Thread by @reddit_lies on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The Cancer of Censorship. How Reddit set itself up to become one of the most heavily censored social media platforms. (and how it may be destroying itself because of it) 🧵
Moderating is a time-consuming thankless job. Instead of hiring in-house mods or relying on algorithmic moderation, Reddit relies on an army of 70,000+ volunteers to do this heavy lifting. Volunteers were chosen because algorithmic moderation struggles when each subreddit has its own rules, memes, and political views. It also (theoretically) ensured moderators were passionate participants in the community.
But there were unforeseen side-effects... For many moderators, the power associated with being a mod is an afterthought. But for some that power IS their compensation. They want to moderate BECAUSE it gives them a pathway to a position of authority over others.
Think about it for a moment. What kind of person would opt to spend 12+ hours a day doing the dirty work of a social media company all for free? It appeals to people who crave power with a lot of time on their hands. Enter "Powermods". These powermods often subscribe to the bleeding edge of progressive rhetoric, and they can be frequently found using their power to ensure users conform to the latest left-leaning talking points. Powermods are commonly seen pinning their own posts and comments to the top of subreddits and comment sections. Their goal is simple: Keep the unwashed masses in line and drive the narrative forward by any means necessary. Often times they will lock down entire threads because the users "couldn't behave" (adhere to approved talking points)
Given that mods (and Reddit as a whole) is so ideologically captured, you will often see them using their power to simultaneously promote misinformation AND suppress the truth. Worse still, most moderators turn a blind eye to highly inflammatory rhetoric if it happens to align with the narrative. Often you can find Redditors salivating at the thought of murdering someone (a violation of Reddit's TOS) but the otherwise ban-happy mods turn a blind eye.
Some subreddits have even begun mass banning thousands of users who have ever participated in right-leaning subreddits such as r/Conservative.
Why doesn't Reddit do anything about this? Because Reddit mods do an estimated $3.4 Million in labor all for free each year. Reddit likely can't afford such a bill, so unpaid mods have festered like a cancer on the platform for years.
Social media sites THRIVE on free-speech. When power-hungry censorious moderators actively target people for speaking freely, the result is a cooling of speech sitewide. This is the inevitable result:
Ultimately, the actions of these mods may be costing Reddit dearly. It's not common to see social media sites stagnate the way Reddit has in recent years. This is just conjecture, but I suspect the heavy-handedness of the moderators is a major contributor here.
I'm not sure what steps Reddit can take to remedy this issue, or if they even will, but we should all look to Reddit as a cautionary tale of what can happen when control of speech is delegated without any accountability."
One could claim that since subreddits are moderated by different moderators, this isn't proof of bias by reddit, but there is clearly bias in how subreddits are banned, so
Meme - Reddit Lies @reddit_lies: "Reddit is a ghost town now. The largest subreddit (r/funny) has 60 million members but had only 44 posts in the past 24 hours. r/Apple, 5 million, only had 9 posts over 24 hours. TBH I don’t think Reddit survives past the 2024 election after the bots turn off."
"What subreddit has the most active users in relation to its members?"
"r/whatifalthist. Only 9k subs but gets several posts with over 1000 upvotes and hundreds of comments every week"
"r/Whatifalthist is banned. This community was banned for violating Reddit's rule against promoting hate."
