r/GenZ • u/thesuppplugg • 4d ago

Does it bother you that Reddit Shutdown comments during last nights debate? Discussion

Curious if it bothers you that Reddit shutdown comments during last nights debate. I'm not super sure of how the internals of Reddit work ie did Reddit hide comments or did moderators, I do know a handful of mods control most of Reddit but it was intersting to see a megathread on r/politics with 1800 comments showing 0 comments, even threads on here, r/millenials and numerous other subreddits would show minimal comments of those posted or none at all.

What's the justification for this? Does it bother you?

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68

u/Leo-Libra-Virgoo 1998 4d ago

It bothers me if comments are ever shut down, period. Free speech should be free speech, whether you like it or not.

22

u/JCicero2041 4d ago

Fun fact, that’s still not how free speech works. You do not have free speech on Reddit.

5

u/Tonythesaucemonkey 4d ago

If the government influences a private company, it is a violation of the first amendment.

Edit: worded it bad. undue influence

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u/JCicero2041 4d ago

So you have proof the government pressured Reddit? I’d be interested to see that.

0

u/FatTonysDog 2d ago

Reddit's canary was killed back in 2014. We can assume ever since then, the governement has pressured reddit.

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u/JCicero2041 2d ago

So your proof that the government pressured Reddit to limit coverage of the debate is a nothing burger from a decade ago. Yeah, literally any successful data company is pressured to share its data with the government.

If you pay attention to what we were talking about you’d see that has zero relevance.

1

u/FatTonysDog 2d ago

of the debate

I didnt see this part. I was talking about government pressuring reddit to allow or disallow content for political reasons. Overall, they have been doing it since 2014.

Not just 'sharing data'. Its censoring topics, removing users, softbanning subreddits.

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u/JCicero2041 2d ago

Yeah so like I told the other guy, prove it. Because if you can’t, and again, the thing from 2014 doesn’t count since that’s normal business sadly, then you’re spreading disinformation and should really stop.

Again, the thing from 2014 was about data requests, which any data company gets. I mean proof that the government is (edit: pressuring Reddit to) censoring topics and subreddits and shit.

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u/Tonythesaucemonkey 4d ago

I'm not claiming it did, I'm just saying if it did, then it's a first amendment violation.

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u/JCicero2041 4d ago

Yeah, which is why it didn’t happen.

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u/Tonythesaucemonkey 4d ago

Are you claiming that our government won't violate our constitutional rights?

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u/JCicero2041 4d ago

No, but we both know that isn’t what happened in this case.

ThE guBERmInT TOLD ReaDIT TO CUT DER FEED.

Vs

During a huge political event too many people were trying to use Reddit and it had to reduce bandwidth, which would be why it hit things like the Dr.Disrespect sub, or r/redmenbad , or somewhere like the politics sub, which is one of the largest subs on a normal news day, much less on the first proper debate.

Occam’s razor

1

u/Tonythesaucemonkey 4d ago

lmao I don't believe that the govt had anything to do with it. They have much bigger problems than plebbit

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u/seattleseahawks2014 2000 4d ago

It's possible.

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u/JCicero2041 4d ago

Possible does not equal likely and baseless speculation is harmful to discourse. On the topic of possible, is it a free speech violation if aliens brainwashed the government to pressure Reddit? That’s possible too.