The E3 of this year was a doozy, huh? Particularly between the conferences of Bethesda and Sony –OMGOMGOMGFINALFANTASY7REMAKE-, and believe me, I will have something to say about that very soon. But for today, we’re back to our weekly appointment with our interviews. This day, though, I wanted to talk about something that rocked the internet before the E3: the #RedditRevolt. And to speak about something concerning Reddit, I today have someone who’s tied to both GamerGate and Reddit. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you TheHat2.
Thanks for agreeing to this interview. For those who don’t go on reddit that much, mind introducing yourself?
Sure. I’m TheHat2, often called Hatman. I moderate the TumblrInAction subreddit, which is about laughing at how ridiculously offended people get over the smallest things, and also KotakuInAction, which is about discussion involving gaming, GamerGate, censorship, and wider journalism. I’ve been on Reddit for three years now, and a moderator for about a year and a half. I also host livestreams for KotakuInAction to discuss current happenings in GamerGate.
Sounds really interesting. Which subreddit came first? And how did you first come in contact with GamerGate?
TumblrInAction came first. KotakuInAction was spun off of that, after most of the “Quinnspiracy” topics evolved into pointing out the journalistic failures of Kotaku and other publications. Which, of course, turned into GamerGate. That’s really how I got involved; I was brought on as a moderator of KiA on the sub’s first day, and oversaw it transition into the GamerGate hub that it is, today.
Let’s talk about that transition. I remember that Reddit came down pretty hard on anyone discussing the so called Quinnspiracy. I can’t imagine a GamerGate sub being welcomed with open arms.
It wasn’t really the Reddit admins that started the crackdown, it was the moderators of /r/gaming, when they deleted upwards of 25,000 posts in one thread, and banned discussion relating to it. The censorship coming from places you’d least expect is what led to the rise of KiA as the main forum for GamerGate, and for censorship on Reddit, in general. We’ve been described by people as a “containment sub,” which basically means that all GamerGate talk gets regulated to KiA, so it doesn’t spill out into more of Reddit. Even with that in mind, I’m surprised the admins haven’t shut down KiA, yet.
But that may change, right? After all, RedditRevolt is now a thing. What exactly happened?
It’s absolutely possible. The RedditRevolt thing happened right after Reddit banned five communities for “harassment,” most notably /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/NeoFAG, which was a sub dedicated to mocking NeoGAF. The mods of those subs have all claimed that they never receieved a warning that their subscribers were harassing people, or that they were being banned for breaking site rules. This lack of communication with the admins is really suspect, considering KiA has tried reaching out to them multiple times on trying to meet site policy, in case we ran the risk of being banned. So far, we haven’t gotten a response, so we’ve tried to make sure our rules cover the bases on how we can still operate on Reddit. That’s why we ban people for harassment and brigading, don’t allow Reddit links in case of vote manipulation, and all that jazz. We’re worried that we’re on the chopping block, and we want to make it clear that we’ve tried working with the admins to make sure KiA doesn’t violate any site policies.
I heard that they also accidentally banned a legit 5yo whale watching sub. Is that true?
They did, but the admin who did it said it was a mistake, and took the blame for it. Though that sub is now controlled by some people involed in the metadrama sphere, so it’s not exactly a good transition.
Not at all… But between a mistake and seemingly unwarranted bans -while subs like deadchildpics still exist-, what do you think is really the reason for this?
There’s been all kinds of rumors, like Reddit using this to start their “diversity initiative,” or they’re trying to clean up the site so they can be acquired by Facebook and make money, or something similar to that.
I think this was a test run to see how banning “problematic” communities would have an effect on Reddit. Enough users left to crash Voat, the preferred alternative, though we still have no idea if this had a major impact on Reddit’s traffic. I doubt it did, and given the positive press they got for this move, I’d imagine they’d consider it a successful move. Now they have further justification to eliminate even more subs, like /r/coontown or /r/picsofdeadkids, all under the “make the site a safe space” rule.
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