Update on the sub - Reddit doesn't want to lift the shadow ban on this sub. : r/Canada_sub - "Back in July, Reddit shadow banned this sub so that it was basically hidden on Reddit so it wouldn't show up on the popular page or in people's feeds. It absolutely killed off the sub growth and activity. Finding out about the shadow ban was difficult as Reddit has been very evasive on giving details about it. I'm not even sure who banned it whether it was a person or an automated system. Anyway apparently it was because of "excess" removals. Which is just Reddit removing comments it feels are breaking rules. I'll admit that there were quite a lot of things getting removed back then. I noticed that most of those bad comments were coming from certain types of accounts. New accounts, older hardly used accounts, some that never come here but would drop in to say something bad....So I made many changes to the sub and then eventually went with the drastic change over to the flair system to prevent all of these accounts from having their comments be visible on the sub. So whatever they post, no one sees it other than the mods and Reddit admins. So I saw that the number of removals that have occurred by flaired users over the past while is way down to just a handful and some of those accounts lost their flairs as a result. Even the number of non-flaired hidden comments being removed is down but there was still quite a few of those as it's impossible to fully stop that from happening. I asked Reddit to lift the shadow ban thinking they'd see that the "excess" removals are gone now. Nope, they don't want to lift the shadow ban. They said they still see a pattern of excess removals and they didn't care that the vast majority of those were never even visible on the sub to begin with. So this basically means that troll accounts have immense power over subs. They can target a sub and make all sorts of rule breaking comments to cause Reddit to come in and remove those whether they were visible or not, and the sub will get into trouble and eventually be shadow banned. That is crazy that Reddit gives that much power to trolls and bad actors on here. Perhaps they'd be more lenient on a left wing sub being targeted though.... Reddit has shadow banned quite a few subs tha allow right wing opinions and now it is clear that once a sub is shadow banned, Reddit is set up in a way that it is impossible to get that removed as you can't fully stop trolls from coming in and saying something bad to get Reddit to remove it. As for the rule breaking stuff getting removed, Reddit has gone over the top on censoring comments and they've been removing more and more things that used to be fine. I wonder if it is just being done to keep the ban in place here. Just today I saw someone (non-flaired) say that Liberal politicians should be tossed in jail for treason. That was removed as rule breaking...... I brought that up with the admins about just what is going on and that comment was later restored but that removal still counts against the sub...... I remember someone commented F***ing goof (they spelled it out) and it was just a reply towards a post about something Jagmeet Singh said. That was removed for rule breaking....... There has been many similar types of removals occurring which has made me wonder if the sub is being targeted by a biased automated system or a biased human. Anyway, it's clear Reddit is super biased and really wanting to censor things more now and since they don't want to lift the shadow ban on this sub, the sub is likely coming to an end shortly. It used to be fun running this sub, but Reddit has sucked all of the fun out of this. I guess Reddit has taken to shadow banning right wing subs so that they can leave them up but hidden so they can still try to claim the platform is for everyone. But Reddit really only promotes left wing subs now. Twitter and now Facebook are going with less censorship and Reddit is going the opposite direction of increased censorship. I guess we'll see which path wins over time. I did all that work to clean up the sub, and it running better than it ever has, but Reddit just doesn't care. They want this sub hidden just because they don't like it. So enjoy the sub while it lasts."
Just heard back from Reddit. What a bizarre situation.... : r/Canada_sub - "Meanwhile during covid, the left was calling for extreme measures of dealing with non vaccinated people.. Calling for them to lose their jobs, be denied travel, denied Healthcare and I even saw leftist extremists calling for the deaths of non vaccinated people. Or atleast wishing them a slow and painful covid death. r/leopardsatemyface was nothing BUT wishing non vaccinated people would die terrible ironic deaths for most of the pandemic. But that was totally fine and mainstream to "other" their fellow Canadians and wish them harm. Better yet, how about all these islamist extremists literally calling for death to Canada and a global intifada?! Reddit seems perfectly fine allowing that level of hateful vitriol. Sickening."
"And the Herman Cain awards sub. It doesn’t even seem like those could be really people commenting on there."
This is what left wing "empathy" and "kindness" look like
Just heard back from Reddit. What a bizarre situation.... : r/Canada_sub - "I got banned from the Edmonton sub for saying that if homeless people commit crimes we should arrest them. That’s it. They said I was inciting genocide. I messaged the mod that banned me the Oxford definition of genocide and the response was literally “I’ll show you” and a permanent ban. I didn’t appeal because I don’t want to be associated with scum like that. I just muted the sub and got on with my life. I’m not going to play their game, power on Reddit is all they have."
"I was banned on a Reddit wide level (from Admin) for constructively criticizing Pride while being gay. It's "hateful" to have opinions on (supposedly) my own community- even though I only have those opinions because I want the best for it."
