Democratic Underground Banned From Reddit/Politics Forum

[Oilwellian]

There's a big write-up about it on Daily Kos, which was also banned.

This afternoon, the moderation team for the popular /r/politics subreddit announced a blacklist, banning such publications as Alternet, Drudgereport, Heritage Foundation, Huffington Post, Motherjones, National Review, Reason Magazine, Salon Magazine, Thinkprogress, Twitter, Vice.com, and many many more. Including, Dailykos.

With over three million members, the Reddit Politics forum has significant audience share. To block an entire domain and publisher from submission access will have major economic repercussions for any publication on that list. It will also diminish public recognition of any news published at those sites, now denied access. And thus, the free flow of information is diminished.

The big-daddy of link and content aggregation sites on the 'net, Reddit has tens of millions of users worldwide. The site bills itself as, "...a source for what's new and popular on the web. Users like you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what's good and what's junk."

So it might interest many of these users to learn which sources the moderation team in Reddit's politics subreddit have sidelined by blacklist. And in so doing, to disenfranchise those users from their supposed vote. It might also surprise the community that what these moderators have blacklisted are some of the most well recognized publishers of political journalism on the web.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/28/1251324/-Reddit-Politics-Forum-Announces-Publisher-Blacklist

Blacklist here.

[In_The_Wind]

1. Holy crap!

[Ranchemp.]

2. Wow!

[liberal_at_heart]

3. I know we have a few young people on DU but as someone approaching 40 we have to face it. DU

is kind of for older folks. Reddit users are younger. My 18 year old daughter uses Reddit everyday. She has never visited DU. Maybe they don't think we are new and popular enough. It doesn't really bother me all that much.

[Kurska]

105. I'm 22, I use DU.

Personally, I think the generally more mature and civil tone of dialog here is refreshing compared to a lot of other places on the web.

[sadatay]

108. Reddit users are younger

I am 65 and use reddit every day. I have never much visited DU.

It is not that reddit doesn't think that DU is new and popular enough. This is specifically about the r/politics subreddit and the quality they want a subreddit with 3 million subscribers to have. I understand some of the choices that were banned—some are constant blogspammers, many like thinkprogress.org and alternet.org are sites which barely have any original content and simply use content from other sites to "compose" a story with an eye-catching headline, something of which HuffPost is also quite frequently guilty, and apparently so is DU. I certainly agree with banning sites like breitbart.com and infowars.com but not nationalreview.com or reason.com and certainly not MoJo or Salon.


I am very unhappy with the latest shenanigans regarding r/politics and have let my feelings be known to the moderators, some of whom are equally unhappy and want to keep working on the list to have it more accurately reflect the goal of making the subreddit a quality one without censoring. But it appears all this emanates from the boys upstairs.

[gopiscrap]

109. welcome to DU

[LittleBlue]

4. In fairness, they also ban themselves

Banned Domains

The following is a list of major domains that have been banned by the moderators of /r/Politics and listed here in the interest of transparency:

reddit.com

[kentauros]

12. I just saw that!

Which now makes me wonder if this whole thing is legit. Either that, or one of their mods was being cute, testing to see if the others even read the list...

[LittleBlue]

16. I'll go out on a limb

and say that there are people posting rants from internet forums, possibly rants they wrote themselves. My guess is that the forum is supposed to be about posting main stream news outlets and making their own commentary, and not posting what amounts to blogging.

[Oilwellian]

24. I go to their politics forum quite often

The posts are linked to news sources, not individual rants. I've seen several posts linking to an article via DU, hence the hit generated income for DU.

There are millions of members on Redditt, of all ages. I'm 58 so the comments about this being a young members site is just not true.

I think they posted Reddit as a black listed site because there were probably many double posts occurring. Their politics forum is a sub-forum to their main site.

[liberal_at_heart]

26. demographics states otherwise. It is mainly a young person site.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/reddit-demographics-in-one-chart/277513/

[sadatay]

110. Majority young persons but..

...with close to 70 million users, there are an awful lot of people who aren't kids who use it. And though it is mostly male, that still leaves a substantial number of women who use it. Also, I can guarantee you that a huge percentage of the 18 (and probably under) - 29 demo (though certainly not all) doesn't care about what goes on in r/politics. The young persons go to young persons' subreddits like r/funny, r/WTF, all the game subreddits, etc.

