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comment by exNihilo

It is worth noting that Stormfront has a pretty active presence on reddit and there are numerous racist subreddits. Additionally, the mods of /r/videos have essentially washed their hands of all responsibility in preventing blatant racism from coming to frontpage. All in the name of Freezepeach.

Consider that it took reddit being featured on Anderson Cooper to finally ban the CP subreddits. 4Chan has a more proactive stance on this stuff than reddit.





user-inactivated  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It wasn't a CP subreddit, it was a subreddit full of fully clothed teenage girls.

Weird and maybe a little creepy sure, but in no way was it CP. At the time there were claims of CP occassionally showing up, and that was used as the justification for shutting it down (if the claims were true, it should have been shut down).

But it was way more complex than simply a CP subreddit getting shut down for CP. The amount of baseless rumors running around was ridiculous.

user-inactivated  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A pedo is a pedo, fuck them.

user-inactivated  ·  3807 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A pedophile is someone who is sexually interested in prepubescent children.

Since the subreddit was about teenagers, the term you're looking for is Ephebophilia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia

    Ephebophilia is the primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.

    Ephebophilia strictly denotes the preference for mid-to-late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction.

    However, the term pedophilia is commonly and mistakenly used to refer to any sexual interest in minors below the legal age of consent, regardless of their level of physical or mental development.[

How many men here wouldn't have sex with a 17-18 y/o if they could be assured no social problems? It's important to maintain some level of rigor in these discussions, otherwise you start doing things like treating sexual interest with a 17 y/o in the same manner as with a 5 y/o. One of those deserves more scrutiny.

user-inactivated  ·  3806 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You must be from Reddit

exNihilo  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    It wasn't a CP subreddit, it was a subreddit full of fully clothed teenage girls.

Presented fully for the prurient interests of the creeps and pedos who ran that place. It was there for the sexual gratification of its viewers. It wasn't weird and a little creepy, it was disgusting and degrading.

    But it was way more complex than simply a CP subreddit getting shut down for CP.

It wasn't shut down for CP. It was shut down because it made reddit look bad when it got substantial amount of bad PR because of it. The reddit admins knew their position was indefensible and crumbled as soon as a light got shone on it. Before they always cried about free speech.

Reddit has always been disgusting. Look how they allowed a subreddit like /r/creepshots to exist, under the justification of free speech and how women in public should have no expectation to privacy. And yet, when one of their moderators got doxxed, suddenly privacy matters.

Outset  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The fact remains, 4chan hasn't allowed jailbait for many years now and it took the name of reddit as a site being dragged through the dirt extensively for the admins to finally decide that banning sexualized content of minors would be a good thing.

Oh, and to correct exNihilo here, it took reddit being featured on Anderson Cooper and a threatened press mailbombing campaign from /r/ShitRedditSays and SomethingAwful to get jailbait subreddits banned.

user-inactivated  ·  3807 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't pay attention to 4chan, so I wasn't aware of that.

I understand the real reasons for it getting banned, I was more correcting the idea that it was as simple as a bunch of people posting CP and it getting banned for it.

al  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

well the technicality of what CP is and what it isn't really depends on your nations laws, for example in england if an image of a person under 18 is being used for sexual purposes clothed or not it is illegal, however I believe in america is it true they have to be partially nude for it to count as pornography? forgive me if I am a little ignorant of your laws

user-inactivated  ·  3807 days ago  ·  link  ·  

They also have to be under a specific age of consent, which changes from state to state. I believe it ranges from 14-16 with 16 being the norm.

The thing is, while it isn't socially acceptable to be sexually attracted to a 14 y/o when you're 25+(and lets be honest, that's fucking young), a 14 y/o is still sexually mature from a physical standpoint. That is not CP, creepy yes, but not CP.

al  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

well maybe not physically, but legally it still remains- and as a belief I think that it is not the physical maturity alone that allows the relationship to be adult but the mental maturity which doesn't directly correlate with physical/sexual, for example as a 13 yr old I would have been totally capable of having sex with a legal adult physically, however it is important that society recognises that the reason that would be wrong is not only due to the lack of complete sexual/physical maturity but the ability to make decisions which are of that degree of importance

user-inactivated  ·  3802 days ago  ·  link  ·  

absolutely true and I won't disagree with that.

But my initial foray into this conversation was because of the portrayal of /r/jailbait as being CP, which it isn't.

bioemerl  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"It is worth noting that Stormfront has a pretty active presence on reddit and there are numerous racist subreddits. "

As does a hundred thousand other communities.

There is a large feminist presence on reddit also, they have numerous subreddits. Reddit must be highly feminist also.

And i'm sure you'll love those frozen peaches the moment you realize it's the exact same sentiment that allowed civil rights to exist and gain momentum in the first place.

"but I don't agree with them!"

(I don't either, and I don't think hate speech should be considered under free speech, but making fun of admins and using the whole fucking stupid "Freeze peaches" meme doesn't help anyone)

exNihilo  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    "It is worth noting that Stormfront has a pretty active presence on reddit and there are numerous racist subreddits. "

I was merely pointing out that whether or not this was a targeted raid from /pol/ or Stormfront or any of the other racist websites out there is irrelevant. Racism is endemic on reddit. Stormfront has a bunch of people there because it is the optimum environment to foster bigotry.

One of the rallying cries of racists and bigots in general when people object to their views is that those against racism are in fact the real bigots. Essentially arguing that refusing to tolerate intolerance is itself intolerant. This is literally one of the talking points of the modern neo-Nazi movement. And reddit tacitly endorses this by letting any bigot spout their insanity and hiding behind the protection of free speech as if this gives some moral high ground. The fact is, if your only defense for your argument is that it isn't illegal to say what you are saying, then your argument is pretty weak.

