Reddit: Freedom of speech?

Somewhere in a dank basement, a high school white American teenager smiles to himself for discovering a cute picture of a cat, worthy of sharing with his peers. He fires up his browser and heads to a website called reddit (www.reddit.com) where he posts a link to his uploaded image in a corner of the website called “Awww”.

This is the stereotypical image of a reddit user that most of the internet and media would like you to have: a young, white American adult living in the basement of his parents. But reddit users, or redditors, would like to dispute that claim, and perhaps rightfully so. Whilst the average user on reddit might fit the stereotype (according to some study), reddit is much more than just a website to post cute pictures or to plot the next nefarious internet mischief (like the “Anonymous” attacks on the internet last year), it is, as redditors argue, one of the bastions of free speech on the internet.

To put it simply, reddit is a website where users can post links or textual content to anything (well, almost anything that isn’t banned by the rules). The community decides what content is worthy, or not, by using a voting system. Any content that is highly voted, and thus highly regarded by the community will surface to the front page of thewebsite and gain much prominence and traffic. Free speech is especially valued in the community. The community relies on the voting system to weed out the junk from the good, in theory at least. The community is divided into different interests groups known as subreddits. Redditors have an eclectic range of interests: from the geeky Android to the, arguably, mundane politics and even the eye-raising pooping advice. The website has seen massive adoption by leading figures and celebrities. Most prominently, President Obama did a Q&A session on the website. But behind all this glamour, lies the dark side of the limits of free speech of which reddit is finding itself embroiled in yet another controversy.

A redditor who goes by the pseudonym ViolentAcrez (pronounced violent acres) has been infamous over the last few years on reddit, even garnering an “award” for being the worst redditor. ViolentAcrez was infamous for creating several offensive subreddits, with the most “famous” of them all being “jailbait”. Jailbait was an avenue for, supposedly horny males, to post snapshots of teenage girls who were, most of the time, scantily clad for the scrutiny and enjoyment of the other users. This caused a controversy when networks like CNN “discovered” the subreddit and hoisted it into the limelight of national news. When it was discovered that child pornography has been posted and traded via the subreddit, reddit was forced to ban the subreddit and institute a rule on prohibiting child pornography on its website, albeit reluctantly. From the perspective of the site’s owners, this was a curtail on free speech that they were reluctant to engage in. The second major curtail on free speech was to happen right after media site Gawker posted an exposé of ViolentAcrez, who turned out to be one Michael Brutsch.

Anonymity is the other core ideology of reddit and this was threatened by the exposé posted by Gawker. Immediately, a storm brewed on the website. Moderators of various popular subreddits scrambled to ban any links to the article, and even the entire Gawker network of sites. Some of them cite the rule of no doxxing (the slang term for the revealing of personal information) as the reason whilst others are doing this simply “in solidarity”. The website administrators even instituted a temporary site-wide ban on the article. The community is split on the issue.

Users are split on a couple of issues: the rightfulness of the exposé and whether there should be any censorship of links to the exposé. Proponents of the exposé argue that naming names is one of the few ways to stop the stream of offensive content. Many redditors are not exactly fond of the questionable content in the first place. Opponents of the exposé argue that this is a violation of reddit’s rules, and most importantly, the threat of having their identity exposed will cause users to withhold speech and practise self-censorship, threatening the very essence of free speech on reddit. Users could even be in danger for merely posting. This ties in directly with the second issue. Proponents argue that the article was a legit and quality article as a product of investigative journalism (which this author must admit: the article was very well written). Opponents argue that the article was merely an attempt at doxxing one of the users. There were allegations that the author of the article has blackmailed ViolentAcrez, which turned out to be untrue. Dissidents of the moderation policy have been banned (and then restored). Even moderators weren’t spared.

Reddit’s administrators appear to be unsure of how to deal with the situation. After keeping quiet for a few days, reddit’s CEO posted an internal memo that announced that reddit will not ban legitimate investigative journalism. In the memo, the CEO wrote that “[they] stand for the freedom of speech” while continuing to ban any attempts at doxxing. He recognises that the banning of Gawker sites on reddit has not put the site in a good light and that it would be ineffective in preventing the spread of the news. The site owners still seem to be rather unsure on how they are going to handle the situation. They are playing a difficult game trying to balance between the aspects of free speech: where does one draw the line (or even if there is a need to draw the line) between acceptable and unacceptable content? Add this to the fact that reddit is trying not to commit the same mistakes that led to the downfall of one of their competitors, Digg, and you can see how hard it is for them to toe the line.

The face of the controversy, Michael Brutsch, seems to be taking things well. Other than allegedly losing his job, he has turned to CNN to apologise for his actions whilst defending himself by saying that “[he] was playing to an audience of college kids”. He admitted getting “a thrill” when posting content on reddit. The user drama on reddit is no less exciting. Brutsch has since deleted his account, and in doing so, dragged a number of other less known, though no less prominent, users into some sort of a drama. This drama is documented fully by a user on reddit no less!

Free speech is problematic. Does one have an unlimited right to say his mind? If so, does he have to face the consequences of his right to say anything? Should we curtail free speech to prevent any form of racism, harass, abuse, or sexism?

Should we curtail free speech to prevent any form of racism, harass, abuse, or sexism?

The United Kingdom is struggling with this issue over the various “Twitter arrests” whilst internet communities like reddit are also struggling with this issue over questionable content. Commonly, the issue of free speech in this digital age arises from a single source: the web. The web has empowered us all with a voice, but how should we wield that voice?