FUCK REDDIT

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

'liberal-leaning' - they are privileged, egotistical, bigoted, abusive assholes -- not to mention passive enablers of criminals and sociopaths.

Who saw that one coming!!!

[Jagos]

So let me get this straight...

I'm supposed to believe Gawker, an online tabloid that can't protect its own moles, against a community that has millions of members for various different subreddits that allow plenty of people to discuss topics anonymously?

I mean, seriously?

So we should allow a journalist to just stalk someone to find evidence against a person for jailbait photos?

Then he just totally misreads what Reddit does to come to his own conclusions about the site:

When it comes to mods, the political model of Reddit is not so much a vast digital democracy, as it's often framed by fans and users, as online feudalism. Moderators like Violentacrez are given absolute control over their turf in exchange for keeping the kingdom of Reddit strong. Moderators become more or less powerful in direct relation to the number and popularity of the subreddits they moderate, so they try to take over other subreddits to boost their profile in the community. Inevitably, Reddit's administrators develop relationships with the most influential moderators. Like feuding medieval lords vying for the king's favor, moderators form alliances or wage epic flame wars over power struggles.

Maybe that happens in the underbelly, but for God's sake that actually happens in usenets, 4chan, Diggit, or any other site where people can have a fetish for anything under the sun.

No, I'm not here defending pedophilia at all. I just didn't see the point that a journalist has to go to such an extent to ruin a person's life and make such mess for anonymity online.

And now, because the guy likes trolling, he got fired from his job over this. Congratulations, Chen for setting back journalistic integrity from the last 50 years. Now I'm not entirely a fan of him being able to put out feelrs and find the information but it's certainly impressive to see what he did to get the information.

That said, violentacrez was a troll for the most part. Reddit really doesn't have much to do with this in controlling every last subreddit on their site. Seeing them ban Gawker is dumb but hey, they have to learn that their actions do have consequences, same as the moderator getting fired.

I think the situation is much more complex than just saying "Oh fuck Reddit for defending a pedophile". I just can't square away that a lot of the time spent on this story could have been used to report a number of other things instead.

[shiney]

It's not like his subreddit was one of the most insanely popular ones there, distributing these unauthorized sexualized pictures of underage people to creepers worldwide.

There's always more important stuff to be reported on but the world needs ditch-diggers too, and this is something that actually kind of serves the public interest. Taking a picture and posting it on facebook shouldn't result in some sickening aggregator posting the image for weirdos to use as masturbation material.

[Kim]

No, I'm not here defending pedophilia at all. I just didn't see the point that a journalist has to go to such an extent to ruin a person's life and make such mess for anonymity online.

The person whose life was ruined was ruined because they went out of their way to antagonize people by being racist, misogynist, and generally awful. They were also a pedophile that founded and tended a community for pedophiles to share pictures of minors WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT because they found them sexually arousing.

The reporter did not ruin this person's life. He ruined his own life by doing the things he's suffering the consequences for now. You are literally arguing that this man who did these awful things should be free from the consequences of his actions.

No, he should not be free from those consequences. You may claim you're not defending pedophilia, but you're certainly defending a pedophile, a racist, and a misogynist, and you're also defending the community that gave him authority which he used in morally bankrupt ways.

Perhaps this is a thing you should not do.

It's not like his subreddit was one of the most insanely popular ones there, distributing these unauthorized sexualized pictures of underage people to creepers worldwide.

What's important to keep in mind is that he had close connections with many of the people in charge of Reddit and who manage many other sub-reddits. He's not some self-contained creep. He was a creep with power and connections given to him by a community and those who manage that community.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

What exactly is wrong with journalists stalking people? Like this is a big issue in Britain at the moment with the Levenson Inquiry and such like but I want journalists stalking people, I want them hacking into shit- I want them finding out stuff other people don't want them to know. That is like exactly what they should be doing.
Like the other alternatives are A) Blandly recycling press releases or B) Just making shit up.
And this is even one of the worst examples you could use of journalists gone wild. In like the Leveson inquiry we had journalists hacking into celebrity phones to find out who they are dating and shit which you could argue is a bit ridic, here they are exposing a pedophile- that seems like a pretty solid use of their dark journalistic powers

[Nique]

Journalistic integrity is not the only princeple involved here, however.

Perhaps it is more important that the type of overtly mysoginostic behavior on display at Reddit be publically shamed. I guess I don't really know who has the objective ethical high ground here, but I can't feel too bad about a dude who enables or actively participates in posting creeper photos being outed.

