ShitRedditSays, the subreddit that exposes the worst of Reddit, is going on the warpath. They’ve published a long list of sick subreddits and are asking that the news be spread far and wide. Here’s an example of the kind of subreddit they dislike:
Reddit also has subreddits which publish images of women’s and underage girls’ private areas, including "upskirt" and "downblouse" pictures, without the knowledge or consent of their subjects. The users of these subreddits trade tips on how to stalk and photograph women and minors and encourage each other to go out and take more such pictures.
I know exactly how people will fight back on this one. They will claim that it’s a bunch of prudes who don’t like sex who are trying to shut down the more risqué discussions. But it’s not about sex.
They already cite reddit management that makes the argument that it’s all about free speech. But the objections have nothing to do with free speech.
It’s about consent.
Look through their long list of nasty subreddits, and that’s the theme running through them: these are forums dedicated to obtaining revealing images of minors, of people in private situations, of people being raped or beat up, and making them public. Or dedicated to teaching people how to violate others. It shouldn’t be about taking down things some people find offensive, it should be about demanding responsibility and requiring permission before publishing photographs of someone’s breasts (oh, hi, Kate Middleton!) and making special efforts to shelter people who can’t give informed consent, like children.
That’s what makes the people who participate in those subgroups creepy. It’s not that they like to talk about sex, or that they’re defenders of free speech…it’s that they don’t give a damn about privacy or autonomy.
Reddit is irredeemably awful, and I feel guilty every time I have to go there.
This coming from someone who has /tg/ open in another tab.
Knowingly possessing, producing, transmitting images of minors’ “private areas,” even through clothing, has been successfully prosecuted under the Federal Child Pornography statute. It’s probably prosecutable under comparable state laws. So what these people are doing isn’t just disgusting; it could land them in prison. Maybe the Subreddit people should be making some calls to the FBI.
I should clarify: it can be and is prosecuted when the picture is of the genital region–breasts I’m not sure about.
Jesus fucking Christ
(more when the nausea stops)
Sounds like the old usenet alt.sex.whatever forums.
That and some…
SRS launches second campaign to censor subreddits by using propaganda, this time ignoring whether or not those subreddits are actually in violation of law
Gee what does this sound like…
uh
someone is very confused.
That’s some pretty fucked up shit.
There is a very scary line when it comes to free speech. We can (and should) obviously ban things like child porn, as not covered by free speech.
However, do we ban things like “here’s how to ” like “how to take upskirt pictures” or “how to make bombs from household chemicals”. My gut reaction is to say “yes”, but then you go down a pretty slippery slope about infringing on free speech.
It’s issues like this that scare me the most about the darknet. I loved the idea behind TOR, doing truly anonymous file sharing using P2P, hashing, and a lot of tech along those lines. Then after looking into working on those kinds of FOSS projects, I learned about the child porn and criminal uses of those technologies and decided against working/contributing to those projects.
The saddest part is that the above kind of technology could be/is arguably very useful for other means (web browsing in Iran or restricted states, whistle blowing, etc), but then it enables the scum of the earth to do what they do.
Maybe this is why we can’t have nice things?
It astounds me how many people don’t understand which limits do and do not exist on free speech. (Especially Americans, for whom it is spelled out so very clearly.) For instance, that your right to free speech does not protect you from the consequences of your actions.
Reddit choosing to ban these things is not an infringement on the poster’s rights.
Yes, one moment a site bans instructions on how to take upskirt photos or how to lure someone into your house to rape them, next thing you know, people won’t be able to share apple pie recipes.
There should be a trigger warning* for people using the free speech or death!!!!eleven111!!! argument because it brings me one step closer to an apoplexy. Especially when it comes to topic like this one.
*that was a joke
Oh, they give a damn… Just in exactly the wrong way. It’s not like there’s any shortage of sexually explicit material on the internet (so I’m told…), so if these folks are specialising in material obtained without consent, then the only reasonable conclusion is that the lack of consent is the specific trait that they’re looking for. The violation of privacy and autonomy is exactly what they’re getting off on.
I agree with Dunc. On the site PZ linked, there’s an excerpt from FAQ of one of the sites in question. They make Dunc’s point pretty clear.
Because depictions of that stuff, posed by consenting models just wouldn’t be good enough; they need to believe that they are violating the privacy of their target.