[JDPriestly]

49. Mother Jones is valuable investigative reporting.

It's definitely news. The Huffington Post? That's not gossip. That's a good news source.

So what sources do they like other than Fox News?

Did the New York Times make it to their list?

[LeftyMom]

83. The Huffington Post is an aggregator of clickbait, sideboob, celebrity puffpieces and

crap (re)written for free for "exposure" by aspiring writers too young to know better. Real news that appears there is boosted from sites that pay real reporters to do the actual work.

[NCLefty]

94. Yes. Look at every SHOCKING, huge-font headline and it's unavoidable.

Not to mention the dreaded "3rd column" of side-boobery and other nonsense.

Huffington Post = Click-through rate + Advertising revenue

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Interesting.

I see ACLU is OK by them, while Breitbart, Drudge, DU, Kos & many others aren't. At least they seem to be hitting both sides of the political spectrum.

[Chan790]

27. Except not really...

they cherry-picked all the liberal-leaning sites from the top-10 linked sites then threw some conservative sites like Breitbart that never get linked there in as countermeasure to claim non-bias.

[Jackpine Radical]

35. I was sorta wondering if the selection was unbiased.

[warrior1]

6. never heard of the joint

[Sheldon Cooper]

7. It looks like they've banned pretty much everyone, including themselves:

Banned Domains
The following is a list of major domains that have been banned by the moderators of /r/Politics and listed here in the interest of transparency:

aattp.org

alternet.org

amazon.com

americanthinker.com

avaaz.org

b4in.info

beforeitsnews.com

blacklistednews.com

borderlessnewsandviews.com

breitbart.com

breitbartunmasked.com

change.org

citypaper.com

constitutioncampaign.org

courthousenews.com

crooksandliars.com

dailybail.com

dailycaller.com

dailycurrant.com

dailykos.com

dailypaul.com

democraticunderground.com

deviantart.com

dirtyuglypolitics.wordpress.com

drudgereport.com

eclectablog.com

ecominoes.com

facebook.com

funnyordie.com

generalstrikeusa.wordpress.com

heavy.com

heritage.org

hotair.com

huffingtonpost.com

inagist.com

indiegogo.com

informationliberation.com

infowars.com

isidewith.com

lifenews.com

linkedin.com

littlegreenfootballs.com

mediamatters.org

minx.cc

motherjones.com

myspace.com

nation.foxnews.com

nationalmemo.com

nationalreport.net

nationalreview.com

nationsmith.com

Newsbusters.org

newsmakeup.wordpress.com

newsvine.com

newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/

njspin.com

omegle.com

pensitoreview.com

petitions.whitehouse.gov

photographyisnotacrime.com

policymic.com

politicalwire.com

politicususa.com

politilady.com

pollcode.com

powerlineblog.com

prisonplanet.com

rawstory.com

reason.com

redd.it

reddit.com

redgage.com

rightwingwatch.org

salon.com

signon.org

smirkingchimp.com

techdirt.com

thebackbencher.co.uk

theblaze.com

thedailybanter.com

thegatewaypundit.com

theonion.com

thepetitionsite.com

therightscoop.com

thinkprogress.org

townhall.com

truth-out.org

twitchy.com

twitter.com

upworthy.com

vice.com

voiceblaze.com

wallstreetonparade.com

weaselzippers.us

wikimedia.org

wikipedia.org

wnd.com

Frankly, I think we're in good company. Although I admit to never using reddit, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But when it comes to feminist issues, I hear NOTHING good about reddit. Edited to change the format, I didn't mean to underline half of this post.

[lark]

45. Notice that RW Yahoo isn't banned.

F*ck Reddit, won't go there anymore.

[lark]

47. Faux Snooze also not banned

Booo Reddit.

[JDPriestly]

50. theonion???? They've got to be joking.

[tblue]

52. Dang. What's left?

I never use Reddit. I've never heard anybody ever even mention it.

[leveymg]

63. Looks like they took the politics out of their politics forum. Reddit is now less than useless.

Can't understand why anyone would even bother to go there for anything but recipes.

[Octafish]

101. Defeats the purpose of reading.

I'd say it's ironic or iconic, but who has time for pun anymore?

[octoberlib]

8. Sounds like Conservatives have infiltrated the moderation team,

Even though some conservative publications have been banned.

