The Streisand Effect and subredddit banning
22 2015-06-10 by BeerCanThick
This is the phenomenon where trying to take down something on the Internet just drives people to it and sensationalized it as a free speech issue. Barbara Streisand sued somebody to get a picture taken down when it had only been downloaded 6 times and seen less than 500 times. Following the removal attempt, the image was repeatedly downloaded and thrown all over the Internet and the page hosting it was seen more than 400,000 times.
Look at fatpeoplehate after it got taken down. So many subredddit are talking about it and fatpeoplehate 2 has something like 15,000 members and 20,000 readers now and dominated the main page.
Reddit censors are shooting themselves not just in the foot, but in the head, provoking people to see subredddits they normally wouldn't go to and they are already causing some people to call for an "exodus" from Reddit.
27 comments
12 sanfrancisco69er 2015-06-10
It has the other half of reddit that arent social justice warriors or offended parents rallying over fatpeoplehate being banned while coontown, niggers, deadkids etc get to stay up, basically asking for them to be banned to. This adds up to everyone on reddit asking for them to ban hateful subreddits. Even if it was unintentional, they played this really well.
9 VladiRad 2015-06-10
Great point. Chairman Pao seems to know a thing or two about social engineering. She's gotten everyone to nominate each other for the gulag. Orwellian shit.
This is why you defend speech you don't like and don't bend on that. The solution to something you like being banned isn't to tell them to ban something you don't like "to make it even". Child mentality.
4 RockCoatMon 2015-06-10
Been lurking all over this drama filled cesspool of a website, every sub I've heard of at this point seems to be nominated by somebody except us.
Lay low, stay quit, maintain the course boys.
3 TriangleDimes 2015-06-10
This is a good observation, it's a slick way of getting the userbase to turn on each other so the admins can pretend like they're just following the whims of the crowd.
6 E-rockComment 2015-06-10
Case in point, /r/KotakuInAction made it to the front page, along with multiple posts from /r/fatpeoplehate2. Voat is also getting a lot of "heat" when it otherwise wouldn't have. This new direction looks like it's going to be a resounding failure.
5 BeerCanThick 2015-06-10
Voat picked up disgruntled Redditers, but not many. The subredddit banning of places with tens of thousands of subscribers could be the catalyst of an Exodus to Voat or somewhere yet to be found.
8 monkdick 2015-06-10
This is about the most retarded thing I've seen online in awhile. We need to figure out where we are taking this sub next, because at this rate we'll get banned too, and if we don't, fuck reddit's helicoptering administration anyway.
Whoops I said retarded. I hope I didn't hurt anyone's retarded feelings. FFS.
3 E-rockComment 2015-06-10
I don't know, the servers have been moving pretty slowly all day so they must have been getting some decent traffic. I don't think it was a significant number, but it'll definitely grow if they continue shitcanning subs like you said. I also believe they just wiped the front page, this should be good.
3 BeerCanThick 2015-06-10
after, like you said, it was dominated by subreddits they hate.
ITS HAPPENING,
6 EskimoEscrow 2015-06-10
An interesting thing I've noticed is all the comments about /r/coontown not being banned. It's not a good thing that those ideas are now so commonplace. At that point, you've accepting that bans are ok, and now you're just picking and choosing.
4 [deleted] 2015-06-10
I think they're pointing that out to highlight the hypocrisy.
5 Pat_Battle_Storage 2015-06-10
Yeah but that's dumb.
Charges of hypocrisy are only effective when the powerful levy them against the powerless. If somebody pointing out your contradictions works against you, you were already a total loser.
We're the losers here. We can't go "LOGICKED!" and make anything happen. It can only backfire.
Everybody knows this (whether they know they know it or not). "What about r/coontown?" isn't Socratic questioning. It's "Do it to Julia!"
1 [deleted] 2015-06-10
Coontown is just as involved in brigading as fph.
2 BeerCanThick 2015-06-10
No they are not. Not even close.
1 [deleted] 2015-06-10
What I meant by that is neither are. Fph banned linking to other parts of reddit, so did coontown. Fph was removed for hate, not harassment.
2 BeerCanThick 2015-06-10
yet even that has had a backlash. The sub was growing, but had been at about 10,000 members. In the day alone, the admins are saying they added another almost 500 members.
2 Whirlaround 2015-06-10
I clicked on it from another post. It is now at: 12,556.
2 BeerCanThick 2015-06-10
So up 25 percent in 24 hours.
Good job, everybody who wants that place banned.
2 _TheConsumer_ 2015-06-10
Until Reddit bans a swath of subs, with various backgrounds, I wouldn't worry about this sub.
Fatpeoplehate revolved solely around "shaming" a specific group of people. That was its mission statement.
Here, our purpose is to discuss the hosts/topics of an uncensored radio show. Even though we cross the line on an hourly basis, our motives are completely different than Fatpeoplehate
2 RearNakedGrope 2015-06-10
Where can I see this Barbara Streisand photo?
-1 shutyourgob 2015-06-10
You can't it's been deleted, don't you read?
-1 RearNakedGrope 2015-06-10
You can't delete shit off the internet.
-1 shutyourgob 2015-06-10
God the people on this sub are fucking dumb.
0 RearNakedGrope 2015-06-10
You know you're one of those people, right?
1 [deleted] 2015-06-10
[deleted]
5 bonecrushingkisses 2015-06-10
Well the fact that it is called the Streisand Effect might refute your point.
1 Autorotator 2015-06-10
voat.co has promise. We'll see. This is all tied up in corporate sponsorship BS. Reddit is toast, and the people cheering this don't have a clue why.
0 Z-Tay 2015-06-10
Enough of this shit already. Can't the /r/fatpeoplehate crybabies just go over to Voat like they keep threatening?
The fact the /r/coontown is still up pretty much proves this isn't an SJW purging (I hate the sjws as much as the next sane person). FPH organized brigades, doxxing and irl vandalism and general douchebaggery. Good fucking riddance.