Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

HN is also penalising threads that discuss this. This post has 74 upvotes in 27 minutes and 11 comments at time of writing. Ordinarily it would significantly outrank most of the other posts on the front page, but it doesn&#x27;t seem to be able to break past #15. Either this is because HN users are flagging it, or because something else is going on. As Reddit is a YC company it&#x27;d be really nice to hear an explanation.<p>This exact same thing happened with the previous threads<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26554697" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26554697</a><p>and<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26556187" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26556187</a><p>There are some awful transphobic comments in those threads, but they appeared _after_ the threads had been penalised.

The irony is that I almost certainly would have zero idea who this person was or the existence of this controversy were it not for this crackdown.<p>On one hand I can empathize with people seeing someone they know have negative press about them shared on a site they run and wanting to do something. But I thought the point of professionalism was refraining from this kind of behavior and applying rules consistently even when there is a personal connection. This kind of special-case behavior in favor of people with ties to the site is likely counter productive.

The ELI5 context for those (like me) that were very confused:<p>Aimee Challenor is a trans (MTF) woman who was very active in UK green party politics. She appointed her father as an official in her election campaign <i>after</i> he had been arrested for rape and torture of a 10yo girl. For which he would subsequently be convicted and sentenced to 22 years.<p>Adding additional color to the narrative: Aimee Challenor is very active in the furry and infantilism communities. And her farther committed his crimes while wearing wearing baby-doll dresses and nappies.<p>Aimee Challenor left the green party (accusing it of transphobia) and apparently now works in some capacity for Reddit.

I think the unwelcome article is probably this one, since it is easily found with a Google search suggestion: &quot;Aimee Challenor G[raham Linehan]&quot;.<p>NB the final picture is Challenor dressed as an infant (dress + teddy bear). Most other images are cartoon drawings from fetish&#x2F;furry sites.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;grahamlinehan.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;ashton-challenor-the-boy-who-disappeared" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;grahamlinehan.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;ashton-challenor-the-bo...</a><p>(I&#x27;m posting this link as it seems important to the discussion. I&#x27;ll check in about 30 minutes and delete it if it is significantly downvoted.)

Identity politics has become a shield and weapon for bad behavior - how dare you question me you must be a bigot. Whoever can gain the public’s attention first controls the narrative.

This is not doxing in any way is it? The person is using their own name, is a public figure, posted about their activities on twitter and can be easily Googled.<p>Would reddit ban anything about this if the person in question was not an employee?<p>I understand the concern about harassment, but should anyone be able to get off reddit if they want to? Let&#x27;s say Roger Stone wants no mention of himself on reddit, should he be able to say please ban anyone that mentions me?

This sounds a bit like an extreme form of the EU&#x27;s &quot;right to be forgotten&quot; law.<p>The post made it sound like there was a consensus of Reddit admins who were behind the decision, but to me it sounds like this person was hired as an admin and immediately searched their name and banned anyone who appeared in the results.<p>The worst part is that this may have gone unnoticed except that one of the people was a moderator of a major subreddit. Now it&#x27;s blown up and gone pure Streisand Effect.

I&#x27;ve got to assume that the bannings are being done by Aimee as the new admin, because I can&#x27;t imagine that anyone else at reddit would be so unfamiliar with Reddit that they would think this is a good idea. Look how much shit Ellen Pao got, and she was basically doing a decent job. I can&#x27;t imagine this is going to go much better.

Reminds me of the time the CEO (spez) was caught editing people&#x27;s posts[0].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;announcements&#x2F;comments&#x2F;5frg1n&#x2F;tifu_by_editing_some_comments_and_creating_an&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;announcements&#x2F;comments&#x2F;5frg1n&#x2F;tifu_...</a>

This is happening now, so the title of the post explains the events and links to r&#x2F;ukpolitics where the crisis has started.<p>Apologies if this breaks HN title rules but the original title is not descriptive.<p>Discussion developing on Twitter due to Reddit site wide bans.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;search?q=Aimee%20Challenor&amp;src=typed_query&amp;f=live" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;search?q=Aimee%20Challenor&amp;src=typed_que...</a>

Reddit must have been desperate to fill a diversity role. That&#x27;s the only reason I can think of for employing Challenor given their past actions.

