Story
As pointed out in the article, "hate speech is so hard to ban" hasn't stopped Reddit from banning hateful subreddits in the past that promoted the likes of racism and transphobia. And let's not forget Steve Huffman himself said racism wasn't against Reddit rules.
These people cannot be any more transparent. So much power at their fingertips, and they won't do a goddamn thing.
Edit: On second thought, "suspend" is a better word than "ban," but I don't think that'll fit in the title. Could the mods apply a fix?
This past Saturday, Zachary Swanson, a Reddit user and cybersecurity researcher who goes by the username "whatllmyusernamebe," decided to ask Huffman to reconsider his stance on hate speech.
After pointing out that Reddit's rules ban violent speech ― which Reddit defines as "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people" ― Huffman argued that "hate speech is difficult to define. There's a reason why it's not really done." He also claimed that enforcing any sort of hate speech ban is "a nearly impossible precedent to uphold."
As Gizmodo has pointed out, though, defining and limiting hate speech very much is done. Some of the companies that officially ban hate speech include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn ― the list goes on. (Tumblr is owned by HuffPost's parent company, Oath.)
After speaking with Huffman, Swanson posted screenshots of his conversation in two different subreddits ― r/stopadvertising, which is dedicated to curtailing hate speech on Reddit, and r/ChapoTrapHouse, a subreddit for listeners of the podcast by the same name. After he did, Swanson received the following message from Reddit:
It appears that some people are protected on Reddit — specifically, people who are the company's CEO.
As pointed out in the article, "hate speech is so hard to ban" hasn't stopped Reddit from banning hateful subreddits in the past that promoted the likes of racism and transphobia. And let's not forget Steve Huffman himself said racism wasn't against Reddit rules.
These people cannot be any more transparent. So much power at their fingertips, and they won't do a goddamn thing.
Edit: On second thought, "suspend" is a better word than "ban," but I don't think that'll fit in the title. Could the mods apply a fix?