Reddit

Censorship of Zoe Quinn discussions

 * August 19: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2dz0gs/totalbiscuit_discusses_the_state_of_games/

Censorship of allegations of video game industry corruption

 * August 23: http://www.reddit.com/r/ShadowBan/comments/2ed77x/the_admins_are_shadowbanning_people_for_no_reason/

Censorship of censorship discussions
WIP

Censorship of related discussions

 * On October 2, 2014, the moderators of /r/pcgaming blocked Dvelli for submitting Intel removes ads from Gamasutra in wake of GamerGate.
 * On October 3, 2014, the moderators of /r/linux hid a thread linking to Kernel developer Matthew Garrett will no longer fix Intel bugs, which at the time the top of the sub. The top comment was also deleted.

Modtalk
Modtalk is an IRC channel for certain large subs' moderators on Reddit. On March 8th, 2015 XavierMendel--one of the former mods of /r/games and other subs published 300.24 kilobytes of chat logs from this IRC channel. The related logs displayed questionable conduct and implied collusion between mods on what topics to allow, or not allow. These subjects specifically included nuking of 22k comments from /r/gaming, implications that GamerGate was all about Zoe Quinn dox information, and the exact key words which would be filtered on /r/games. It was posted to /r/Kotakuinaction on March 8th, 2015.

Interesting tidbits: ''Jan 18 16:26:39 Question: when you've had to nuke a thread, how do you deal with comments claiming censorship and such? Do you nuke them all too? Do you respond?

Jan 18 16:27:43  Nuke them as well.

Jan 18 16:27:46  Ignore them.

Jan 18 16:27:51  Don't respond.

Jan 18 16:28:16  If you can moderate anonymously, do so.''

''Sep 23 15:39:36   JustPassingThrough: yeah, i've got one

Sep 23 15:39:37      more like multi-Automod amirite?

Sep 23 15:39:42   and i've just added a bunch of stuff

Sep 23 15:39:45 Shit

Sep 23 15:39:48 I've fucked up

Sep 23 15:39:49        honestly I'd just add key words

Sep 23 15:39:53        quinn, gamergat

Sep 23 15:39:56        8chan

Sep 23 15:39:57   this is what it looks like now:

Sep 23 15:39:59       title+body: ["quinn(spiracy)?", "IGF", ".?gamergate", ".?notyourshield", "sarkee?sian", "anita", "zoe", "(.{3})?srsgaming", "({.3})?girlgamers", "(.{3})?kotakuinaction", "4chan", "corrupt(ion|ed|s)", "witchunt", "independent games festival", "sjw(s|ed)?", "fish(.{80})?schaf.?er", "schaf.?er(.{80})?fish", "femi.?nazi", "feminists?", "MRM", "MRA", "social justice (warrior)?"]

Sep 23 15:40:07   ooh, 8chan, that's a good one

Sep 23 15:40:08        add 8chan to that

Sep 23 15:40:13   what's the other one they were jumping off to?

Sep 23 15:40:14      that should cover it all''

XavierMendel interview on Reddit administrator culture

 * See: XavierMendel interview


 * https://soundcloud.com/user613982511/recording-xm-2014
 * http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/2ft67v/former_reddit_mod_interviewed_details_of_adminmod/
 * identified as XavierMendel.

ShaskaOtselot's ban

 * Reddit user ShaskaOtselot was shadow-banned on August 31 for being one of at least 2,603 users to vote up a link to the Xavier Mendel interview. On September 15, a moderator of /r/technology gave visibility to ShaskaOtselot's comment asking Wikileaks founder Julian Assange his opinion on the Gamergate censorship. Other users noticed that that ShaskaOtselot was banned and assumed it was for asking that question.

Contemporary censorship controversies
Reddit had other censorship controversies at the same time as Gamergate.

Libgen
On September 4, a reddit admin deleted comments that were complaining about the deletion of other comments that had mentioned the warez site libgen.org as a location to download PDF scans of textbooks. According to a user:

My deleted comment was:

Don't bother [looking for links to textbooks here]. Mods/admins are deleting all useful links.

Discussing places to pirate is now apparently added to the list of topics you're not permitted to discuss on Reddit.

You're not even permitted to discuss that you're not permitted to discuss it.

Another deleted comment of mine:

Reddit: where mods are opposite of useful or desired power users.

Digg 2.0.

And someone said "and yet you can still see pictures of mutilated women on Reddit, which is just fiiine." That was deleted. I replied:

Men too. And children.

Not animals though, so Reddit has that going for it, which is nice.

