Reddit is revolting -- or at least, some of its users are. After the popular discussion forum banned five subreddits for infringing its anti-harrassment guidelines, posters are causing uproar.
The site announced its anti-harrassment policy last month, a decade into its existence, but only yesterday acted on it to the extent of wiping entire forums. The offending subdomains centred on transphobia, racism, body shaming, and abuse of users on another popular discussion forum, NeoGAF. Only one had more than 5000 subscribers, the charmingly named r/fatpeoplehate, which depressingly had around 150k.
The reaction to the bans has been predictably outraged, with users split into two broad camps. Some are angered by a seeming lack of transparency (Reddit published its first transparency report in January), or decrying the move as an infringement of free speech. Others are left wondering why these comparatively minor subreddits are gone when the horrifically racist r/coontown, with a tragic 10k subscribers, continues to exist.
In response, Reddit CEO Ellen Pao said the bans are down to harassing behaviour, not their content. She says "We're banning behaviour, not ideas. While we don't agree with the content of the subreddit, we don't have reports of it harassing individuals." Another post reads: "we allow a lot of content we don't agree with, we just want to make sure our platform makes everyone comfortable sharing their ideas, not just a few people. We believe less harassment means more ideas and more free expression, because people won't be afraid to participate."
Part of the problem with attempting to police content on the site is the very nature of Reddit itself, as anyone can create their own subreddit. Case in point, replacements for r/fatpeoplehate are up to r/fatepeoplehate13 at time of writing, though they do appear to be getting automatically banned. Reddit's top posts are, as of press time, almost universally focused on insulting Pao. The harassment policy also relies, at least partly, on people reporting behaviour.
While the debate over Reddit's actions rages, including an almost predictable Change.org petition to remove Pao, some users are looking to leave the site altogether. Ironically, there was already a subreddit pointing out alternatives to the popular site set up two years ago, r/RedditAlternatives, which now has more than 2600 subscribers. It describes itself with "Miss the old Reddit? Yearn for for how it 'used to be', or just want something different? No matter the reason, this is the subreddit for you" -- a clear sign this current social media upset isn't the first, nor likely the last to hit Reddit.
Alternative Commentary
Currently, the most upvoted recommendation for an alternative is voat.co, which looks both aesthetically and functionally similar to Reddit. Still in alpha, it offers the standard range of core domains -- which it calls "subverses" -- such as tech, gaming, and cats, and uses an up/down voting system to popularise posts.
However, the spike in new users in the wake of the revolt has caught the site runners unaware. At time of writing, its servers are down more than they are up as it struggles with demand. In an announcement moderator Atko writes that "We are not ready for such a huge influx of new users and haven't prepared for such a large and sudden increase either. But we welcome each and every person and are working hard to catch up in order to handle this."
Another is Stacksity, which looks and works quite a bit differently. As it explains, "making a stack (equivalent to a subreddit) is as easy as typing 'stacksity.com/$(your stack title here)'. From there, you can follow and post to the stack just as you might on reddit."
While it seems to be holding up to added server demand, Stacksity is also rather barren at present -- its $movies stack, for instance, has nine followers and only two posts, both links to trailers. The enthusiasm for the seems to be voiced more on Reddit itself, at the moment.
Another contender is Aether, so far the most divergent alternative. The service is app based rather than a website, and allows users to "read, write, and participate in community moderated, distributed, and anonymous boards." Anonymity seems to be the big selling point here, with users seemingly not knowing who originated a message. It's very much in its infancy, but we'd imagine community moderators would need to be perpetually on their toes to prevent illegal content spreading.
Expect more attempted rivals to Reddit to spawn in the wake of the current "scandal". Reddit's own reaction to the controversy will also be interesting to observe, particularly whether it will double down on its new rules or step back in response to the outspoken reaction.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
