3 Dec
2012
3 Dec
'12
10:54 a.m.
On 12/3/2012 4:56 AM, Daniel Seagraves wrote:
Don't use reddit. Any site hosting child
pornography and rape images for money doesn't deserve users. Google for
"violentacerz" and "creepshots" to see what I am referring to. They
try to justify this as "freedom of speech" and claim women have no right to
complain about sexual exploitation of their image. They're a sick, sad, exploitative
organization and should be avoided by any means.
That statement shows a complete lack of understanding of how Reddit
works and what even happened with creepshots. You may need to get your
news from somewhere else than Fox and the Drudge report. For those that
don't know Reddit hosts nothing but, comments. People post links to
content elsewhere on the web and people comment on it and vote it up or
down depending if they like it or not. That is all Reddit is. Much like
a BBS of days gone past. Anyone can make subreddits on any topic they
want. People are free to join them or ignore them completely. They won't
see them if they don't go looking for them. Reddit doesn't moderate
anything. Stuff that is illegal or harmful can be flagged by the
community and removed. It happens all the time. It is self censoring
really. Bad things get removed or voted down.
This 'creepshots' thing was a very small group of people that made a
subreddit where they shared links to pictures of women taken in public
places without their knowledge. They were hardly porn. The were kinda
creepy though. They weren't even illegal in any way. They weren't even
sexy. Just voyeuristic. Only way they were sexual was in an individual's
mind and we still haven't outlawed thought crimes yet. Women had every
right to complain and many did in the comments. They unfortunately had
no rights to say how the pictures were or weren't used even it was of
them. You give up that right the second you walk into a public place.
The rights all belong to the photographer. That's the law and the
outrage showed a complete lack of knowledge on the public's part on what
free speech and privacy rights they actually enjoy.
At least here in the US if you dress in a mini skirt and and platform
heels and go to the mall and some creepy guy takes a picture of you it
is totally legal. If he posts it on facebook it is totally legal. If he
shares the link on reddit it is totally legal. Immoral maybe but, that's
not the sort of judgements reddit makes or the constitution makes in
protecting free speech. You can think of the whole phoney outrage over
the thing like some old prude walking into a library and finding a book
with nudes in it and then demanding they burn the whole library down. It
was that stupid.