Deleted.

And:

Yet that's how it became popular. Unfiltered discussion of any topic. They're killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

There are currently five other comments just in that sub-thread where people critical of censorship have had their opinions deleted.

The Fappening
On September 1, Reddit administrators deleted discussions of the recent release of nude celebrity photographs.

"This story has HUGE implications when it comes to cloud storage, privacy, Apple security, and hacking....yet it's being removed in mass."

On September 6, Reddit banned the subreddit /r/thefappening which was dedicated to discussion of this event.

DualPollux
/r/blackladies moderator DualPollux aka TheIdesOfLight was banned by the admins after trying to start a flamewar in /r/AMRSucks after they linked to her sub.

According to the justification given by krispykrackers:

Honestly, you mess with the normal function of the site, impose your ire on, and interfere with the culture of certain specifically charged subreddits. You do this constantly, and it's been going on for a really fucking long time. I don't know why you keep talking about doxing unless you have a guilty conscience or something, but that's neither here nor there.

Sure, you're being targeted. You know why? Because you break site rules and we target people who break site rules. That's literally our job, not about some conspiracy, so don't feel too flattered.

Reddit admin Ocrasorm saw no evidence of brigading.

Discussion:


 * The admins are now banning black women who are too angry about racism.
 * RecapThe shadowbanning of reddit user /u/DualPollux (aka /u/TheIdesOfLight) makes it's way to SRS
 * The shadowbanning of /u/DualPollux aka TheIdesOfLight reignites via a /r/ShitRedditSays sticky
 * DualPollux (of TheIdesofLight fame) has been shadowbanned again for doxxing people for SRS and "feminism" in general.

/r/atheism Statism discussion
On September 26, after user GhostOfBastiat submitted a Youtube video declaring Statism "the most dangerous religion" to /r/atheism, the subreddit moderators deleted every comment in the thread and blocked several users who had participated in the discussion.

People of note
Redditors involved in Gamergate include:

Ocrasorm
http://imgur.com/a/f4WDf

Cupcake1713
Identified by XavierMendel as one of Reddit's public relations persons, along with kripsykrackers.

XavierMendel
/r/games moderator. Was removed as a moderator after being accused of leaking communications between admins and moderators. Claimed it was by accident by users viewing the images from his puush.me account.

Fake harassment campaigns on /r/TwoXChromosomes
On May 23, 2014, Deimorz reported that some users at /r/TwoXChromosomes were fabricating harassment campaigns against themselves.

"For example, the OP of this thread was using at least 5 alternate accounts to attempt to tilt things in here, including upvoting their own submission and supportive comments (and they've now been banned from the site for that). There's generally just a great deal of attempted manipulation going on around the topic of 2XC being a default, between people attempting to manipulate votes, using multiple accounts to post comments supportive of their side, organized groups brigading relevant posts, etc....

We've received quite a few reports about users who have claimed to have received a large amount of harassment, but when we investigate we find that they've often never received any PMs at all, or only one message when they claim to have received many. Some people have even gone so far as creating alts to PM themselves with, so that they can take screenshots for "proof"."

cupcake1713 added:

"Out of all of the reports that other people have sent our way (generally it is other users reporting things to us on someone else's behalf), I'd say that maybe only two to four have been legit. It's entirely possible that there are other legitimate instances out there, but they aren't being reported to us. If you (or anyone else) comes across any instances of people complaining that they've received harassing PMs please do send it our way at /r/reddit.com modmail"

MrSkellyton's history of /r/ShitRedditSays
On March 1, 2013, a user on 4chan using the tripcode "MrSkellyton" compiled the history of how /r/ShitRedditSays came to be and its involvement with other groups.


 * In 2007 anonymous raided a website called WomensSpace. A feminist on the site called BitingBeaver had found her young teenage son masturbating and according to her feminist ideology this made him a rapist who deserved to die. Anons (being mostly male teenage chronic masturbators) found this unacceptable and a small online war broke out against her, the website, and pretty much every feminist blogger online. This had an unforeseen consequence though. Some of these feminists were impressed by anons show of strength and decided to hang around. They migrated to the Something Awful forums and became a goon clique.


 * Something Awful is now mostly known for their EVE gaming clan but they used to be a real force. Many of the most impressive stunts by Anonymous were perpetrated by goons. Goons had a much smaller user base but they were more technically minded, they organised on the IRC networks and used the vast swarms of /b/tards as shock troops.


