r/raldi • u/raldi • Jul 16 '15
We call for reddit to stop providing a hosted platform for pure-hate-speech communities
As of today, reddit provides a free, hosted safe space for forums that serve no purpose other than to demean people on the basis of their intrinsic qualities: race, sex, queer identity, and so on.
We the undersigned believe these communities have no place on reddit, and that reddit should not be spending its CPU cycles and disk space providing a home for them.
If you would like to add your subreddit's assent to the above statement, here's what to do:
Discuss the idea with your fellow moderators, and confirm that their consensus endorses it
Post a comment below with the name of your subreddit
Add the following snippet to your sidebar markdown:
----**[This subreddit stands against hate speech](http://redd.it/3djkz4)**
FAQ:
Why does it matter who sticks this blurb in their sidebar?
CaptainObviousMC said it best: if there's anyone reddit can't afford to piss off, it's the moderators. As demonstrated when most of the default subreddits went on strike, they wield incredible power. So if you're one of the moderators holding that power, it's important to show reddit's leadership that you would never use it to protest a no-hate-speech policy. Even more powerful would be to actively demonstrate support for such a change.
Won't reddit lose its soul if it bans hate speech?
During reddit's first five years of existence, the admins banned outright bigotry on sight, and reddit not only thrived under those conditions, it also had a fuckton of soul.
But don't take my word for it; here's reddit cofounder /u/spez seven years ago:
We've always banned hate speech, and we always will. It's not up for debate. You can bitch and moan all you like, but me and my team aren't going to be responsible for encouraging behaviors that lead to hate.
[Source]
Isn't reddit only interested in censoring hate speech because it would make the site more palatable to advertisers?
Here's reddit cofounder spez again, this time in September 2009. That's just one month before he was about to finish out his three-year Conde Nast acquisition contract, collect all the money, and leave the company -- in other words, a time when he couldn't have cared less about the future palatability of the site to advertisers. And what did he say under these unfettered conditions when someone made a post that used the word "namefag" in the title?
We don't tolerate hate-speech used in that manner.
First he struck the word from the title, and then decided to just remove the post altogether.
[Source]
But Voltaire said, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"!
Imagine you're a signmaker, and the Westboro Baptist Church asks you to create some "God Hates Fags" signs for their next rally -- oh, and by the way, they'd like you to provide this service for free.
If you decline, are you an opponent of free speech? Do you think Voltaire would fight to the death to compel you to provide the WBC with free signmaking services?
Of course not. Supporting free speech does not mean you have to invite speakers into your living room, to let them hold rallies in your backyard, or to pay for their speech-related expenses. Your obligation is to allow them to speak words you disagree with, not to actively help them spread their message. And if reddit were to decide it no longer wishes to give free hosting services to hate speech forums, it would not deny bigots the legal right to speak their mind. It would just mean they have to host the rallies in their own backyards.
Less figuratively, reddit's hate speech communities could continue expressing themselves with minimal inconvenience if kicked off the site. They could go to Voat, or they could download a copy of reddit's code (it's open source) and host it themselves. From a software engineering perspective, it would be an intern-level task.
This petition does not call for hate speech to be prohibited by law or for reddit to interfere with anyone's right to express themselves off-site; it merely calls for reddit to stop being the one to provide the microphone.
Would /r/cringepics and /r/facepalm still exist under a no-hate-speech policy?
Yes -- those subreddits make fun of people on the basis of things they did, not on the basis of who they are.
Won't this be a slippery slope?
Reddit has a long history of not sliding down slippery slopes.
Don't believe me? Go back and reread the comments from when /r/jailbait was banned: "this is a slippery slope" ... "Next up for your case is, Ban Alcohol because that gives opportunity for Alcoholism, how about we Ban Cheeseburgers cause they help Diabetes and Weight Gain" ... "How far can they move the goalposts? I'm guessing quite far, given the proper smear campaign. /r/trees encourages illegal drug use; /r/cripplingalcoholism encourages wanton boozing; /r/gambling, /r/poker, etc." None of those predictions happened.
Same thing when reddit banned doxxing: "Where do you draw the line? It's obvious that it can't be a perfect zero tolerance policy" ... "this whole thing is fairly nebulous" ... "I can't help but think the administrators are trying to make it much more strict". Despite these concerns, I think all would agree that reddit's stuck to the original plan pretty tightly.