They deplatformed a president and a company overnight... don&#x27;t tell me the banning of a bunch of users of some site is something that is going to surprise you? Enjoy distributed censorship.

There&#x27;re reports that Reddit is editing user comments before deleting them<p>https: &#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;europe&#x2F;comments&#x2F;mbd6q1&#x2F;the_green_partys_woman_problem_the_spectator&#x2F;grxxbzx&#x2F;<p>As far as I know Reddit doesn&#x27;t maintain previous edits, so this is also a cover up, and it prevents any recourse.

It would be interesting to know what sort of background checking Reddit did when hiring this person. Just the public information has loads of red flags.

As much as I resent the control-weenies flagging stuff they disagree with, I don&#x27;t like the title editorialising here which could be read as an attempt to shame and punish rather than discuss.<p>Please can we merge with the original threads and consider keeping the source titles.<p>Another example here with a clear and explanatory title:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;SubredditDrama&#x2F;comments&#x2F;mb1vpb&#x2F;rukpolitics_goes_private_moderators_suspended&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;SubredditDrama&#x2F;comments&#x2F;mb1vpb&#x2F;rukp...</a>

Previous discussion on this <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26554697" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26554697</a> has been flagged.

It seems that the name is mentioned on &#x2F;r&#x2F;europe though[0], but all comments have been deleted and the thread has been locked.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;europe&#x2F;comments&#x2F;mbbb56&#x2F;aimee_challenor_and_the_danger_of_transgender&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;europe&#x2F;comments&#x2F;mbbb56&#x2F;aimee_challe...</a>

This thread is 2 hours old, 476 points, 240 comments and is 125 spot on the main page. Something is not right

&quot;Please do not name this individual&quot; But we won&#x27;t tell you who the individual that shall not be name is.

My interaction with reddit is now nearly zero. I turned on ad block some time ago. I will visit &#x2F;r&#x2F;todayilearned in the early morning while laying in bed, and I will use subreddits to research purchases.<p>It is much more satisfying to remove &#x2F;r&#x2F;all from the reddit equation. I can&#x27;t even visit my local subreddit anymore because the amount of censorship by moderators is staggering. The dark marketing, once you can see it, is everywhere. And their comment ranking algorithm is suffocating.

And this post has been flagged too, presumably by some group that is sharing the link internally, targeting the spread of this information as if it was a threat to them.<p>There has to be some sociological phenomenon that explains these kinds of events, and the strange group-think hivemind warfare type behavior that is now commonplace on all social media, across the entire political spectrum.<p>Does anyone have reading recommendations? This kind of thing fascinates me.

Reached out last week by a recruiter from reddit, guess I&#x27;ll never work there. I refuse to work for a company where this kind of stuff is going on. Vote with your feet, and choose not to work at places like this. Vote with your hands and choose not to browse and be a user of sites like this.

For some reason, there is a fanatical subset of trans people, almost all of them biological men who identify as women, who are extremely prominent on the Internet, and particularly on Reddit. They wield an influence that is out of all proportion to their numbers.<p>Edit: for this story in particular, there is a pressure of cancel culture on both sides. On one side, a person&#x27;s husband got doxxed after having admitted online to having pedophilic fantasies. On the other side, there is mass Reddit censorship together with attempts to cancel people for supposedly being &quot;transphobic&quot;. The cancelation and doxxing seem unwarranted and unpleasant to me regardless of which side is doing it.

I don&#x27;t get it - why are people angry with her over her father&#x27;s actions?

AFAICT, this is a synopsis along with article link:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;europe&#x2F;comments&#x2F;mbbb56&#x2F;aimee_challenor_and_the_danger_of_transgender&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;europe&#x2F;comments&#x2F;mbbb56&#x2F;aimee_challe...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.spectator.co.uk&#x2F;article&#x2F;aimee-challenor-and-the-danger-of-transgender-politics" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.spectator.co.uk&#x2F;article&#x2F;aimee-challenor-and-the-...</a>

There appears to be some heavy editing&#x2F;removal of information going on with the Wikipedia page relating to her.

reddit is designed for censorship. It has been a dumpster-fire of group-think since 2018. Anything against the collective is quarantined and then banned. I stopped going there when they banned every decent meme subreddit bc of &#x27;offensive jokes&#x27;

Streisand effect is going to be really stong with that one... If someone needs copy pastes : 𝒜𝒾𝓂𝑒𝑒 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓃𝑜𝓇 𝕬𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖊 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖔𝖗

any idea what AC&#x27;s reddit account is? I heard that she had already been moderating multiple subs

Every time I see a topic where one point of view is banned I can&#x27;t stop thinking of the 1930&#x27;s Soviet Union when arguing with theory of communism could lead one into a deep trouble.