"I was banned from r/standupcomedy for saying that a comedians joke about how people say they disagree with transgenderism because "they can't keep up with all the pronouns" isn't funny, it's just low effort pandering because no one actually says that."
Anything that obstructs the left wing agenda is "hate"
Just heard back from Reddit. What a bizarre situation.... : r/Canada_sub - "Not just downvoted, you get straight up banned. I've been banned countless times for right leaning comments or opinions. Reddit admin has overturned every single one on review tbf to them. But the sub mods and the Reddit admins that banned me in the first place are just little rats"
"I've been banned for the reason of "inciting violence" for comments that literally had nothing to do with calling for violence. It's just their excuse for shutting up people they don't agree with. The aggressive banning is a way to get people to self censor so reddit can spew it's bullshit that it's a platform for everyone like OP is saying."
Meme - ahackercalled4chan MOD: "i guarantee you that i can approve this post more times than you can report it"
"Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are Financing Censorship, Election interference, and the Persecution of me and other Journalists in Brazil -Michael Shellenberger"
"This is spam (35)
It's promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (18)
It threatens violence or physical harm at someone else (4)
It's targeted harassment at someone else (3)
It encourages donations to charitable or political causes (2)
This content is impersonation (2)
The mod that stickied that comment is a fucking TOOL
Rule 1. Infringement of the Content Policy
It threatens violence or physical harm at me
It's content involving predatory or inappropriate behavior
towards minors
It's sexual or suggestive content involving minors"
edit: report abusers can cope and seethe. I'm not taking it down
edit 2: 69 total reports. nice"
Left wingers love censorship. This is so ironic, coming from r/DeclineIntoCensorship
A.I. To Be Trained On Reddit To Make Sure It Never Becomes Too Intelligent | Babylon Bee
Why the West isn't racist - "A self-proclaimed “black radical”, Andrews wants to attack the root of the problem: the West itself and the “logic of empire” that organises it. Unsurprisingly, ground zero for Andrews’ critique is the Enlightenment — the “sacred foundation of Western knowledge”, as he sardonically puts it. All our modern ideas of freedom and equality are traditionally traced back to this Age of Reason. Andrews argues against that narrative. Kant’s racist anthropology and Hume’s polygenism, he writes, “provided the universal and scientific framework of knowledge that maintained colonial logic”, which is the central organising principle of the current “political and economic system and therefore infects all interactions, institutions and ideas”... No matter how “the logic of empire” mutates, the premise is still the same: “The West is rich because the rest is poor”. As an epigone of Malcolm X, Andrews is not interested in interracial allyship as a solution. “The white left”, as he calls them, are too in thrall to the “psychosis of whiteness” to recognise that racism and imperialism are baked into their own politics. Echoing Maoism-Third Worldism, he chastises the white Left for failing to see that the “true revolutionary class has always resided outside the West”. As far as he’s concerned: “If you have come this far and believe that White people offering a meaningful hand of friendship is the solution, then you have missed the point.” His solution is revolutionary Pan-Africanism — and has been for some time. In a 2018 video he made for the BBC, Andrews outlined his African utopia, his own Wakanda, materially rich and technologically advanced, where the diaspora will eventually return to their “African promised land”. In his book, he states his purpose is to develop “the politics of black radicalism, which centres on uniting Africa and the African diaspora to create a true revolution … the only true solution to the problem of racism”. Andrews’s tract is uncompromising. His re-telling of the history of Western violence and the chronically poor state of Africa is potent. Interestingly, he is also critical of China and other upstart powers for using Africa as a “stepping stone” for their own development, while continuing the systematic “looting” of the continent. But Andrews ignores a number of contradictions that might puncture this worldview. Ironically Pan-Africanism, the ideology Andrews pledges fidelity to, is a bastard child of the West. It was westernised blacks that imagined a global black community with a common destiny transcending all nations, as a response to racial oppression (an idea rather similar to Zionism, a comparison Andrews wouldn’t be pleased with). Many of the icons of Pan-Africanism — Henry Sylvester Williams, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X — hailed from the Americas, not Africa. Even native-born African adherents like Kwame Nkrumah were Western educated and very much influenced by the modernist impulses of Marxism. But Andrews exhibits a common vice of contemporary radicalism: the idea that to be radical is to be disenchanted with all that is