Ultimately, reddit is a private website and obviously the owners can do whatever they want with it. This something that its users cannot seem to fathom in many cases. Reddit is not a democracy. But this doesn't excuse it from any moral culpability or criticism in fostering a seething cesspool of intolerance and extremism. They give hate groups a very public and popular place to deliver their message.

    There is a large feminist presence on reddit also, they have numerous subreddits. Reddit must be highly feminist also.

False equivalence much? Watch how quickly posts criticizing something 'all women do' gets upvoted. Observe the victim complex whenever things like the pay gap and false rape are talked about. Reddit is pretty anti-feminist and all around misogynistic.

bioemerl  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You are taking the words of a small majority and saying they are a large majority.

EVERY racist comment on that thread is downvoted. Are you really going to tell me reddit is racist when clearly racist shit that is not taken as a joke is downvoted?

Perhaps reddit is insensitive, too keen to upvote things that may be racist but also appear to be lighthearted jokes, but that doesn't make reddit a bunch of racists. That is you making generalizations.

"And reddit tacitly endorses this by letting any bigot spout their insanity and hiding behind the protection of free speech as if this gives some moral high ground. "

They always hate the free speech, until the day comes that they are the ones who want to be speaking.

Reddit isn't letting things happen under the guise of free speech. Reddit lets stuff happen because of a belief that through an open market of ideas, where everyone can speak without censorship, those who are wrong will become downvoted and disliked.

"The fact is, if your only defense for your argument is that it isn't illegal to say what you are saying, then your argument is pretty weak."

You, again, make massive generalizations for the sake of feeling superior about yourself.

I don't agree with the stuff either, but it's not nearly as one sided as you make it out to be.

"Ultimately, reddit is a private website and obviously the owners can do whatever they want with it. This something that its users cannot seem to fathom in many cases. "

Ultimately, reddit is a business, and people use the internet because it's a free and open place to discuss and have ideas. Start banning the ones you don't like and you kill that entire notion. Kill that notion and people will go elsewhere. Reddit isn't some safe place where only good things can be said. It's a cut-throat system that is designed to show you when you are wrong, not by a moderator, but by your peers.

"False equivalence much? "

"Watch how quickly posts criticizing something 'all women do' gets upvoted"

Oh, yes, i'm sure those comments were downvoted because they were supporting equality, not because they were being hasty and acting superior/demeaning to all parties reading. I've seen some of the shit that gets downvoted because it "criticizes all women do" and it's almost never because it's criticizing.

What I was doing is pointing out the flaws in your own logic. The fact that subs exists that are stormfront proves nothing of reddit being stormfront focused. Hell, I bet if you compare sub counts the feminist subs outnumber the stormfront ones by a large margin.

I can't tell however, because /r/stormfront is god damned hilarious.

user-inactivated  ·  3807 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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bioemerl  ·  3807 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Whelp, when I visited the thread it seemed like they were all downvoted. Maybe it was a different one, but I could have sworn every comment that was guilded like that was in the negative teens.

And are you ignoring the fact that this s probably some outside source coming in and voting? Read the circlebroke thread. So far as I am aware this sort of racism never occurs naturally on reddit, and is either quickly down-voted or falls into the sorts of things I mentioned earlier.

"If you want a community full of racist and sexist shit, make it yourself. I want a community without it and so I attack Reddit for putting up with it. "

I want a community full of open ideas where racists are free to post, but free to be ridiculed and told why they are wrong. Censorship only makes people more angry and will never fix any issues.

I'd rather see the issues and take them on than hide from them.

"All the massively upvoted racist posts didn't exactly become downvoted and disliked, did they?"

They also aren't active, are posts that are buried in an old thread, etc.

https://np.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/28jwqv/brutal_robbery_of_girl_at_a_boost_mobile_store/

Look here, do you see any racist comments scrolling down the page? This isn't representative of reddit, this is representative of two or three people pulling a ton of crap out of context and pointing at reddit saying "IT'S SO RACIST" when the only real "racism", again, is of the sort I talked about before, where it is crappy jokes that are supposed to be funny because they are taboo.

The comments aren't deleted either, as the links still work in the circlebroke thread.

user-inactivated  ·  3807 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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bioemerl  ·  3807 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"You can only blame brigading so often before it becomes the community doing it. I mean they obviously all have accounts and regularly do this shit "

If a group that talks primarily outside of reddit, and has accounts purely to do actions on reddit, they are not redditors.

"What, you think the Civil Rights Movement should have allowed Nazis to march with them and attack their goals?"

Reddit isn't the civil rights movement. Any subreddit which wishes to push for civil rights is free to ban any sort of discussion or comments they like. Just look at what /r/feminism does. They are a bit too strict with the banning, IMO, but it is often for good reason and keeps the community intact.

" It's not like the Internet is a less free place because racists have to make their own spots"

It means reddit is a less free place, however. And, again, i'd rather see and deal with issues than push them to where they are hidden and I can live in bliss.

"The point of an open Internet is that anyone can make their own community"

Look at the structure of reddit for a moment.

I also read reddit, and again, outside of the context of it being an "offensive joke" or some other sort of comment, nearly anything that is racist quickly gets downvoted.

havires  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"Freeze peaches" meme? I think that's the only part of this I don't understand.

bioemerl  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's a sarcastic comment making fun of those that allow all viewpoints on the basis of free speech.

havires  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ah yeah I realized that after saying it out loud a couple of times... Guh I miss little play on words like that sometimes.

exNihilo  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.