HACKER Q&A
📣 thinkingemote

Does reddit now allow hate speech against certain groups?


It was my assumption that hate speech was banned on Reddit, as it is on Facebook and Twitter. (Let me add that I am a European and almost everyone in Europe are used to concrete and hardline boundaries when it comes to hate speech - this isn't a question about free speech - its about the blurring of the boundaries)

There has been a recent policy change:

https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/account-and-community-restrictions/promoting-hate-based-identity-or

"While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate. "

There are still existing policies against promotion of violence however. There are also existing policies against harassment and bullying. These all still apply.

Does this mean that before the change, hate against any group was bannable, but today it means that it's not bannable if its against certain groups? Before was there no rule against hate speech?

For example "punch a nazi" would not be hate speech as the nazi's promote hate but it might come under the violence rule. But "you should hate white people" would not be classed as hate speech now, nor violence, nor really would it be harassment or bullying. Before it would have been bannable I think? It would be classed as hate speech on Facebook.


  👤 txcwpalpha Accepted Answer ✓
My mind is blown that the CEO, legal, public relations, and any other higher ups approved this. It can be spun in so many different ways and opens up a huge can of worms. Asians are the majority group globally, so is reddit saying it's okay to be racist towards Asians?

This particular sentence is something that anyone who has taken a single public relations class or law school class (or really just has any common sense) would read and immediately cross out from the announcement. Even if this is indicative of how you operate internally, it just isn't something that anyone with half a brain would include in an official public policy announcement.

That means that either 1) nobody reviewed this, 2) people reviewed this but didn't think this huge dumpster fire of a statement was a big deal, or 3) people reviewed this, caught it, but then reddit decided to keep the statement in.

I honestly don't know which is worse.


👤 gguevaraa
I don't think you'll find an answer on HN. Funny enough, even spez can't answer you or rather, refuses to clarify that clause. I'm sure you've read the thread.

It's vague enough so Reddit and the powermods can have an easier time banning people who post unfashionable opinions.


👤 haunter
It means /r/sino and other CPC propaganda subs can survive. It's all about that sweet Tencent money. People worry about Huawei but Tencent is significantly worse and they are part of Reddit for a long time.

👤 aojhieajsdjj
It means racism is okay as long as the target is white people.

👤 guuguuguu
Women is majority in western societies, so we should be able to discriminate women right?