Unfortunately, /r/politics has extremely weak moderation right now and one moderator in particular (/u/theredditpope) combined with some hardcore conservatives (and other complacent and inactive mods) to make sure that redditors won't see reporting like this on mass shootings in America.
This was a huge win for the hardcore right - good investigative fact based journalism has repeatedly been damaging to the right on reddit. It is really important for them - and now /u/theredditpope apparently - that they don't allow redditors access to a factual catalogue of shootings as a part of their political discussion.

In what world does this make sense in a sub called /r/politics? You got me.

[Oilwellian]

11. Just like they did on Digg?

Some might remember that three years ago on Digg, a then popular link aggregation site similar to Reddit, a conspiracy was revealed whereby a conservative group had colluded to censor content there.

The popular link-sharing website Digg is investigating claims that a group of the site's "influential conservative" members are systematically downgrading thousands of stories deemed to be "liberal".

Online magazine AlterNet claimed to have uncovered a group of Digg members – dubbed "Digg Patriots" – who have "censored hundreds of users, dozens of websites, and thousands of stories" from the site. Alternet alleged that the Digg Patriots, thought to number nearly 100 members, are "able to bury over 90% of articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours".

This could have a huge impact on DU's generated revenue.

[Sunlei]

74. I remember that on digg. Then the site got sold to some 'group'? & was ruined.

A couple months before the last Pres. election. Romney scissorhands and his minions hated that site.

[Vashta Nerada]

9. Isn't reddit used by 13 year olds?

I've been there once, but the site looked like something from the late '90s.

[littlewolf]

10. hmmm I have never used reddit. but it seems that they

went after republican as well as democratic sites with
equal vigor.

[Sheepshank]

18. Freeperville is still accepted?

That bastion of hate, mysoginistic, gay bashing, twisted logic, full of fallacy, misquoted, misdirected, gun humping, lying sacks of putrid shit are welcome? interesting.

[littlewolf]

34. I admit I did not notice that. I just saw what appeared to be

many right wing leaning sites. did not notice freeperville,
good catch.

[Xithras]

48. Reddit is for posting and discussing articles. Freeperville doesn't post articles.

DU Journals act like blogs and are citable references to articles posted elsewhere. In fact, you can write posts here on DU, post them to your journal, and use it just like any other blog if you really wanted to. While most DUers only post on the discussion boards to chat about politics, a number of people here do use their Journals to publish and centralize many of their writings. These get cross posted to Reddit now and then.

Reddit isn't used to continue discussions from other discussion boards, because "discussions" aren't really citable "articles". DU Journals provided a way around that limitation and were the source of DU content they are now banning. Free Republic, on the other hand, has no equivalent blogging or journaling capability and is simply a pure, old fashioned (very, very old fashioned) discussion board. Because of their format, they've never had a presence on Reddit, and there's no need to ban them.

[Raine1967]

21. Did you see this at the link?

UPDATE #1: dkos user olliegarkey posted a fascinating comment with an embedded graph showing that many of the most submission sites banned in this policy shift.



Note the placement of Rawstory, Dailykos, Alternet, Thinkprogress, and Huffingtonpost.
dkos User subterranian responded by arguing a partisan bent to the bans:

So they banned both right and left wing sites so it looks "balanced" in a simple list. But by actual traffic, it's entirely left wing sites that were banned.

Clever. And most disturbing.

Not equally vigorous.

[Oilwellian]

29. Yes, I did see that

It's also very similar to what happened on Digg a couple of years ago. Very similar banning signature.

[Raine1967]

30. It does remind me of what happened over with Digg.

I don;t like this at all -- I'm not even a redditor --

[Oilwellian]

32. It is disturbing

Any attempt to manipulate information, especially if the majority are young adults, is VERY disturbing. Let the members decide what is considered reliable and let their votes allow it to rise to the top of the heap. Reddit is suppose to be politically neutral.

[Raine1967]

13. MOTHER JONES???

This doesn't bode well for reddit.

[Make7]

82. Seriously? What the hell? ( n/t )

[HappyMe]

14. Meh, oh well.

I thought it was just a big fight club ala Meta over there anyway.

[JCMach1]

15. boycott Reddit... that simple

easy for me, never used it anyway...


Does anyone here actually use it?

[kentauros]

20. I never used it, nor liked their "layout."

It looks too much like FreeRepublic in implementation (and commentary.)

[Dawgs]

36. I visit it every day. The political discussion there is better than anything I've ever gotten on DU.

Sorry.