[Premmy]

When did internet anonymity become a right that can be infringed upon and must be upheld by society, as opposed to a priveligethat must be personally worked to maintain by those who personally want it for themselves? I'm not seeing how "threatening internet anonymity" is supposed to be such a big deal in this instance. Dude showed up to public meetups and claimed his identity,and told people his real name and even got his entire family in on it. This reporter pretty much engaged in some old-fashioned early twentieth century journalisms. They did'nt hack any computers or steal any property or break into anyone's home or anything illegal or immoral as far as I can tell. You can't barely do anything to keep a secret, then cry when it gets out.

[Magus]

Yeah, I'd say the only difference is that unlike with real celebrities, violentacrez is a minor pseudo-internet celebrity. In any case there was no actual illegality involved in their investigation of him, though I did kind of laugh when they said they weren't outing him as a form of punishment (I don't really see it as anything else--just that it is a deserved punishment), or just to get page-hits (probably their main goal--or rather, Gawker's main goal). Maybe the journalist personally felt they are accomplishing something regarding making the internet safer/less shitty, though given the motivation of the average Gawker writer...probably the page hits. I bet they got a crap ton of page hits out of outing the most notorious Redditor.

But in any case I can't really see anything wrong with it, other than that the average internet user doesn't expect their real identity to be unearthed by some writer, but if someone wants to put the time into it, they certainly can do it for many people, probably.

[Jagos]

Originally Posted by Kim

The person whose life was ruined was ruined because they went out of their way to antagonize people by being racist, misogynist, and generally awful. They were also a pedophile that founded and tended a community for pedophiles to share pictures of minors WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT because they found them sexually arousing.

So let's get this straight... The US government goes after people for having teenage images but not harming girls. These people are sharing photos.

The same ones that are found on other sites of commerce which seems to be more an attack on privacy and linking. But there's little evidence other than sensationalism that someone was harmed on these smaller Reddits. I don't know about these Reddits, but I do tend to hang out in r/politics, r/technology, and a few other reddits for news on government and privacy issues.

The reporter did not ruin this person's life. He ruined his own life by doing the things he's suffering the consequences for now. You are literally arguing that this man who did these awful things should be free from the consequences of his actions.

No, I'm not. I said "I think the situation is much more complex than just saying 'Oh fuck Reddit for defending a pedophile'." as a way to summarize my feelings on the topic. Further, blaming all of Reddit for the actions of violentacrez is really blinding. The consequences here is that he's lost his job over giving out his information online which we criticize the government for doing with Operation Stellar Wind. No, I'm not comfortable with giving all of my information online. But seeing this done by Chen doesn't make me feel any better about having information used to pry in someone's life.

No, he should not be free from those consequences. You may claim you're not defending pedophilia, but you're certainly defending a pedophile, a racist, and a misogynist, and you're also defending the community that gave him authority which he used in morally bankrupt ways.

You may claim you're being neutral but you're most certainly creating a strawman argument which isn't what I'm saying at all.

Do I like what he did? In no way. It's not something I would do myself. I just don't think two wrongs make a right. Did the guy make the photos? From the evidence, he didn't. He just posted them from other sources. He may have a sick fetish and that's wrong ethically, but if all it is being traded is pictures, then I for one, don't care and wouldn't have known diddly about this. If he was kidnapping and photographing, then take that fucker down, pronto.

The point here is the way that Adrian Chen got his information and used that to take away violentacrez' "power" rubs me the wrong way the same as me trying to find information on a random individual and use it against them to report a story.

What's important to keep in mind is that he had close connections with many of the people in charge of Reddit and who manage many other sub-reddits. He's not some self-contained creep. He was a creep with power and connections given to him by a community and those who manage that community.

Reddit is a huge place and I think you're focusing too much on what Adrian is saying. Who are the people in charge here? Alexis O'hainan? The guy who created it? Or do you just feel that he's made the mods to be all powerful beings of various subreddits are somehow the same caretakers of the site? I don't think this is accurate reporting in all shapes and forms and he's vastly overstated the power of mods to make VA seem to be more of a villain than he truly is.

What I see here is a slippery slope argument. Think about if VA were a political dissenter instead of an Asshole Victim. If he were trying to speak out about the FDA poisoning drinking water and wanted to remain anonymous. Would that make it right?

How about if you have scientists saying that global warming isn't a hoax?

Or a coal miner saying how he's forced to attend a "voluntary" event as the boss told him to do?

The point here is that if the circumstances were different, we might be on different sides of the argument.

No one has to condone VA's actions in order to see the other consequences that could arise from similar situations in the future.

[Premmy]

Jagos you have to be the only person I've ever seen to actually say they're using the slippery slope fallacy while doing so.