Western. It is rather fashionable, as the shrill calls to “decolonise” suggest, to believe that authentic radicalism regards the Enlightenment not as a resource in challenging imperialism but an imperial project itself. That narrative omits the fact that, while mainstream Enlightenment thinkers like Kant were rabid racists, the Enlightenment also provided the best tools to date for universal human liberation. As Jonathan Israel has documented in his voluminous scholarship, there were two sides to the Enlightenment: a moderate and a radical wing. Funnily enough, all the individuals Andrews names in his galère of “dead white men” — Kant, Hume, Locke, Voltaire and Jefferson — were part of the Moderate Enlightenment, which was more elitist and conciliatory towards the old order. A different set of dead white men, inspired by Baruch Spinoza, made up the Radical Enlightenment — Diderot, Condorcet, D’Holbach . They applied reason consistently against old hierarchies and institutions, including slavery and colonialism, precisely because they were fetters on human freedom and equality... Indeed, anti-imperialist radicals of the 20th century such as CLR James recognised that Western thought was the wellspring of all progressive, emancipatory politics — especially the historical gains that emerged out of the Enlightenment... These so-called “western values” are not western in any essential sense. They aren’t the property of white people; they are the birth right of all humanity. Which is why previous anti-imperialist radicals made a distinction between the good that stemmed from the most revolutionary elements of Western culture and the scourge of Western imperialism, which was a major obstacle to the realisation of these ideals around the world. “The science resulting from all human knowledge has no nationality,” observed Sekou Touré, who lead Guinea to independence: “The ridiculous disputes about the origin of such and such a discovery do not interest us since they add nothing to the value of the discovery.” Patrice Lumumba, a Congolese nationalist and Pan-Africanist himself, was known to have been inspired by the French revolution in his anti-imperialism, and studied French Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Rousseau. Moreover, CLR James, while detesting European colonialism, felt no shame in acknowledging the “learning and profound discoveries of Western civilisation” and made it his mission to “master the literature, philosophy and ideas of Western civilisation”. Radical Enlightenment values are still the best tools humanity has crafted to create a better world. The challenge then is not to negate them but to build upon them, expand them, and ultimately raise them to a higher level never before seen. This still remains Africa’s path to liberation from tyranny and want — as opposed to Andrews’ nihilistic vision, which sees no place for interracial solidarity and finds a “glimmer of hope for true transformation” only in total collapse of the system. Dare I suggest it: “western values” are the real path towards black freedom."
Left wingers are obsessed with Revolution
At last, the myth of ‘institutional racism’ is collapsing - "Why are the cultural elites so furious with the review? Because they are so heavily invested in the idea that Britain is an institutionally racist country. They need this myth. They benefit from it. It guarantees funding to their organisations, clout for their spokespeople, influence for those who can claim the mantle of racial victimhood. They see the review — rightly — as a direct challenge to the social and political power they have built on the back of the myth of institutional racism. They loathe Sewell because he has pulled the rug out from under the feet of the powerful identitarian lobby. He has pricked their politics of grievance. He threatens to derail the gravy train. Their fury is driven by naked self-interest disguised as concern about racism. This is why Sewell is being talked about almost as a heretic. His review’s questioning of the idea of institutional racism is being treated as an act of sacrilege, a sinful assault on orthodoxies carefully nurtured and promoted by identitarian sects. In suggesting that social class is more important than race, this Tory government has done something more radical and destabilising than the moronic new left could ever hope to achieve — it has exposed the hollowness, the divisiveness and the pretensions of the identitarian set, and suggested that economic factors such as class deserve more of society’s attention and resources. ‘Class?! How dare you’, the dumb left says. ‘Institutional racism’ is in many ways the founding myth of the new elites. It is the source of their moral authority. In depicting Britain as a racist country, they can position themselves as the wise, enlightened ones who must rescue and re-educate us all. Once, the elites viewed us as an underclass in need of moral correction; now they view us as a racist throng requiring unconscious bias training. No wonder they’re so angry today: this review has weakened the already weak foundations of their elitist claims to moral and social authority over the masses. The Emperor of Identitarianism now stands naked before us. And you know what to do: laugh."
