> The threat of Chinese censorship was feeling all too real on a site that had historically embraced the extremes of free speech.
Any active Reddit user with non-left leaning political views will most certainly find this assertion amusing at a minimum.
In a similar vein I'd almost rather buy an Huawei phone over an American one because I don't care about China's interests nor live there, so I don't fear them censoring my posts or kicking my door down over some innocuous statement I made online. And for those who think that won't ever happen in the west the UK has already done 2am night raids over a person's tweets. But most redditor's didn't put up a similar fuss over a real life example of the thing they fear from China because he was a (legitimately) douchey right winger who didn't fit into their ideological bubble.
In practice I'd bet far more regular North American and European Reddit users will be banned and have posts deleted for not sharing (by mainstream western standards) the pretty radical left political world-views that is popular on that site's communities - which of course are world-views I see nothing wrong with, people can believe anything they want.
I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say I hope we in the tech community stand against all forms of censorship, not just the one's that fit into their particular pet ideologies. There's plenty of history and literature since the 17th century enlightenment that anything less is a very dangerous path.
Yea. Historically is the context there. Even when presented with examples of censorship on reddit, the users completely ignore it. But... the Chinese come in, and now the possibility of censorship is a big deal.
ffs... they seem to only be able to see slightly past their own noses.
Any active Reddit user with non-left leaning political views will most certainly find this assertion amusing at a minimum.
In a similar vein I'd almost rather buy an Huawei phone over an American one because I don't care about China's interests nor live there, so I don't fear them censoring my posts or kicking my door down over some innocuous statement I made online. And for those who think that won't ever happen in the west the UK has already done 2am night raids over a person's tweets. But most redditor's didn't put up a similar fuss over a real life example of the thing they fear from China because he was a (legitimately) douchey right winger who didn't fit into their ideological bubble.
In practice I'd bet far more regular North American and European Reddit users will be banned and have posts deleted for not sharing (by mainstream western standards) the pretty radical left political world-views that is popular on that site's communities - which of course are world-views I see nothing wrong with, people can believe anything they want.
I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say I hope we in the tech community stand against all forms of censorship, not just the one's that fit into their particular pet ideologies. There's plenty of history and literature since the 17th century enlightenment that anything less is a very dangerous path.