Some of the worst pornography isn’t what is depicted in the image, but what the user does with it in their mind.
Of course, the “people” who will defend this material on free speech grounds will never acknowledge that there is no First Amendment issue here. Reddit is a business, not a government agency, and as such the First Amendment does not apply to it. It can censor anything it likes, including apple pie recipes, and its users have no legal recourse.
The defenders are wrapping this garbage in the Bill of Rights and hoping no one will notice the stench.
I’m glad. People continually lambast SRS as a “circlejerk” and as all the other things you mentioned, but it’s good that at least some people on Reddit are trying to civilize the community somewhat.
I hate these people. Guess what, fuckos? Females do not exist for your enjoyment. We do not owe you a look at our genitalia. You are not entitled to a single inch of our bodies.
I have young nieces and the idea of these creepshot creeps roaming around twists my stomach into knots.
So, the internet’s been a haven for this kind of stuff, long before everyone and their mothers were on Facebook? Back when it was just the domain of geeks, hackers, and coders?
I grow increasingly suspicious of this claim that atheists, and other subsets of nerd culture, are better than the population in general when it comes to this.
Your emphasis on consent being the key thing strikes me as exactly right, P-zed.
Just stop for a moment and as a thought experiment ask yourself “If those photos were of professional models paid for their time and release forms were on file with the photographer, would anybody much care?” Of course not. Such photos might be tasteless, but the last time anybody looked bad taste isn’t a crime.
Yes, it’s consent that’s the issue, no two ways about it.
[My own feeling is that the people excited by such photos need to grow up and stop getting so hot and bothered over them. They’re somewhat like children who think that “underwear” is an excitingly dirty word because it’s a subject not fit for the dinner table.]
Pretty sure that a big part of the excitement generated by those types of photos is the very fact there was no consent given.
Yes. Read that description of “creepshots”. The whole point is to obtain intimate photos surreptitiously, and the thrill lies in the fact that you’ve got them against the subject’s will.
There’s also a whole genre of revenge porn: take nude photos and videos of ex-girlfriends and publish them to world to shame and embarrass them for behavior the asshole once encouraged.
It’s all about violating the other person’s wishes. It’s about violation, period.
Rev. BigDumpChimp:
Well, the issue is that Reddit refuses to do so. The SRS people are pretty explicitly calling for government attention in addition to media exposure, so jhendrix’s musings are on point, I think.
Though I do want to say, if Reddit is in violation of the law, refuses to come into compliance with the law, and is shut down therefore by a government agency, free speech objections are pretty fucking stupid. A lot of the comments on the SRS post were pretty resigned to it going down this way (I’ll miss my /whatever, but if that’s the cost, so be it). I have no idea what the continued response of the admins will be (I don’t use reddit at all), but they all seem to be betting on doubling down.
There’s what’s Legal and then there’s what’s right.
I don’t care if it’s legal to post pictures of someone taken without their knowledge and consent — doing so is wrong.
Reddit is and has always been 90% crap. I won’t miss it.
Don’t know if that was directed at me, DLC, but I’m completely in agreement with you.
I just wanted to point out to RBDC that as of now, Reddit administrators are not banning anything, thus his point was not relevant to the cries of ‘FREEEE SPEEEEECH’. Said cries being completely ignorant and legally without basis, as far as I know (IANAL).
They could always start logging and exposing IP addresses. They don’t like the victim’s privacy so let them know how it feels.
On a side note as the pure reptile brain of my youth takes over: I grew up poor white trash. You could do this stuff but justice was not real for us. One thing can be said for that culture, there is personal responsibility. Nobody would call the law on these jerks.
Yeah but the call is for reddit to ban them. And there have been many cries of moaning about FREEZE PEACH (as the kids are calling it these days).
Fair enough, RBDC.
I feel a bit repetitive here, but I think it’s worth stressing that the linked SRS post explicitly states that Reddit is completely unwilling to engage on this issue in any meaningful way. Also, I read the comments from the pro-SRS side as sort of conceding that no change would happen, and that the next step would necessarily involve outside intervention (probably via child pornography laws). But perhaps social pressure will effect some change, and maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit out of ignorance.
Also, I have no freakin’ clue what FREEZE PEACH is, but I do know it needs to get off my lawn.
