Stever's blog

reddit’s /r/losangeles response to cancel culture

I wrote an email to the moderators of /r/losangeles regarding my
concern over their contribution to “cancel culture”. I am posting this online so everyone can see how much of an ass reddit is in handling this issue.

Dear /r/losangeles,

My name is Steve. I’ve been a long time redditor of over 12 years. You may recognize me from the global reddit meetup day, as I attend to them most years. I also sponsored a couple of years of global reddit meetups under my then company “Model Printing” and “The Bitcoin Spot”. So I am hoping you can take the time to both read and understand my message. This is my picture: https://steverstuff.s3.amazonaws.com/steve.jpg

/u/barbeque has met with me a few times, and he can attest that I am a “real reddit account”.

I politely the moderators of /r/losangeles to create a new rule for stop “exposing” the “racists and karens from being racist and a asshat so we can shame them” videos. I think it fosters a toxic culture and often times lives are ruined, in my view unfairly.

I don’t think these videos should be shown for the following reasons:

1) A lot of the times, these videos are without context with no understanding what happened before or after the incident. Unfortunately, reddit seems to jump to the first conclusion that comes to mind. And sometimes this conclusion is wrong.

2) The subject is not given a reasonable opportunity to defend himself and give “his side” of the story. Unfortunately, “the mob” is judge, jury and executioner and often times they base their decision on NOT HEARING THE OTHER SIDE.

3) Many times “the bad thing” in the video is debatable. For example, some guy washing down graffiti left over from some BLM protester or something. I realize that BLM harbors a different opinion on whether that particular action is “bad”, but they should also realize reasonable minds can also DISAGREE. This is not a black and white issue!

4) Family members, employers, and even employees are harassed, even though they had nothing to do with the video.

5) The backlash against said racist is often irrationally disproportional to the harm that was caused. While what they said may have been bad and all, the video is not the holocaust either.

6) It is wrong to judge the character of a person by 60 seconds of video.

8) It is not right that many people lose their livelihoods based on, at the end of the day, a belief system. Most racists that I know ( and I know a great many of them. . .) are just regular people with an unpopular opinion. They are not “proud boys” or KKK or whatever and they don’t go around hurting people.

It’s like if you are say, a christian and the other guy is a muslim. If that offends you, well than I’m sorry, that’s on YOU, not the muslim. And yes, I realize “muslim beliefs can possibly lead to suicide bombings” (or whatever. . .) but until I see solid evidence, the muslim should be left alone.

9) Most of the time these videos are basically an allegation and a click-bait title. Because of the nature of US labor laws, the court of public opinion is, lately, becoming more powerful than the court of law themselves! So now people are afraid of getting fired if they express a dissenting thought (“I think the BLM movement is a net-negative to our culture”). I, personally, don’t want to live in a society where people live in fear of a dissenting thought, for fear of losing their livelihoods. It is simply wrong, even for perceived “karens”.

In short, I feel that reddit is contributing to this culture and I believe that it’s having a negative civilization-level effect on society.

I humbly ask for this message to be distributed across the mods, so they can at least here what I have to say.

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We already have a rule in place that prohibits the posting of personal information. This rule applies to these videos as well as any other posts. Names, workplaces, addresses, social media accounts, any information that could be used to identify someone without their consent is not permitted, and we remove any offending comments on sight. However, once these situations reach the news, their names are out in the open and it’s out of our hands. The doxxing and harassment is not originating here.

These videos are of events happening within our community, as we believe that they do belong on the sub.

And we love seeing racists get fired. That “belief system” is indefensible and we’re glad people aren’t tolerating it anymore.

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But if racists get fired, then they won’t be able to maintain a livelihood in any meanginful way!

The other issue is that this type of mob behavior is selectively applied. So-called “gangsta rappers”, for instance, get no such backlash from reddit or the greater society in any by-and-large way, particularly in America. And one can argue that both their behavior and beliefs are even more abhorrent and even more indefensible as anything these so-called “karens” have done.

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How unfortunate for them –
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/956/638/5bc.gif

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Dear /r/losangeles,

Enclosed is an example of someone who is probably going to lose their job over an “unpopular opinion”. Again, he’s not hurting anyone, it’s just an unpopular belief. Yet, it is on reddit. I “reported it” (I report all ‘cancels’ that I find), but we need to start banning users who do this, it ruins lives:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/hmhipr/racist_pe_teacher_mayfair_high_school_bellflower/

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Their lives are being ruined by their own actions, not by people
pointing out their actions.

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Well yes, but my point being is the backlash is disproportional to the
“harm” committed.

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…losing their job around impressionable kids?

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If depends on the situation, but by and large what was posted online brings about a backlash is not proportional to the “harm” that was done.