Britt Marie Hermes

dralpinewellness
Jul 15 11:40 AM
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Not surprisingly, the situation at Reddit is far more complex than this article/snapshot can illuminate, as one would expect in a community that encompasses SJWs (social justice warriors) and “white-power racist-sexist neckbeards.”

While Reddit is not as depraved, perverted, juvenile, and nasty as 4chan, it is certainly no Facebook. The community as a whole is intolerant of “censorship,” which it mistakenly felt was being imposed upon it by former CEO Elen Pao. As documented in this article (http://gawker.com/former-reddit-ceo-youre-all-screwed-1717901652) quoting former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong, however, Pao was actually more or less championing “free speech.” The vitriol that was directed at Pao, which is too ugly to mention in a professional mailing list, is indicative of the kind of community we are dealing with here. While the push for her resignation was strong, what took the whole thing over the cliff was the abrupt firing of Victoria Taylor, the popular coordinator of the AMA feature of Reddit that President Obama once participated in. Several moderators, all of whom are volunteers, took their subreddits “private”(i.e. shut them down for all intents and purposes) and aired a lot of dirty laundry. Pao resigned and Huffman got pulled back in.

The relevant point here is that only the most egregious, hate-vomiting subreddits are being targeted. No one is standing up here trying to do the right thing. Rather, the board is trying to figure out how to make Reddit more profitable. Obviously Nazi-loving, adolescent, racist, sexist neckbeards aren’t good for the brand and are being fast tracked over to Voat, where the infamous Fatpeoplehate now has a new home. Steve Huffman is no Atticus Finch – more like Alexis Tsipras.

I monitor both the medicine and medical student subreddits. Hating on chiropractors, homeopaths, naturopaths, Dr. Oz, etc. is a religion. Britt Marie Hermes is in the pantheon of deities. The current “re-examination” that Reddit is going through, sadly, is not going to touch this in the slightest because there is nothing hateful, sexist, racist, or bigoted about these opinions. In fact, for many, it is simple common sense.

TL;DR: Naturo-baiting isn’t going away on Reddit because this form of ignorance is not nasty enough to impact the Reddit bottom line and is not worth the s*#%storm that would result if participating subreddits were admonished.


Gary Piscopo, ND, LAc
East Wenatchee,  WA
www.alpinebewell.com