[ronnie624]

90. Hogwash.

Sorry.

[Dawgs]

99. You're right. Political discussion here is ALL political.

Discussion at Reddit is mostly on policy. Something that is non-existent here.

Thanks for helping me clarify.

[madfloridian]

69. I often link my DU posts to Reddit as well as my Twitter account.

I guess now Reddit is out of the question.

[RebelOne]

59. Drudge should be banned everywhere.

I visit only when I want my blood pressure to soar.

[geek tragedy]

19. They banned Wikipedia but allow Foxnews (only banned nation.foxnews.com, not Fox itself)

Conservative jokers.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

54. +1

[Jamaal510]

72. And FreeRepublic, apparently. eom

[Coyotl]

22. All I can say is, "What's Reddit?"

Who needs aggregation when you have the real deal.

[Mr Dixon]

23. IMO

WOW I never use that site anyway, DU will be fine and so will most of the other sites, glad to see INFOWARS made the list LOL.

[niyad]

25. ah, the pajamahadeen strikes again. what an interesting list--noticed that rimjob's little site not

listed. heaven forfend that people should be exposed to intelligent, thoughtful, or even nutty, information. has anybody else noticed that reddit.com is on the list?

do I remember correctly that this is the same site that has a pro-porn group?

[Pretzel_Warrior]

28. That is their right.Looks like they are cleaning up the "noise"

And trying to focus on more reliable and objective news sources. Don't feel bad. Facebook and Amazon were also banned.

[Fumesucker]

43. Yes, reliable and objective news sources like Fox, Free Republic and Red State

[pa28]

61. Reliable and objective like Fox News?

Got it.

[ronnie624]

91. Those who run the site are obviously idiots and likely wingnuts.

But I don't feel "bad" in the least.

[rdking647]

31. i notice redstate and fthe freepers arent banned

what a crock of shit

[Ganja Ninja]

33. They ban the onion too.

No sense of humor I guess.

But really who cares who they ban.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

53. Can't wait to see the Onion's reaction.

[Dawgs]

37. Reddit should not be ignored.

It's a very popular site among younger people. And, /r/politics is very left leaning.

[DJ13]

76. And, /r/politics is very left leaning.

Was, but can it stay left leaning with conservatives manipulating the sources used for discussion?

[Dawgs]

98. I don't know. :( n/t

[Dash87]

38. Maybe it's because they want news stories? It seems senseless to post

a link to a discussion forum on a discussion forum. That would be my guess.

[starroute]

60. But the list includes Raw Story, which does do news stories

I'll grant that most of the sites listed are discussion boards, aggregators, or magazines. But not all of them are. It looks more like an attempt to limit posts to the mainstream media -- but even that is kind of ridiculous in a politics subreddit.

I do read reddit on a regular basis. You can customize the way it displays so that you get the serious stuff and your own individual interests and leave out the juvenile tripe. I see that right now, there's only one story on my personal page from the politics subreddit -- something about Elizabeth Warren -- which suggests to me that cutting back on sources may affect its popularity.

For whatever it's worth, other current posts there are from sources that include the New York Times, the Guardian, the Friendly Atheist blog, globalresearch.ca, Slate, Vanity Fair, ABC News, Talking Points Memo, the Washington Post, National Journal, The Hill, Daily Beast, MSNBC, and demos.org. That's a distinctly mixed bunch -- and one that seems to overlap heavily with the sources they did ban.

All very strange.

[muriel_volestrangler]

93. As the DK post says, Mother Jones won a Polk award for the '47%' video last year

And a MJ editor pointed out that National Review, on the opposite ideological side from them, had, in Robert Costa, some of the best original reporting on the shutdown.

Some of the sites can be justified as "doesn't produce significant original content" (including, it should be said, DU), but some of it looks like an ideological battle (the DK post shows how the most popular banned sites are nearly all left-leaning).

[Blue_Tires]

39. I think in retaliation DU should ban all discussion and posting

of photos related to secret upskirt shots of underage girls...

[Capt. Obvious]

40. Are you happy now far left posters?

This is all your fault.

[Downwinder]

41. Cull not, lest you be culled.

[MattSh]

42. Well well well, what goes around comes around...

It wasn't all that long ago it seems that commenters here on DU were commenting on reddit banning rt.com as proof that RT was not a legitimate news source. But according to this list, RT is not banned and ranks higher than DU.