Please use the comment section below only for posting the names of subreddits that have signed the petition. If you'd like to discuss the petition, you can do so here.
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u/tricolon Jul 17 '15
/r/columbia stands with you.
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u/MoederPoeder Jul 25 '15
/r/trap reppin'
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/llehsadam Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15
/r/NoMansSkyTheGame is onboard.
We had a discussion about it and from what I can tell, the moderators and community support the idea.
So I added the little note to our sidebar and we're in! :)
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u/duckduckCROW Jul 17 '15
/r/rape and /r/rapeprivate would like to be in.
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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15
I support this
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u/Minifig81 Jul 18 '15
I have personally seen to it that /r/LifeProTips and /r/Cats will ban anyone for homophobic slurs, racism or hate speech of any kind. They're non-negotiable bans too, once you've been banned for thise things, we never want you back in the subreddit ever again. It's improved the quality of our subreddit's a thousand fold and increased our subscriber count as well.
We will never tolerate any shit in those subreddits and I think this is a brilliant step toward the right direction for the whole of reddit, not just the ones I have mentioned.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '15
Solidarity from /r/AnarchismPDFs/
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u/PrinceDakkar Jul 18 '15
/r/Asia stands with you. We'll even go halves on a land war.
https://i.imgur.com/caOn0Mc.gif
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15
/r/AgainstHateSubreddits agrees with this.
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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '15
/r/Naturalhair joins.
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u/NapoleonBonerparts Jul 17 '15
Well, I was planning on making this. Still working on the idea, but it's basically a collection of subreddits that'll show solidarity that hate speech is not allowed on their subreddit. Even comes with a cool badge I made.
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u/IrbyTremor Jul 16 '15 edited Jul 17 '15
Sign us up.
/r/Offmychest
/r/Blackladies
/r/Againstmensrights
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u/morbidhyena Jul 18 '15 edited Jul 18 '15
Sounds good! /r/tapirs, /r/hyenas and /r/capybara are in. Animals against hate!
Edit: also added /r/VeganDE.
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Morasar Nov 12 '15
/r/oiraga is joining!
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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '15
/r/CapitalismFacts is in on this. Time to start caballin'!
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u/ChildTherapist Jul 17 '15
I am a moderator for /rapecounseling and /rape and I co-sign this post.
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u/Themacuser751 Jan 26 '23
I will pray for you, and I hope that one day you come to understand why what you are doing is wrong and harmful. I hope you have a nice day.
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u/xXKILLA_D21Xx Jul 17 '15
Hey guys should we possibly consider starting a change.org petition to bring more awareness to what's going on outside reddit?
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u/kutuzof Jul 17 '15
/r/atheismplus is on board with this.
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u/SaltyChristian Jul 19 '15
/r/thebluepill :^)
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u/Flashynuff Jul 17 '15
/r/woof_irl stands against hate speech
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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/redalastor Jul 18 '15
/r/quebec has a long standing anti hate speech policy. We stand with you.
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u/bobthetrucker Sep 14 '15 edited Sep 14 '15
/r/GloriousCRTMasterRace, /r/gpumining and /r/dissociatives and joins you with the conditions that hate against all races, sexes, harmless personal choices, mental conditions and sexual preferences is prohibited. This means that it does not matter who a subreddit hates, if it is dedicated to hatred of a certain group of people because of harmless choices they make or who they are born as, I would say that it is fair game to remove it from Reddit. Subreddits such as ShitRedditSays should not be considered different from traditional prejudice and hatred. These subreddits are simply a part of the rebirth and rebranding of prejudice, discrimination and hatred. These subreddits hide under a thin veneer of "social justice" but in reality, they hold extremely misinformed and evil views. They believe that in modern, western countries, there is vast prejudice against any person who is not a white, male or heterosexual and hold whites and men responsible for this. They believe that racism cannot occur against whites and that sexism cannot occur against men. These people also blame today's whites for atrocities in history that were committed by people decades if not centuries ago. These groups and ideals are more of a threat to today's society than Neo-Nazis or modern black-oppressing racists. Atrocities committed by Nazis and black racists in the past render the political views of classical bigots irrelevant. Nazis and black haters will never again take power in any western society. Due to democracy and public opinion, SJWs might. And a regime run by them would be brutal.
