What a terribly written, poorly researched, ignorance laden article. Not that any of the other similar articles about this issue have been any better.<p>Yes, free speech is exactly about saying and hearing from others that which one may find "offensive" or "tasteless" or "cruel", etc.<p>The real issue here is that while the reddit admins and owners are completely within their right to mold the website and the community it contains to take a shape of their choosing, there are better ways to go about this than the hamfisted and juvenile methods they've used up to now.<p>The real question is this: is their poorly thought out and even more poorly executed plan actually accomplishing their goal?<p>Obviously not.<p>As the admins, you don't create a higher quality community by poking users in the eye and dancing gleefully at their howls and ignoring any and all legitimate concerns they bring up in their attempt to engage you.<p>Here I'm referring to the /r/announcement comments where the admins go to great lengths to avoid any real dialogue to the many polite and well informed questions and comments that brought up the painfully obvious issues they won't or can't address.<p>It is very very difficult to mold and moderate an online community but it can be done. There are great examples out there. Go and study them and see what they did. Each experience is unique but they all have at least one lesson for reddit admins, should they care to listen and learn from them.<p>Bringing down the ban hammer indiscriminately on a 'fat hate' subreddit while allowing hundreds of others even worse (/r/coontown for example or /r/gasthekikes or many others) may be easier in the short term but it will accomplish nothing but worsening an already bad situation.<p>Here's just one example of a community doing it right:<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/monster-hunter-4-video-game-communities" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/monster-hu...</a><p>Want more examples? Metafilter, hackernews, etc.
"All too often cries of "free speech!" are about not being able to say something that legitimately hurts or offends someone else"<p>This is exactly what free speech is. The freedom to say things that are wrong, hateful, misinformed, misleading, vicious, cruel and hurtful as long as no actual violent or criminal acts are incited.
Well, a while back, Reddit picked up a bunch of users that used to be on Digg.com. Maybe it's just time to let certain users go.<p>It think it's a bit humorous these people complaining about their "free speech rights being curtailed" when what they have to say follows some specific subjects. How come the free speech activists haven't created /r/HowISISShouldCreateItsFirstAtomBomb ?<p>I think the real issue here isn't censorship, it's legitimacy. These free speech types want the legitimacy that Reddit has. And Reddit is not allowing that to happen on their site. But the world isn't coming to an end, people can type another address in their browser and go to whatever little place they want to.<p>And perhaps if the free speechers are concerned that their legitimate arguments are falling on deaf ears, perhaps they should re-examine the legitimacy of their hate speech. Reddit doesn't have a responsibility to share their legitimacy with hate speech. The managers of Reddit have been trying to build brand equity, why should they sacrifice their efforts to appease people who spend their free time explaining how awful they are?<p>Yeah, go to Voat. Or wherever you're welcome. Or make your own web site. But you can't freeload on the legitimacy that Reddit's brand name provides. If you're going to make a site about hating fat people, then you're responsible for making it wildly popular.<p>Good luck.