Despite all the vitriol, I have a degree of sympathy for the Reddit admin in question. I can&#x27;t imagine how distressing it must be to be turned into a worldwide hate figure overnight; that has to be extremely psychologically damaging. Among the mob will be genuinely hateful and equally vile people who&#x27;ll probably send a tsunami of death threats.<p>Reddit is in a bit of a difficult place; perhaps because of the legal duty of care Reddit has to their employee (particularly to someone who can legitimately claim to be marginalised) they can&#x27;t just toss her to an incensed mob. Especially if that incensed mob was created by the actions of Reddit making clumsy choices.

Is this Reddit as a whole or specifically &#x2F;r&#x2F;UKPolitics?

This seems like it could also be a &quot;Right to be forgotten&quot; situation? Especially with how the post is worded where it could be a legal team forcing them to comply.

Wouldn&#x27;t ppl simply use an alternative like &quot;one who cannot be mentioned

And to add insult to injury, this post is flagged on HN. Why?

is this being done by Reddit employees or Reddit volunteers?

Can we get &#x2F;u&#x2F;maxwellhill to weigh in on this?

i just made r&#x2F;aimeechannelor - come and hopefully we&#x27;ll get a little bit of time for discussion pre-ban due to the spelling!

So this is how you stop the social justice mob.

I don&#x27;t have any context on this, but my 10 seconds of research indicates I&#x27;m going to hate everybody on both sides. Gonna stop here and do some actual work.

This is for &#x2F;r&#x2F;ukpolitics only?

I am completely lost here. I feel like a Boomer on Snapchat.<p>Can someone please give a 5 sentence tl;dr of (a) who this person is, (b) what the original controversy was about, and (c) why the Reddit admins care so much?<p>This is one of those stories that keeps popping up in front of me but I really do not have the will nor the time to engage with it, so I&#x27;d really appreciate a concise and unbiased summary if anyone can offer it.

I made a subreddit<p>r&#x2F;aimeechannelor - hopefully the name lets us get a bit of chatting in before the ban hammer drops :)

Banning FatPeopleHate might have worked only too well.

Not dystopian sounding at all:<p><pre><code> Please do not name this individual, at all. Doing so may result in your account being banned by the admins. Please do not ask further questions about this, as doing so may result in your account being banned by the admins. Please do not discuss this incident on Reddit publicly or privately (e.g. on private subreddits and&#x2F;or in private messages, chat etc.), as doing so may result in your account being banned by the admins. </code></pre> I fully understand and agree that the platform is privately owned, etc. etc., but this is getting strange(r) -- and quite normalized.

I just mentioned her name and linked to a few news article on Reddit on a few different subs and haven&#x27;t been banned yet.<p>Edit: It took 22 minutes to have one of my posts locked ...

This discussion, like the others, has mysteriously dropped off the front page of HN.

I don&#x27;t like where the world is going...

Oh look! Spooks -- stratfor spooks in this case -- think they&#x27;re aristocrats who get to use censorship for self-preservation. What a shocking, brand new development.

Reddit is crazy when it comes to anything trans related. Any comment mildly oppositional to the dominant trans agenda and belief system results in a ban. This is what happens when you hire ideological extremists with victim complexes to try to prove you&#x27;re inclusive.

Reddit can&#x27;t go bankrupt soon enough.

Could this be related to GDPR?

Reddit should not be censoring criticism of Challenor. It’s called “consequences.”

Reddit has a real and serious potential liability if they <i>didn&#x27;t</i> take action on this (now, there is a very good argument that hiring the individual in question in the role in question showed epically poor judgement, but, while a part of the chain of events that got the situation to this point, that&#x27;s a different issue.)

Someone was banned from Reddit for linking to an article dead naming a trans woman. Did I get this right? If I did, what&#x27;s the problem here, really?