Ditto
Well, when it comes to people distributing child pornography, law forces should get involved. The same goes for people distributing videos of rape and anything else illegal.
Beatrice: Completely agree. Which is why I read the SRS post as explicitly gearing up for law enforcement intervention in the near-zero probability that Reddit will do anything over than a CYA move (again).
Ick, I’m posting too much, I’ll duck out for a bit.
Freespeech is not some sacrfed wonderful demonstration of expression. Its “you put down your gun and ill put down mine” for politics. Reddit has no obligation to promote this stuff…someone who does can make their own site and hopefully wind up on an FBI list.
The seductiion/rape raises a question: how anonymous or removed do you have to be before it stops being a conspiracy?
If the getaway driver is cupable for any murders in course of a bank robbery why isn’t someone who helps others commit crimes…even if jusy anonymously?
Different from bomb instructions because those are pure facts…this is specificly towards a potental crime.
“I grow increasingly suspicious of this claim that atheists, and other subsets of nerd culture, are better than the population in general when it comes to this.”
I think that the fallout from elevatorgate should have pretty much disabused everyone of this notion by now.
@RBDC#11
I don’t disagree that Reddit banning that stuff is not a violation of free speech. Honestly I’m in favor of the site banning that stuff, and I find the entire idea of “creeper photos” to be morally wrong. That’s really not my issue.
The point of what I was trying to get to is that “free speech” as we have it does get into dangerous grounds. Look at what happens when a wide medium is made available to provide absolute free speech and anonymity, ala TOR/Darknet stuff.
There are some other meta issues that concern me here, specifically with the internet. You can argue for “Reddit” to ban posting of things like that, but then aren’t you just a few steps away from petitioning hosting companies/ISP’s from refusing to host sites that have content that’s not illegal, but describes how-to’s?
I’m more about exploring what kind of limits we’re going to place on free speech, and the mediums we use to express that speech. That’s the issue that I find interesting really.
The issue I find interesting is how the issue of children and women being violated always seems to come
secondlast compared to something or other that is more important and more interesting.Seriously, these people are being given a platform for doing things that are illegal. It’s pretty black and white.
@Beatrice#36
At what point did I say it came second or last? I agree it is morally wrong, I also don’t like that reddit is hosting/linking to it, and support it being taken off.
I’m not seeing much dissent on that topic here, this basic position is pretty much agreed by just about every poster I can see in this thread.
jhendrix, yawn.
There are already limits on ‘free speech’. There are already reasonable limits to what people can legally do under the banner of ‘free speech’ (freedom of expression). Literally nothing stops a person from doing whatever they want. There are just consequences to certain actions.
Presumably, what you want to talk about are consequences. Barring that, you are left discussing only the avenues through which free expression can occur, the media. And sure, shutting down particular media effectively end the expression that can take place, but only in specific instances can that be characterised as a limit to free expression.
In short, the slippery slope you imagine just doesn’t exist in practice and you’re just asking the wrong questions and the exploring you’re ‘more about’ abruptly ends.
I don’t really know what you imagine would be the effect of closing down a subreddit on freedom of expression or how such a thing even leads to ‘exploring what kind of limits we’re going to place on free speech, and the mediums (sic) we use to express that speech,’ because these are entirely different and wholly unrelated subjects, unless, somehow, there’s confusion about what constitutes freedom of expression and what constitutes the violation of bodily autonomy, self determination and graphic displays of the violations thereof.
You claim that you’re for the banning of this sort of morally reprehensible stuff and yet you see arguments for said banning as equivalent to petitioning ISPs not to host how-to sites (presumably of a nefarious nature). Something isn’t right there. Somehow, I think you have confused freedom of expression and the right to bodily autonomy and self determination. Banning a subreddit and petitioning an ISP not to host something are not the same, and neither necessarily has anything to do with curtailing freedom of expression or limiting the media through which it can take place.
Want to have the discussion you’re having? I’d suggest doing it somewhere where it’s relevant and not somewhere where the discussion has decidedly nothing to do with freedom of expression, except to say that it has nothing to do with freedom of expression.
jhendrix,
Yeah, that’s exactly the point. Yet you seem to think that this topic has something to do with ‘freedom of speech’. It really doesn’t.
jhendrix,
You were mentioning a slippery slope, which I don’t see in this case.
