Reddit decides to be a little less racist
Reddit has been nothing short of chaos recently. Users left, staff left, and lots and lots of people got very, very upset. Following on from recent subreddit shutdowns and restrictions, today the site announces that it is bowing to pressure from certain quarters and closing down a number of racist subreddits.
Having culled harassment sections of the site, the latest victims of Reddit's ban hammer are the subreddits /r/CoonTown, /r/WatchNiggersDie, /r/bestofcoontown, /r/koontown, /r/CoonTownMods, /r/CoonTownMeta. The bans come as the site updates its content policy meaning that the six racist subreddits are now in violation of Reddit rules -- and the new rules don't seem to be going down well.
Reddit faces yet another user revolt, mods shut down several top subreddits
An insurrection is underway on Reddit, one of the largest websites on the planet. The juggernaut network which maintains thousands of open groups -- called subreddits -- dedicated to news, science, technology, entertainment, and sports among others is facing a backlash from moderators of many top subreddits over the company’s decision to fire Victoria Taylor, one of the key figures over at Reddit’s extremely popular AMA subreddit.
Victoria Taylor joined Reddit in 2013 as its director of communications. As several moderators bring to our attention, Taylor headed AMA’s celebrity sessions. She relayed users’ questions to high-profile figures and transcribed their responses to the website. Her sudden and unexplained departure has left moderators with a feeling of betrayal.
Reddit blocked in China, Wayback Machine blocked in Russia
It is becoming increasingly common for governments around the world to block access to websites they don’t approve of for one reason or another. The most frequent censor is China, and the latest site to fall victim to the Great Firewall of China is Reddit. If you're not able to pop over to China to check whether the site is blocked, you can use Blocked In China to test whether any site is accessible from within the country.
This is not the only site which people are having trouble accessing. Over in Russia, the Internet Archive -- responsible for the nostalgia-inducing Wayback Machine -- is also blocked. While the blocking of Reddit in China has probably been done on purpose, the same may not necessarily be true in Russia.
Reddit refugee camp Voat dropped by German webhost for 'political incorrectness'
A couple of weeks ago Reddit announced that it was closing down a number of subreddits with harassing subject matter. This came a few month months after a decision to ban content that included images or videos of non-consensual sex. In protest, groups of users switched allegiances and moved to the Reddit clone site Voat.co -- which prides itself on not censoring any content.
Voat.co has been around for a little while, but the site saw its membership swell as former Reddit users jumped ship. Over the last couple of weeks, the "censorship-free community platform" has battled DDoS attacks and was dealt another blow yesterday when its German hosting provider cancelled its contract. The reason given was that the server was being used to host content that is "politically incorrect". But this does not mean that the site is dead.
Reddit starts killing off harassment subreddits
Reddit is both famous and infamous. It's a source of news, a platform for disseminating such delights as the pictures that came out of the Fappening, and home to the ever-interesting Ask Me Anything sessions. But like any social website, it also has problems. Like Facebook, Twitter, and other sites, there are issues with spam, trolling, and abuse. Reddit has a particular problem with sections that are dedicated to harassing and abusing groups of people.
Now the site is fighting back. It is taking a proactive approach and removing subreddits whose raisons d'être are the harassment of people. The cull initially sees the removal of five offending subreddits, but the Reddit team explains that only one with a sizeable userbase is affected -- r/fatpeoplehate.
Reddit imposes ban on non-consensual sexual content
If you want to post naked pictures or videos of people on Reddit without their consent, you only have a couple of weeks to do so. As of March, the site is imposing a ban on content of an explicit nature that the subject has not given permission to be posted.
The cleanup of the site comes hot on the heels of news from Google that explicit content will be banned from Blogger. It also comes in the wake of last year’s Fappening which saw a glut of naked celebrity photos leaked online.
Reddit (sort of) launches its own nebulous cryptocurrency, Reddit Notes
We've already heard that 2015 is supposed to be the year of cryptocurrency, and Microsoft recently announced that Bitcoin is an acceptable form of payment. Now Reddit is getting in on the virtual currency action. Kind of. Well, perhaps. The details are vague at the moment, but the intriguingly-named Reddit Notes have been announced.
It comes just a few months after Reddit managed to secure $50 million in funding, and at the time "the investors in this round have proposed to give 10% of their shares back to the community". The birth of Reddit Notes is the start of this payback, but it's not yet clear who will receive them or what they will be used for.
OnePlus will launch One successor around mid-2015, ponders smaller devices
By now I am sure that everyone with an interest in smartphones has heard about One Plus and its One phablet. It is undoubtedly among the most interesting Android devices launched this year, and one of the most hyped also. How did OnePlus, basically a new player in the mobile space, achieve that? Well, One managed to make a splash in no small part thanks to its $299 entry-level price, which allows it to undercut virtually every known rival, paired with some of the best and most powerful hardware around. That's a recipe for success in the Android realm, and OnePlus knows it all too well.
But, what tops its lovely hardware and the low asking price is that One has never actually been available to the general public, per se. Sure, people have been able to buy One, but they have been able to do so only through invites. As a way to sell smartphones -- commodities, really -- that is crazy. But, what is even crazier is that, even as One is still not generally available, OnePlus reveals a launch date for its successor.
Porn sites join forces with Reddit, Mozilla, and more in net neutrality protest
In one of the strangest joining of forces imaginable, Reddit (of recent Fappening censorship fame), Mozilla (the browser folks) and other well-known names are teaming up with porn sites. The net neutrality debacle is one that has been rumbling on for some time now as more and more ISPs reveal plans to provide faster internet access to those willing -- or able -- to pay more. This creation of a two-tier internet is something that has been met with disgust from many quarters, including lots of big online names.
Tomorrow, 10 September, the likes of Pornhub and Redtube will join Etsy, FourSquare, KickStarter and more in a day of protest.
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