On the Sewell report
Decolonizing the Hunt for Dinosaurs and Other Fossils - The New York Times - "Questions about where fossils belong and who is best suited to work on them have sparked sharp controversies in recent years... in 2015, David Martill, a paleobiologist at the University of Portsmouth in England, dismissed questions about his team’s lack of collaboration with Brazilian researchers on a specimen found there. “I mean, do you want me also to have a Black person on the team for ethnicity reasons, and a cripple and a woman, and maybe a homosexual too just for a bit of all round balance?” he said in an interview at the time with Herton Escobar, a Brazilian science journalist. Dr. Martill said in an interview in December that he chose his words poorly. But he said he remains opposed to laws that dictate where fossils go. In 2020, he was a co-author of a paper on another find exported from Brazil and described without a Brazilian co-author. “I do not think governments should dictate who works on fossils,” he said. “I think scientists should be able to choose who they work with.” These sorts of controversies are one example of the way the discipline’s colonial history lingers, Ms. Raja-Schoob says. But there are others. Much of global paleontology is still conducted in languages like English, German and French"
This exposes the cynicism of claiming all the archaeological artifacts that happen to be found in your geographical area as your inalienable cultural patrimony that cannot be exported because it's an affront to your culture and reveals it to just be wanting to keep cool stuff
Racist Moments in WWE Catalog Are Missing on Peacock Streaming - The New York Times - "The removal of the segments comes as other streaming services and entertainment companies have sought to give audiences context for older films and television shows that feature offensive content. Disney’s streaming service includes a 12-second disclaimer that cannot be skipped before films like “Dumbo” and “Peter Pan” that tells viewers they will see “negative depictions” and “mistreatment of people or cultures.” Editors’ Picks Quartz Watches Are Having a Movement In Memoriam: The Musicians We Lost in 2024 Hanukkah in Pictures: Keeping the Flame Alive “These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now,” the disclaimer warns. “Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.” This month, Turner Classic Movies showed 18 classic films, including “The Jazz Singer” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” that were preceded by commentary from film experts who prepared viewers for scenes they could find jarring or upsetting. HBO Max initially removed “Gone With the Wind” from its streaming service, then added it again with a four-minute introduction by the TCM host Jacqueline Stewart, who explains the enduring cultural importance of the film even as it “denies the horrors of slavery as well as its legacies of racial inequality.” Last June, an NBC spokesman said four episodes of “30 Rock” that featured blackface were being removed from circulation at the request of Tina Fey, the show’s creator, and Robert Carlock, an executive producer and showrunner."
HANSON: The 10 radical new rules that are changing America - "1) Money is a construct. It can be created from thin air. Annual deficits and aggregate national debt no longer matter much...
2) Laws are not necessarily binding anymore. Joe Biden took an oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” But he has willfully rendered federal immigration laws null and void. Some rioters are prosecuted for violating federal laws, others not so much. Arrests, prosecutions and trials are all fluid. Ideology governs when a law is still considered a law...
3) Racialism is now acceptable. We are defined first by our ethnicity or religion, and only secondarily — if at all — by an American commonality...
4) The immigrant is mostly preferable to the citizen. The newcomer, unlike the host, is not stained by the sins of America’s founding and history...
5) Most Americans should be treated as we would treat little children. They cannot be asked to provide an ID to vote. “Noble lies” by our elites about COVID-19 rules are necessary to protect “Neanderthals” from themselves. Article content Americans deserve relief from the stress of grades, standardized testing and normative rules of school behaviour. They still are clueless about why it is good for them to pay far more for their gasoline, heating and air conditioning.
6) Hypocrisy is passe. Virtue-signaling is alive. Climate change activists fly on private jets. Social justice warriors live in gated communities. Multibillionaire elitists pose as victims of sexism, racism and homophobia. The elite need these exemptions to help the helpless. It is what you say to lesser others about how to live, not how you yourself live, that matters.