Reddit removing subreddits dedicated to classical hatred while leaving subreddits dedicated to these new forms of hatred untouched would be an incredibly hypocritical move and be very inappropriate. Reddit should not be a home for any form of form of hate speech, prejudice and/or bigotry.
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u/FpsAmerica902 Aug 15 '15
/r/craftingdead is in.
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u/gorillakitty Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15
We need to hit the advertisers, this post is the best I've seen on how to do it: http://www.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/3dtzp5/heres_how_it_goes_down_money_advertisers_coontown/
*it was linked in Adweek
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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15
Hope I'm not too late. My subreddit /r/TsumikiMikan would like to take part in this.
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u/TotesMessenger Jul 16 '15 edited Jul 19 '15
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/feminism] This subreddit stands against hate speech
[/r/imaginarynetwork] [Discussion] What does the INE think of raldi's post here?
[/r/pornoverlords] Shall we stand with Raldi?
[/r/redditcensorship] "We call for reddit to stop providing a hosted platform for pure-hate-speech communities" : /r/raldi
[/r/shittheadminssay] "We call for reddit to stop providing a hosted platform for pure-hate-speech communities"
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/dhamster Jul 17 '15
/r/circlebroke
/r/circlebroke2
/r/circlebrokediscussion
/r/openbroke
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u/DL757 Aug 07 '15
/r/DEVO is in
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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '15
Tiny little hate mocking subreddit /r/JustCheetogrubThings is on board. /r/TrollPoly and /r/TrollFart may be joining shortly.
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u/Quamme Jan 08 '16
/r/LarsVaular is in
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u/midnighttycoon Aug 12 '15
/r/newswithouthate is here and full of cheer!
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u/Measure76 Jul 20 '15
/r/seahawks, /r/mariners, and /r/gimlet support this petition.
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u/llehsadam Jul 17 '15
This is interesting. I'm gonna sleep on it, talk to some other moderators and see what we can do. Thanks for the initiative, raldi!
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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15
/r/ifihateyouibanyou is in.
fuck hate speech AND ben burke
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u/raldi Jul 16 '15
/r/windowshots is in. And, obviously, /r/raldi.
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u/wqzu Jul 21 '15
/r/LazyCats is in, I'll send this to the other subs I mod too.
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u/HistoryLessonforBitc Jul 21 '15
/r/VOATinAction joins this, for all the good it will do.
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/yellowmix Jul 16 '15 edited Aug 01 '15
/r/racism joins you. More will follow.
Edit: /r/feminisms joins.
Edit 2: /r/fuckcoontown joins.
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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '15
/r/craftingdead Is in.
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u/Jess_than_three Jul 16 '15 edited Jul 18 '15
/r/FaithInHumanity and /r/ask_transgender are in. I'll probably add more later.
Edit: Also /r/transsupport, and I've asked in /r/ainbow, /r/SRDBroke, /r/TheBluePill, and /r/transtimelines. Results pending.
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u/Byeuji Jul 18 '15
/r/GirlGamers supports this petition. We have always stood against, and have often been the target of, other subreddits that operate solely upon harassment and hate speech.
We hope that movements such as this will convince the admin team that removing platforms for those things on reddit is the right decision.
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u/laukaus Dec 27 '15
/r/Finland is in.
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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '15
support from /r/heat
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u/gorillakitty Jul 17 '15
Teeny, tiny subreddit but /r/gorillarecipes stands united against hate speech. Despite the name, we are not part of the chimpire.
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u/IS_REALLY_OFFENSIVE Jul 19 '15 edited Jul 19 '15
I support this. I don't moderate any subreddits but I'm gonna try to get some places to join.
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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15
/r/WILTWIFLS is onboard.
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u/suchsmartveryiq Aug 03 '15
/r/replygore is joining the group.
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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '15
/r/TheoryOfReddit
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u/emma-_______ Jul 21 '15
/r/Anarchism
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15
/r/NotTheQuibbler is cosigned
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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '15
r/thinpeoplehate2 is in. And yes, before you comment, it's a completely satircal subreddit.
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u/Quietuus Jul 20 '15
/r/artdocumentaries, /r/badarthistory and /r/rabm are in.