If this slippery slope isn’t relevant to this case, then you are changing the topic. Ergo, my comment.
I was speaking more of the “how to” stuff, not the actual images. The images are illegal and need to be taken offline, no question. I also support taking down the “how to” stuff, though doing so violates some principles of free-speech I support. This makes me want to find where the limits are, and that was what I was interested in discussing (plus some tech parts of dealing with anonymity).
Re-reading my comments, it can appear that I was defending reddit keeping those subreddits up that is hosting the illegal content. That was/is not my intention.
Pretty clear there isn’t much interest in that here, so I’ll stop bringing it up.
The ex who raped me was a huge fan of these kind of pics. Took a lot of them, too. He used to spend hours on campuses, mall food courts, oh, and he lived next to a high school for a while. And then he’d trade them, learn how to do it better through sites like that. He was quite open, in no uncertain terms, that what he liked about it was the lack of consent, the fact that he was getting what he wanted without the knowledge or approval of the women and (more often) girls involved.
And of course, he talked a lot about how it was free speech, and he was so upset when people found him creepy blahblah. Nobody was harmed by his pictures, harmless fantasy blah blah.
jhendrix: I am absolutely devoid of fucks about your intention. You are defending the indefensible.
jhendrix is not defending it. Xe’s just brought up an entirely irrelevant topic stemming from some imagined connection between this …shit and ‘free speech’.
jhendrix is not defending it. Xe’s just brought up an entirely irrelevant topic stemming from some imagined connection between this …shit and ‘free speech’.
Pretty much this, I didn’t read the whole SRS post and was more focused on a small subset of the issue and some tech stuff that’s tangentially related. I shouldn’t have brought it up here and I apologize.
There is no defense of the shit that is being posted, it’s not a free speech issue, it’s illegal and morally wrong.
Thanks, jhendrix. There’s a discussion about that to be had, but here it comes off as derailing and justifying.
Happiestsadist:
Yep, exactly! There’s nothing wrong with what he wants to talk about. It’s definitely a discussion to be had… but unfortunately, this is not a community, or a sort of thread, that supports thread drift.
It sucks, but people have this tendency to bring up unrelated or tangentially related topics to confuse an issue, distract from the problem currently being discussed, and to generally derail and damage actually useful communication.
I’ve seen it used as static to interfere with discussion far too often. And so, in a place like this where there are TONS of people who come in with their random bullshit, it makes total sense that anyone here would look sideways at someone bringing up a different topic.
So this can be a learning moment for jhendrix. This just isn’t the sort of place for that kind of thread drift. Plenty of places for that do exist, just… not here.
Personally I have no problem with SRS on this issue. I do want to point out that a lot of the reason people dislike SRS is because they do tend to be rude and intolerant of other opinions. During my first visit to SRS I saw a thread about a homophobic comment made by a user. While in the comments I pointed out that while there were some homophobic comments on reddit the vast majority of redditors were gay friendly as evidenced by the front page article shaming 1 million moms for their treatment of ellen. I tried to be polite and fair about the issue and didn’t try to pretend that there weren’t any homophobes on reddit, just that homophobia was not widely promoted or accepted. In response I was banned. There was no warning or explanation. I do not defend or condone creepy/illegal subreddits I just want to point out that a lot of hatred towards SRS is due to the behavior of the moderators and not due to a fondness for jailbait.
Swarly (#47)
Why the fuck would you even think it needed to be mentioned? It’s a derailing tactic. A minimizing tactic. It’s a “Yes, but.” Go read this post and substitute “homophobia” for “misogyny.” (Assuming you actually want to understand the most likely reason you were banned.)
Note, too, that you are here in a thread about abusive Reddit content whining about your own clueless ass getting banned. Don’t do that.
Happiestsadist knows about this, but I have a former friend who liked to take covert photos of random women in public. Saw absolutely nothing wrong with it, since the photos weren’t going anywhere but his hard drive. Big fan of that sexist creep Carlos Miller at “Photography is Not a Crime” (of whom Benji Geiger is another fan).
It probably would surprise absolutely nobody here to hear that he didn’t get sociological concepts of privilege at all, and that when I argued with him about his little hobby, he asked me, /facepalm
Swarly, who the fuck cares? I suspect the behavior of the moderators is the way it is because otherwise they would be dealing with constant derails, either from assholes arguing in bad faith or from the clueless, as you seem to be.
