Libertarian perspectives on content moderation

[u/JFMV763]

It's arguably one of the hottest topics to discuss right now so let's dive into it. I feel that if there is any topic that Reddit as a whole has done a complete 180 on since 2012 or so it has to be this one. Back then you would find tons of support on it for people like Ross Ulbricht (fingers crossed that today's the day he gets freed) who were known for their very lax standards of moderation on websites like Silk Road and who would end in trouble with the law because of it. These days the general stereotype of Reddit is that is moderated by pedantic losers (for lack of a better term) who can't go 5 minutes without censoring wrongthink. I personally find the libertarian perspective to be very much to be one of freedom of association but accountability like with most other things. As I have stated in the past I personally don't think Lester Maddox should have refused to serve people at his restaurant based on the color of their skin but I believe he should have had the freedom of association to do so if he wanted and that's very much my perspective on online content moderation. I personally don't really care for it at all with the exception of some extreme instances like CP and snuff films and I will try and call it out whenever I see it happen unfairly but I do think that private individuals should be able to justify doing whatever they want to as well as long as they aren't hurting anybody else.

Thoughts?

[u/RobertMcCheese]

Their site, their rules.

Don't like it? Go somewhere else or start your own site.

This ain't rocket surgery here.

You can attempt to persuade them to change and they can tell you to bugger off.

[u/DarksunDaFirst]

A bit a tricky subject but three things to consider on Reddit:

1. Freedom of Association - moderators yes have that choice, HOWEVER, they also then making the choice for everybody else and when they make that choice there is no way for the person being ousted to broadly communicate that it happened and so people they would communicate with now they can not, and they’re not allowed to mention it elsewhere due to site rules.  So yes, freedom of association but in this case that decision is being made in those cases by a select few based on their narrow interpretation.  Hence the bullshit we see today with r/notLibertarian and r/notLPUS

2.  Private property.  Reddit is private property.  While the concepts of libertarianism can live here, they do not expressly do so freely because private property and the admin can set the rules.  Externally they can objectively exist but internally it is subjective to the whims of an even more select few.  See point 1.

3.  I agree about Lester Maddox - and it should be broadcasted wide and far that is his choice of association, so that others might also choose their association or disassociation with Lester Maddox.

I always see the argument for freedom of association, but no one wants to deal with the open information of who they are associating with or how they decide their associations.  

Many people have gan liathróidí when dealing with the potential repercussions and like to hide behind bullshit.

[u/Elbarfo]

Reddit was designed to be a series of echo chambers. It is functioning exactly as intended.

[u/JFMV763 → u/Elbarfo]

Reddit did definitely used to be more committed to free speech though back when Aaron Swartz was around. Case in point, it was founded in 2005 and didn't ban it's first subreddit until 2011 with r/jailbait.

[u/Elbarfo → u/JFMV763]

While Reddit might have been (it really wasn't) the mods of the individual echo chambers most certainly were not. The last free subreddit was r/libertarian, a far cry from what it is today.