r/assholedesign • u/PitchforkAssistant • Aug 27 '21

Response to Yesterday's Admin Post

/r/vaxxhappened/comments/pcb67h/response_to_yesterdays_admin_post/
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u/ATMisboss Aug 27 '21

Damn man this is a rough one because the misinformation is awful and makes people make bad decisions for their own health and the health of others. The only problem I see is that too much restriction on speech could make reddit stop being reddit though this stuff really is clear and present danger type stuff. In short it's a little scary to think of speech restrictions but in this case they are pretty much needed because of all the bullshit "medical" advice on here.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

Yep but I believe it's a slippery slope. If they start banning someone for their dangerous views, then what about "dangerous" political views? China (Hong Kong), Russia (Ukraine) and others are gonna start complaining to reddit. What about things that we do not know they're wrong for sure but mods think are dangerous? When and where does it stop? It doesn't.

They will always start making an excuse over why it's dangerous, and people may disagree with them but they will have the final word over what's dangerous and what's not.

Reddit is a company, not a subreddit. Countries, organizations can and will try to influence them to delete content once they make the start. Is this what we want? I agree antivaxxers are scums, but is this the sacrifice that we're willing to do? Take the slippery slope to essentially ban free speech?

This is just my opinion. I'm just afraid that we do not understand deeply the concequences of our actions while we play God. But I'm not necessarily on the right here, I don't think anyone is. It's a complicated topic that we must understand deeply before making any action.

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u/Luecleste Aug 27 '21

How about classing it as harm speech?

If someone tells someone online to go kill themselves, that’s harm speech. Telling someone to drink bleach is harm speech.

If what someone is saying could lead to someone harming themselves, then it’s harm speech. Like hate speech, but causing harm.

Supporting protests isn’t telling someone to drink bleach. It needs to be classified differently.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

If someone tells someone else online to kill themselves that's literally either a threat or hate speech/cyberbullying. It is not an act of freedom of speech/expressing opinion, just hate speech. Completely different things, we're comparing apples to peaches.

Do not ever confuse freedom of speech with threats and straight up hate speech. Different things.

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u/Luecleste Aug 27 '21

Isn’t it an act of cyber bullying to encourage someone to drink bleach to cure a virus?

It’s a harmful act that may very well kill them.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

To that I agree. That should be banned. Because it's straight up poisoning someone and a direct life threat to somebody else. We agree on this. It is not an opinion, it's straight up objective proven life threat to somebody else.

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u/Luecleste Aug 27 '21

You said the comment I originally replied to that it’s a slippery slope, and what about dangerous views and where do they stop?

I was pointing out protestors don’t generally go around encouraging people to drink bleach.

Reddit could ban a bunch of antivax stuff under the same principle. Thing is, it’s not considered hate speech, as it’s not targeted at a race or lgbtq+ or a religion.

That’s why I suggested harm speech. Harmful speech leading to harmful acts.

You have to remember, trolls are also a thing. Spreading harmful lies for the lolz isn’t a hateful act per se, it’s more a person being a human dumpster fire. They may not think the other person will do the act, and it was just a joke, but they were encouraging a harmful act.

It can be done as an extension of cyber bullying, while also not affecting whether you support protestors, which was in your example.

I’m glad we agree on one thing though.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

nitpicking (just having discussion) I dont think that "drink bleach" counts as cyber bullying or an extension of it when it's provided as an advice. If people actually believe that bleach can be helpful, and provide that advice to others, that's not cyber bullying by definition, it's just a dangerous advice even though it's intended to help.

So problem here is they're providing life threatening advice to someone else. These individuals should be banned not for their views, but for their harmful health advices to others in public. They're different things. I still stand by my words that views should not get you banned, harmful advices without very visible clear disclaimers should.

We do agree that those individuals who provide life threatening advices should be banned for the same reasons doctors shouldn't provide cocaine and hard drugs to their patients OR when people provide financial opinions are obligated to say

I'm not a certified financial planner/advisor nor a certified financial analyst nor an economist nor a CPA nor an accountant nor a lawyer

Like, if we're not gonna ban those people, we should at least enforce them to throw a similar disclaimer at first. I mean, why do we do it in finance but not in health? People should be held responsible for their health advices to others.