7) Ignoring or perpetuating homelessness is preferable to ending it. It is more humane to let thousands of homeless people live, eat, defecate and use drugs on public streets and sidewalks than it is to green-light affordable housing, mandate hospitalization for the mentally ill and create sufficient public shelter areas.
8) McCarthyism is good. Destroying lives and careers for incorrect thoughts saves more lives and careers. Cancel culture and the Twitter Reign of Terror provide needed deterrence...
9) Ignorance is preferable to knowledge. Neither statue-toppling, nor name-changing, nor the 1619 Project require any evidence or historical knowledge. Heroes of the past were simple constructs. Undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees reflect credentials, not knowledge. The brand, not what created it, is all that matters.
10) Wokeness is the new religion, growing faster and larger than Christianity. Its priesthood outnumbers the clergy and exercises far more power. Silicon Valley is the new Vatican, and Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are the new gospels."
From 2021
‘Today’s leftists want to make politics all about themselves’ - "David Swift is a historian and the author of A Left for Itself: Left-Wing Hobbyists and Performative Radicalism....
A lot of people on the left are not really involved in politics to advance the cause they care about. Instead, it is really about themselves. A lot of people’s politics isn’t so much about what they believe in or how they want the world to be. Instead, it reflects an element of themselves, in the same way that a football fan might appreciate their team or a drum-and-bass fan might appreciate that kind of music. It is actually more like a hobby, a pastime or a form of identity than politics as we normally understand it. And part of this is down to social media... There has been a transition in the past 100 years away from trade unions, feminist groups, black and Asian groups and gay-rights groups all advancing their interests. Now, we have people who aren’t any of these things and aren’t fighting about these issues – instead, they are fighting about things that affect other people. Obviously, this can be a very good and honourable thing. But unfortunately it sometimes lends itself to performative radicalism. For example, look at the Palestinian cause. That cause is very important. But a lot of British people who are not Muslims or Jews, and who have nothing to do with the Middle East, wonder why the left cares so much about it when there are so many other injustices all around the world. Another example is trans rights. Obviously, trans people are subject to all kinds of bullying, hostility and violence, and that’s a very serious, important issue. But it’s something that affects so few people – and that is what makes it a perfect issue for this identity leftism... people don’t believe that the economic situation can ever really change. Because the limit of a lot of people’s economic ambition is piecemeal reform, they think they should aim for more achievable goals, such as ones relating to cultural issues."
Meme - Marina @dyingnome: "do you also need to feel attracted to crash bandicoot in order to play the games or is this only important when the protagonist is a woman?"
Pirat Nation @Pirat_Nation: "Whats exactly the target audience?"
Left wingers think an attractive character is one you are attracted to
Bioware Employee, David Crooks, Celebrates And Mocks TotalBiscuit's Death - "TotalBiscuit was a renowned YouTube personality and video game critic whose death is a tremendous loss for the gaming community. However, it seems like not everyone feels that same way and disgustingly a BioWare employee, David Crooks, thought it was a good idea to mock John Peter ‘TotalBiscuit’ Bain in his death. David Crooks is a BioWare employee who took to Twitter following TotalBiscuit’s passing and began trash-talking him; calling the word ‘a little bit better’ after Bain’s demise. One would think Crooks would stop there but no, he went on a series of follow-up tweets to further insult the dead"
What "empathy" and "kindness" look like
Meme - "ARE YOU A NAZI? fun and accurate!
ARE YOU WHITE? no -> not a Nazi
DO YOU HATE YOURSELF? (for being white) yes -> NOT A NAZI
No -> congratulations you're a NAZI"
Meme - Jake 🇺🇸 @omni_american: "Faculty at my college conspired, a few days ago, to prevent students from seeing a film about Hamas's sexual violence on Oct 7, even going so far as to lock a door so they couldn't get into the auditorium. This was a straw/camel's back moment for me. I'm coming around to this view: "Universities should face a choice: Forgo the billions of taxpayer dollars that underwrite their bloated tuitions, politicized bureaucracies, and one-sided intellectual orthodoxies or accept strict conditions of colorblindness, admissions transparency, and political neutrality in every aspect of their operations.""
