Comment by semiquaver

3 years ago

Exactly. By the strictest literal terms a rule prohibiting any call for violence would prohibit things which many people would find entirely unobjectionable like standing up for a country’s right to defend itself (with violence) against an aggressive invader.

All rules have countless unspoken caveats and are inherently only able to be interpreted in a cultural context; rules cannot be made so specific as to remove the need for that context. Problems come in when essential parts of that context are not shared by everyone who interacts with the rules.

> Exactly. By the strictest literal terms a rule prohibiting any call for violence would prohibit things which many people would find entirely unobjectionable like standing up for a country’s right to defend itself (with violence) against an aggressive invader.

Having rules against advocating for violence means that you want to prohibit such calls (otherwise you would have written down such exceptions and admit that calling for violence is sometimes OK).

Let me put it this way: what Reddit secretly wants is not standing up against advocating for violence, but avoiding the reputation risk that might happen if there exist to many post that advocate for violence in a way that causes an outcry.

In other words: the hidden problem is rather Reddit's "secret" agenda behind the rules.

  • I think that the rule, usually unstated, is: "it's o.k. if it doesn't make me look bad", or maybe "it's not a problem, if it's not a problem".