I just got banned from /r/scarysigns for posting CDC stats about covid

submitted by magnora7 from self.MeanwhileOnReddit

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[–]magnora7[S] 22 insightful - 6 fun22 insightful - 5 fun23 insightful - 6 fun -  (24 children)

Doesn't even really matter, just one case among hundreds of thousands of similar types of bannings I'm sure. Just pissed me off. The censorship is very real.

[–]asterias 14 insightful - 3 fun14 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 3 fun -  (23 children)

Reddit has stopped being a decent place for discussion since a long time. They are just trying to hide their true intentions so that users won't flock away to other platforms.

[–]magnora7[S] 15 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 2 fun -  (22 children)

Completely agree. I just worry other people are reading it and taking it seriously, and if the hivemind is too perfect and literally hundreds of millions of people visit it regularly... I worry about the mind of humanity. I feel an obligation to say something sometimes. But it's like pissing in to a tsunami, it feels so futile. Especially after all your comments get deleted because the mods don't agree with the scientific links you post... sheesh.

I'm glad we have saidit at least. I just wish more people came here, and more people told others about saidit. But I'm very grateful to the people who are here, we have a nice little community going here.

[–]ChillyChili 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (21 children)

I remember being on reddit and not knowing of any alternatives that weren't "full of hackers or crazy racists". It is extremely distressing to be shut down when even trying to question the narrative in communities that exist for exactly that purpose.

It was terrifying, and I too am very grateful for this community.

I guess, in a way, reddit is killing themselves off by going too far. With bannings and censorship becoming commonplace, people leave instead of staying and trying to "fit in" and "behave". Only problem is what prevents saidit from being the next target?

[–]IridescentAnaconda 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I find the "crazy racists" off-putting but you can't have free speech without that component. No crazy racists, no free speech.

[–]magnora7[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

But some people get it confused and think the more of that there is, the freer the site is. Which isn't necessarily the case. Voat is 99% racism and it's very hard to find real information in such a garbage heap. So there's a balance, you can't really have free speech if extremists hijack the platform. But you can't have it by removing all of them either. There's a happy middle-ground that can be hard to hit, and everyone also kind of disagrees where it is appropriate to draw the line exactly, so it's impossible to satisfy everyone in this regard.

[–]IridescentAnaconda 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I do not mean to imply that more is better. It's just a fact of life with free-speech zones. The antidote is either (1) ignoring and not validating [my usual approach] or (2) pushing back with facts, etc. I still emphatically believe they have a right to express their views (as much as I have a right to ignore and/or oppose the same views).

[–]magnora7[S] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

That's all well and good, as long as they're actual people pushing viewpoints they actually believe. But when it's one person pretending to be 50 people, with the intent of poisoning the quality of discussion on the whole website and driving away new users (which does happen), we cannot allow that anymore than we should allow people to falsely yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. And it can be difficult to distinguish which is happening.

So it requires careful attention, and we have the saidit rules like they are because it helps prevent against this sort of cultural website hijacking that voat and many other sites experienced. Allowing one person's speech to drown out everyone else's, isn't really free speech for those being drowned out. So there's a balance that has to be had because of this cultural forum hijacking phenomenon that every social media site now has to deal with.

[–]ChillyChili 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I do as well and appreciate your reply. I'm just saying that, that is the narrative.

I believe that we should be able to talk about stats within races without being called racist or even that being racist isnt even a crime in itself. I think that folks can dislike a group of folks for whatever their reasoning.

Even if they are "protected classes" under legal bs, should not infringe on first amendment rights EVER.

Why is it ok for rape victims to have an aversion to males but not males of a race that raped them without being racist?

[–]magnora7[S] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (8 children)

Only problem is what prevents saidit from being the next target?

Saidit is already, and has been for a while, a target.

To prevent these types of attacks we got rid of the downvote and have two upvotes. This gets rid of most the user-level censorship.

Then we have saidit moderator rules that limit what the mods can delete. The removal of relevant information in a thread about that subject by mods, is not allowed on saidit, unless the mod has specified they will do so in the sidebar, and takes the sub off of the /all listing on saidit.

So these two new rules help a lot in preventing the intentionally damaging fake hiveminds from building up in an effort to drive off normal users.

[–]ChillyChili 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

That does help a lot. How do you fix real disinfo?

Like, you can't really because if you were reddit, their definition of disinfo is just the info challenging the desired narrative. Is upvoting good content enough? I mean, it might be, but just posing the question.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

I just simply apply our rules: https://saidit.net/s/SaidIt/comments/j1/the_saiditnet_terms_and_content_policy/

I don't judge the truth content of things, I merely judge the quality of discussion and moderate based on that, as per the site rules.

[–]ChillyChili 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Ok. As a former digg/reddit/voat member, what happens when you leave or are forced to leave? What canary can you put up that is legit that wouldn't be compromised? I mean, hell, the conspiracist in me thinks that saidit is the new corral. While thats something that I have to decide, if you aren't, what means do you have to prevent that?

Like, on one hand I shouldn't know what your backup plans are since if I were a disinfo agent, I'd use it. On the other, if I'm not (and am) I'd like to know that there is a plan to prevent you from being strong armed into censoring or handing over user data. Silly tough balance in a "free" world that shouldn't even exist.. :(

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I have a canary at /s/saiditcanary

We back up a lot. We have no reason we'd ever hand over user data, and we don't keep any extra data we don't need to operate the site.

If we got censored, we'd change server companies. We've already done it 3 times in the last 3 years.

We're prepared, don't worry.

[–]ChillyChili 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What guarantees do we have that the canary is and remains legit?

[–]whistlepig 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Reddit use to be full of hackers and some crazy racists back when it was good. That freedom of speech thing is what attracted everyone else. That was why the voting system was created. It allowed people to hide comments/posts below a specific voting threshold so the nervous people could avoid seeing most of the unpopular opinions like racists. That was the whole point of the voting system. It allowed the normies and the free speech zeolots (like me) to hang out together. And it worked great. Unfortunately there are too many who aren't interested in not seeing things they don't agree with as much as they want to forcibly stop others from thinking at all.

[–]ChillyChili 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The problem is that you can't just simply search on controversial or bottom and keep up the convo anymore.

Unpopular by reddit investor standards can not remain. Bots/shills downvote until nonbot nonaligned views are beaten or beaten, but also users are banned/removed so that they cant participate and other like-minded folks dont even know they have an ally when they face banning/removal.

[–]whistlepig 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

exactly.

My point was just to say that for those first 3 years or so reddit was plenty fringe. For the sake of historic perspective.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I agree, but voat is the counter-argument about why having it too open can leave it open to having the site culture hijacked by extremists.

[–]whistlepig 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

perhaps.. or you just have to attract enough of the right community early on

Of course.. easy for me to say, since I haven't actually tried to do it like you have. ;]

[–]roguecanine 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Reddit didn't have the voting system right from the start?

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It didn't? I know reddit had votes before it even had subreddits, which would've been 2007-2008 or so, when I started reading it.