 * When they found Rebbit they initially intended to do a similar thing and insider goons claim that they intended "Shit Rebbit Says" to be a way of griefing Rebbit users. This didn't work out the way they expected because the majority of goons who were convinced to join the new SRS group were the feminist/goon hybrids created in the BitingBeaver raids.


 * The new Rebbit group established a name for itself by trolling people in a peculiar way. They would harass and attack ordinary users but then claim they had the moral high ground because they were "bullying the bullies."


 * They do this by using cultural marxist arguments. They claim that prejudice is "bigotry + power" and define power as "being a straight, white male." So even though what they are doing seems to be exactly the same as the bigots they say they hate it's "OK," because they are doing it to straight white people, whites and males.


 * When forced into a corner they also fall back on the argument of satire. They claim they are just trolling and not attempting to be serious at all, it's just a light hearted practical joke.


 * Rebbit users come from a different demographic from 4chan users, and this was their first experience at trolling. A lot of them wanted to join in and SRS snowballed in a big way. SRS now has 33,451 members.

SRS vs /r/ainbow

 * Rebbit has a large population of traps and gayfags, most of these actively oppose SRS. This is because SRS has managed to gain control of the LGBT Rebbit subforum, they way Rebbit is set up means the mods have a great deal of power. They can ban users for no reason, delete posts, and change forum rules.


 * SRS used this power to enforce their ideology, which included a privilege pyramid of oppressed groups and a list of acceptable language. Anybody who disagreed was attack for being "tools of the patriarchy" leading to the fucked up situation of straight SRS members accusing gays of being homophobic misogynists and banning them from their own forum. Most traps and gayfags left and set up a new forum called /r/ainbow. This now has 19,876 members.

SRS vs Male Rights Activists (MRA's)

 * MRA's are a loose collection of people dedicated to gender equality, unsurprisingly feminists and SRS hate them. The central concept of MRA's is that society is not equal and in some areas (genital mutilation, education, health, reproductive rights, legal rights, social protection) men suffer a disadvantage. This threatens feminism on 2 grounds. First because every step towards equality MRA's take is a privilege women lose, more importantly because it threatens the feminist world view that women are 2nd class citizens in a patriarchy. (In feminism any situation where women have an advantage over men is actually a sign of how women are the victims of benevolent sexism.)


 * SRS set up a Rebbit subgroup called "against's men's rights" and proceeded to attack MRA's from there. It also began to dox MRA websites outside Rebbit.


 * The big attack came from an unexpected angle, a group called the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This is an old school civil rights organization which is used as an information source by law enforcement and the media. The SPLC declared the male rights movement to be a hate group, basically wanting equal rights puts you	at the same level of a KKK member. SRS actually managed to convince the SPLC to do this... unbelievable, but true. The SPLC later released a statement saying it was just a "warning" but the damage had been done.

SRS vs Lulzsec

 * Lulz Security was a hacking group who became big in 2011. They were mostly griefers who enjoyed fucking with corporate websites but also indulged in some "hacktivism" supporting Wikileaks. A SRS member called Laurelai managed to work herself into the group. (I'm using the gender pronoun "she" because it's polite) Once there Laurelai demanded that lulzsec start attacking SRS's own enemy list, when lulzsec refused she tried to blackmail them, and when that didn't work Laurelai told the FBI who they were and handed the feds lulzsec chatlogs as evidence.

SRS vs Occupy Wall Street (OWS)

 * OWS was a protest against corruption in the financial industry and income/wealth inequality, or at least it started that way. When the OWS movement was starting up SRS managed to gain control of the social media sites which the protesters used to organize. The control of these allowed SRS to push their own ideology onto the movement and ultimately destroy it.


 * One of the things they introduced was "the progressive stack", this is an organizational tool which discriminates against straight white men in favor of the people in the SRS privilege pyramid. SRS's attempts to control OWS and change it from an economic protest into an SRS style social justice movement made organization impossible as any attempt to create coherent goals or leadership was "oppression." The lack of leadership, combined with the active discrimination against men, meant that OWS disintegrated.

SRS vs /pol/

 * /pol/ is SRS's latest target. SRS is attempting to gain moderator status on /pol/. They think getting this will give them a platform to spread their ideology to the 4chan user base and enhance their reputation online.


 * SRS has been shitposting on all boards across 4chan since December 2012. Then they use these threads created by their sockpuppets as evidence on /q/. /q/ was set up to discuss 4chan itself and offer constructive criticism, if you go to /q/ now you will find at least half the threads are dedicated to modding or deleting /pol/. They hope their actions will force Moot to appoint them as mods or delete the board entirely and set up a new on which they could become mods on.