@A.Noyd #48
I should have been more clear, I didn’t see the thread about homophobia and then post that yes this was unacceptable but… When I was writing in the thread my comment was in response to someone who claimed that most of reddit was homophobic. I disagreed with that person because I feel like reddit is very progressive as a whole on that issue. In my experience homophobia gets downvoted while pro gay movements get a lot of positive exposure.
SRSer here. It’s an honour, PZ, since I already admire you so much, and we take a hell of a lot of flak on reddit for spoiling everyone’s fun with our disapproving tutting of their enjoyment of racism and misogyny, paedophilia, etc. If the reddit owners and admins are ever going to deal with the massive amounts of abuse and outright illegal activities being conducted on reddit, it’ll be because people like you will shame them into it. They don’t really seem to understand that they’re not promoting a free speech platform, free speech being a government responsibility and all, and are only specialising and promoting a total absence of control and responsibility over their own business.
They certainly can’t be blamed for people using reddit to peddle child-porn and images of rape, but they can certainly be blamed for adamantly ignoring the problem and failing in their basic responsibility to enforce their own most basic and important rules (however reluctantly they introduced the child porn ban).
It seems like an uphill struggle to get people to recognise something as simple as ‘taking sexual pictures of underage people without their consent is wrong’ and that ‘free speech’ is not a catch-all excuse to do anything and whatever you want regardless of how many other peoples rights you violate doing so, but it’s easier knowing there are people like you making these concerns heard.
That stuff is pretty bloody terrible.
However, I don’t think that this sort of stuff is representative of the Reddit community as a whole: implying that all Redditors are pedophiles is like claiming all atheists are MRAs. Sure, there are a whole bunch of worthless excuses for human beings, but most Redditors are progressive and well-meaning.
Secondly, as Reddit is entirely user-submitted, there really isn’t any way for the site to pre-emptively screen for this sort of creep. Anyone can create a subreddit or submit a link, and the issues around preventing these sort of things are similar to those of content-filtering more generally (ala calls for Google to censor pirate sites).
However, when I say this I don’t mean to absolve Reddit of blame: as soon as they heard about these subreddits, they should have deleted them and perma-banned every user who posted there, and maybe tried to trace their IP addresses if at all possible. Defending voyeurism and pedophilia as “free speech” is, quite frankly, disgusting. The core problem with the argument that they have a right to ‘free speech’ is that they are completely ignoring the fact that the people they exploit *also* have rights in our society: they have a right to privacy and personal safety. But of course, to the people who post this stuff, women are no more than objects: the concept of equal rights means nothing to them.
Thankfully, Reddit’s management appears to have caved under pressure and deleted at least some of the offending subreddits. That’s a start, but this has to be an ongoing system: we need a robust reporting system.
I *like* Reddit, and that’s exactly why this outrages me: I don’t want a site (especially one that, on the whole, is an ally to progressive causes) to be dragged into the murky underbelly of the internet, and I especially don’t want its management making excuses for it.
Oh, and as to the article: I don’t see why people find the concept of ‘informed consent’ so difficult. If you want to post pictures of yourself / someone online, go ahead, but under the proviso that *every* party involved has given their explicit, informed consent: and no, minors cannot give consent, and no, if you get somebody drunk to try and trick them into doing something, that also doesn’t count as informed consent.
To put it into meme form, so even the most brainless denizens of the internet can get it:
Basic human decency: it’s super simple stuff.
1. Can a photograph or video really be considered “free speech” when it is done without consent of the person involved using an external machine that captures it for you? (Think of what expression actually means biologically).
2. What are the most serious forms of abuse that can be connected to the real world from the site? (I especially have in mind the recent bullying suicides)
3. How does Reddit’s format of subscription pages, up/downvoting, affect people’s perception of this?
4. What is the meaning of Reddit moving away from a news aggregate site to a porn haven, and can it be defended with 1st amendment as a commons even while being a private site?
5. Is live porn done with consent not exploitation in some way?
6. I suspect since Reddit is mostly white and male to begin with. Further it is most likely preserving class biases, even within SRS. What is the effect of porn take-downs or porn defense on non-white and non-male Redditors and people in general?