Comment by swarnie
3 days ago
Sorry, maybe i wasn't clear.
I posted on the ReformUK subreddit in opposition to something that was being touted there. The context of the post doesn't matter, posting on that sub is enough to get you blanked banned from many other placed.
Getting banned from a default sub you've never posted in because you told a racist boomer somewhere else they might be falling for propaganda is bloody weird.
So your argument is that reddit is, what, bad at free speech because subreddits aren't forced to let you in?
No that isn't my argument.
I think the intention of it, as weird as it may seem, is to punish people for engaging with content the other subreddit mods feel is distasteful enough to warrant the effort.
I can't speak to whether this is a useful tactic on their part, or whether its fair to you, but IMO this is just another kind of "free speech" that exists.
It's also that even engaging with ("platforming" or "amplifying") wrongthink makes you guilty by association. If someone's feeling talkative and generous you might even get the "tolerating intolerance" speech.
> Getting banned from a default sub you've never posted in because you told a racist boomer somewhere else they might be falling for propaganda is bloody weird.
It's not great, but on the other hand: it's also not a completely terrible heuristic.
The challenge here is that some of these popular default subs attract tens of thousands of comments every day. Dealing with flags is time-consuming, and also "too late": better for racist bollocks to not be posted.
In the end every subreddit is a private fiefdom of the moderator(s) where they can do more or less what they want. Many subs have overly strict, obnoxious, or even bizarre rules. The original sub for The Netherlands got hijacked by some American who proceeded to ban everyone posting in Dutch.
It's not perfect, but in the end I don't think it's a bad thing. A global set of rules for all of Reddit won't work. For example of course you should be free to talk about religion, but proselyting Christianity on /r/atheism (or Atheism on /r/Christianity) would obviously not be desirable.
The thing Reddit replaced was web forums (phpbb etc.), newsgroups, and mailing lists, and those worked more or less the same.
> boomer
Is usually used as an derogatory term. The offensiveness is because it's based on age and it is deemed acceptable by some within one age group to use it - while racism is usually less acceptable. I haven't yet seen zoomer get used similarly.
Disclosure: I'm between younger and older
Boomers got weirdly defensive these days. It's no more derogatory than a Millennial is.