Reddit grapples with the question. "Why don't trans-men playing in men's sports or raping men in men's bathroom make the news?" The answer of course, must be misogyny.

submitted by Alienhunter糞大名 from reddit.com

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[–]alladd 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It is kind of strange, actually. Wonder if maybe it's trickling in from offsite. Reddit's not usually this comfortable being honest.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Reddit activity is considerably lower than it was compared to a few years ago so I think they're following less censorious policies now and reigning in some of the super mods before everyone gets banned. I think it's past the critical point and doomed to fall into obscurity at this point though.

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

Perhaps. But I won't be surprised if I see them ramp up censorship again for the 2024 election.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't believe that Reddit is at all willing to give up censorship. But what I believe the case to be, is quite simple.

Reddit makes money via advertising. Advertisers value their purchase of add space based on how many people will see it.

If there are loads of messages on reddit that are offensive to the average person, or outright abuse behavior towards commenters, then less people will use the site, and this will diminish it's value. So Reddit will naturally censor things like, unwelcome pornography, people saying Hitler was right and that we need to kill all the Jews, or people calling you a FAGGOT Nigger Dike Cunt Square Eyed Fat Republican Whale Whore. All of these sorts of behaviors make the site "less accessible to normies" and therefore spook advertisers.

On the other hand, once you start getting mods in place, who as we know are absolutely the best examples of leadership humanity has to offer, they end up running their subreddits like their own little fiefs and ban anyone and everyone they please based on their own whims. And as they start doing this, people get annoyed and leave, traffic goes down, and the site becomes less attractive to advertisers.

So the key to running any site is finding a balance between dealing with abusive users that turn people off, and reigning in abusive moderators that stifle the site and turn people off. I think reddit leaned too far into the censorship direction and decimated the user base and the admins now are trying to reign in the power mods somewhat before the site dies completely. But I think it's too late as reddit already had a reputation both online and in real life as a cesspool filled with idiots. And most of the new blood is off to other platforms like discord.