<story><title>Reddit Bans Five Communities In New Anti-Harassment Campaign</title><url>http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/10/reddit-bans-five-communities-in-new-anti-harassment-campaign/</url><text>Most notable is &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;fatpeoplehate, which had become an extremely popular &amp;quot;fat-shaming&amp;quot; community.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>powrtoch</author><text>The front page is pretty worrying.&lt;p&gt;The situation seems almost identical to when Reddit axed r&amp;#x2F;jailbait: one of their more embarrassing communities started to get too much attention, its users were increasingly behaving in a way that was damaging Reddit, and Reddit decided to kill it (ostensibly for the greater good of the site).&lt;p&gt;But even though that pissed plenty of people off... I don&amp;#x27;t recall the front page being totally dominated by calls for anyone&amp;#x27;s head on a silver platter. Reddit&amp;#x27;s userbase seems to feel especially &lt;i&gt;threatened&lt;/i&gt; by Ellen Pao, and it&amp;#x27;s hard for me to believe that the difference is anything rational.</text></item><item><author>teraflop</author><text>This article dramatically understates the magnitude of the shitstorm that is currently unfolding. Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;all&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;all&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; if you feel like seeing all the ugliness.&lt;p&gt;(And if anyone has any doubts that this is ultimately about harassment, count how many of the posts on the front page (and their comments) are made up of personal attacks and&amp;#x2F;or obscenities targeted at CEO Ellen Pao.)&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t fault the Reddit admins for trying to clean things up but I can&amp;#x27;t see any good that will come of this. To paraphrase a comment that I saw earlier today and now can&amp;#x27;t find, it&amp;#x27;s like trying to get rid of an anthill with a leaf-blower; you just end up with pissed-off ants everywhere.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Ah, found it. It was in the &amp;quot;can I sue Reddit for violating my freedom of speech&amp;quot; thread in &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;legaladvice. &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;legaladvice&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;39c58h&amp;#x2F;could_someone_sue_reddit_for_banning_and&amp;#x2F;cs2ch7d?context=4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;legaladvice&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;39c58h&amp;#x2F;could_so...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>philwelch</author><text>Previous Reddit CEO&amp;#x27;s have made lots of statements about wanting the site to allow relatively free expression, aside from things like doxxing and pedophilia. Ellen Pao has instead talked about turning Reddit into a &amp;quot;safe space&amp;quot;, which is a common euphemism for eliminating dissenting viewpoints.&lt;p&gt;FPH in and of itself isn&amp;#x27;t the most defensible or tasteful subreddit, but they&amp;#x27;re going to start by banning the least defensible subreddits first. Once the precedent is made, they can start banning political dissent subreddits.</text></comment>
<story><title>Reddit Bans Five Communities In New Anti-Harassment Campaign</title><url>http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/10/reddit-bans-five-communities-in-new-anti-harassment-campaign/</url><text>Most notable is &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;fatpeoplehate, which had become an extremely popular &amp;quot;fat-shaming&amp;quot; community.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>powrtoch</author><text>The front page is pretty worrying.&lt;p&gt;The situation seems almost identical to when Reddit axed r&amp;#x2F;jailbait: one of their more embarrassing communities started to get too much attention, its users were increasingly behaving in a way that was damaging Reddit, and Reddit decided to kill it (ostensibly for the greater good of the site).&lt;p&gt;But even though that pissed plenty of people off... I don&amp;#x27;t recall the front page being totally dominated by calls for anyone&amp;#x27;s head on a silver platter. Reddit&amp;#x27;s userbase seems to feel especially &lt;i&gt;threatened&lt;/i&gt; by Ellen Pao, and it&amp;#x27;s hard for me to believe that the difference is anything rational.</text></item><item><author>teraflop</author><text>This article dramatically understates the magnitude of the shitstorm that is currently unfolding. Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;all&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;all&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; if you feel like seeing all the ugliness.&lt;p&gt;(And if anyone has any doubts that this is ultimately about harassment, count how many of the posts on the front page (and their comments) are made up of personal attacks and&amp;#x2F;or obscenities targeted at CEO Ellen Pao.)&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t fault the Reddit admins for trying to clean things up but I can&amp;#x27;t see any good that will come of this. To paraphrase a comment that I saw earlier today and now can&amp;#x27;t find, it&amp;#x27;s like trying to get rid of an anthill with a leaf-blower; you just end up with pissed-off ants everywhere.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Ah, found it. It was in the &amp;quot;can I sue Reddit for violating my freedom of speech&amp;quot; thread in &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;legaladvice. &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;legaladvice&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;39c58h&amp;#x2F;could_someone_sue_reddit_for_banning_and&amp;#x2F;cs2ch7d?context=4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;legaladvice&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;39c58h&amp;#x2F;could_so...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Kalium</author><text>Pao is attempting to &amp;quot;clean up&amp;quot;... in an environment that cherishes its traditional freewheeling and unrestrained discourse. Even if the stuff getting cleaned up is just the stuff that most people agree deserves it - for some value of deserves - it&amp;#x27;s a troubling precedent to set.&lt;p&gt;Some people find themselves wondering what opinions will be deemed unsafe next. The policies are not exactly clear-cut, and neither are the actions of the administration.</text></comment>