having done so, they cannot claim neutrality.
> "But that is the apparent position of the company as a whole based on the company’s actions."
You keep saying that, I don't think "apparently positions" means what you think it means.
The position of the company is simply: "Reddit does not allow doxxing" - like I said before, any extrapolations on Reddit's intent is your own. Reddit's failure to prevent creepshots content does NOT
IT DOES NOT (repeated because you apparently don't get it) imply a "moral preference that it's okay to harass women".
This is no different than someone turning a blind eye to bullying. You can imply a certain lack of moral fortitude, or even argue that turning a blind eye enables bullies, but to go from that to "this implies you have a moral preference for bullies" is just complete nonsense.
I don't have a problem with the above arguments - the enabler and the lack of moral fiber, heck, I agree with that stance in many ways. What I do have a problem with is your wild extrapolations and presenting them as fact. Do you have any evidence that Reddit has an expressed "moral preference for the harassment of women"?!
This is ad hominem and smearing at its worst.
> "they cannot claim neutrality."
No, perhaps they can't. But you're shifting the topic again. You came out with an ad hominem appeal to emotion argument that was as completely unsubstantiated and inferred as it is inflammatory - that is what I'm challenging you on. You can't go around claiming "company X has an expressed moral preference for sexual harassment" with your sole reasoning being "they fail to stop it from happening".
You are sensationalizing and arguing from an incredibly disingenuous position.
Your reasoning is nonsense. The doxxing rule is designed to prevent harassment of female and other Reddit users. Reddit.com draws its line at onsite vs offsite, not female vs not female.
This isn't quite the case. Reddit has been presented with situations that called for a response: do we take action or not? In the case of banning /r/jailbait and doxxing, Reddit decided to take a stance against those things. When it comes to enabling communities whose primary purpose is harassment, Reddit has decided to allow those things.
> Reddit's position against doxxing means Reddit is against doxxing - any further extrapolations are your own. Reddit's stance on doxxing may result in women being harassed and photographed in compromising situations, but that in no way means that, quote, "Reddit is expressing the moral preference that it’s okay to harass women and photograph them in compromising positions".
Reddit (as a company) has taken a position that enables harassment of women instead of taking the right action to police their own site from content in the same league as doxxing. A stance against doxxing followed up by actions that excuse the very things that lead to doxxing in the first place is a symptom of a cover your ass mentality that shows Reddit staff could give a shit less about actually cleaning up the site they run.
> "Reddit (as a company) has taken a position that enables harassment of women"
That is fair, but where is the link between that and "expresses a moral preference" for the harassment of women?
You can say (and it would be reasonably fair) that Reddit's actions (or lack thereof) enables deplorable behavior - but that's long, long, long, LONG way from condoning or preferring it.
I don't take issue with the fact that people find Reddit's stance problematic. I do take issue when people go off the rails and essentially resort to ad hominem character attacks and smearing.
I think this comes back to actions speaking louder than words. It doesn't matter if Reddit says nothing or even makes a statement against harassment, but if what they are doing enables it, then we can't really say that their words even mean anything. I would say its not really about expressing a preference or not, but rather about actually taking actions that create the kind of community you want to run on your site.
Your burger tangent is a strange one because yes, by eating that burger you're providing direct support to the meat industry, further enabling their factory farming practices. When you buy factory farmed meat you're specifically expressing your moral preference for cheap, tasty meat over the environmental and moral costs of its preparation. You can't dissociate the two.
>By your logic, the burger you had for lunch last week expresses your moral preference for factory farming practices and the grave environment impact of meat consumption.
A lot of people do believe that though, sadly "with us or against us" is really really common.
I find that position repugnant, and I’m sickened people keep talking about this situation as if it’s Michael Brutsch who’s the victim here.
Adrian Chen on Twitter: “Why I felt OK outing Violentacrez: Anonymity should be valued mainly to the extent it helps protect powerless from powerful. VA wasn't that.” (https://twitter.com/AdrianChen/status/258703898695593984)