Maybe those on DU who commented on how the reddit ban proved that RT was not a legitimate news source can explain this.

[Fumesucker]

44. I'd forgotten that, good catch n/t

[geek tragedy]

55. I don't recall that argument. I do recall the factual observation that RT is owned and operated

by Vladimir Putin's flunkies.

[KittyWampus]

58. I read quite a few of the attempts to put lipstick on that pig… and Reddit wasn't used that I recall

and if it was, it sure wasn't by many.

[MattSh]

107. Try this link...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023575253

which you posted to. Twice.

[L0oniX]

100. The DU "kill the messenger" crowd runs wild sometimes.

[lumberjack_jeff]

46. ... but not Free Republic or Conservative Cave. n/t

[arikara]

77. Conservative Cave?

Is there series a site named Conservative Cave?

LOL!

[Hissyspit]

81. You have no idea...

how fucking stupid that place is.

Now they will do a whole discussion thread on this post.

That's how fucking stupid it is. Seriesly.

[arikara]

92. I think I'll take a pass on checking it out

Freeperville was nauseating enough. But the name, its just so knuckle-draggingly visual.

[Hissyspit]

104. It's whole purpose for existence is to make fun of posters on DU.

Yes, you read that correctly. That is it's whole raisin d'être. These people have nothing better to do with their lives. Really.

It really, really is THAT bad.

As the other poster points out, it makes FR look a bastion of intellectualism.

And now there will be a whole thread on this post about how STUPIDLY hypocritical I am to have looked at their website and commented on it here, or something like that.

[JHB]

106. Let's just say that if you did checking it out, you'd be a statistically significant boost...

...to their usage.

[PCIntern]

97. It makes FR look like

Oxford and Cambridge all rolled into one.

[Zorra]

51. Maybe the PTB "bought" them. nt

[Ian_rd]

56. Looks like a right wing censorship job disguised as "balance."

They've banned both "left" and "right" sources, but the right wing sources named tend to be unhinged conspiracy theory sites and those who fabricate news, while the lefter sites include those that produce undisputed journalism (like MJ).

Sneaky. But easily seen for what it is: Censorship of factual journalism that makes conservatives look bad.

[KauaiK]

57. Oh Wow....this is going to backfire

The first thought was I wonder WHO is behind this.

[valerief]

65. Someone with lots of $$$$$$. nt

[valerief]

62. Wikipedia.org?????? nt

[pa28]

64. Wow, looks like a comprehensive censorship job on left wing opinion.

The moderation team must have been taken over by conservatives. Too bad.

[Puzzledtraveller]

66. lawl

[bemildred]

67. Blog War comes to DU. nt

[Dopers_Greed]

68. Did the Koch Brothers buy Reddit?

Like they did BuzzFeed.

[toby jo]

70. This would be their 'outreach' to young voters - keepin ya stupid and ya don't even know it.

[DFab420]

71. reddit.com has a feedback email

It's the only contact to their headquarters I could find that seemed to be for public outreach..

[email protected]


Let them know.

[ismnotwasm]

73. Alas

I shall simply have to continue my already redditless existence.

[Kaleva]

75. Never heard of Reddit till I read the OP

[gopiscrap]

78. how legit is that

seems odd to me that they would do that.

[LostOne4Ever]

79. Every time I go to Reddit

Their layout makes me want to:

[center] [/center]

[1000words]

80. With the concept of objectivity in mind, I understand the decision.

[Rex]

84. You think that is the reason?

They think we are just another echo chamber?

[1000words]

85. Who knows, really? But if they want to use that as a reason, it is valid.

This site makes no bones about where its loyalties lay.

[The Straight Story]

86. No, it is really pretty simple

As I mentioned in another thread - most of our posts here link to other news outlets (local tv/paper/etc). Their idea is to limit the in between sites and only allow news reporting (to some extent).

I think they jumped the shark with more than a few of them, as do other folks there.

But with reddit, anyone can just make their own subreddit and moderate it how they see fit. Someone already created /r/politic (versus r/politicS).

I have my own subreddit there which I generally don't want others posting in (will be used for stories from our radio show).

Have posted many stories here on DU I found on reddit and only link to the source and not reddit itself (unless it is an AMA or something). Linking to the reddit thread won't actually show the story but the comments and link (you post the title and link only there in general).

[Rex]

88. Okay thanks for explaining how reddit works.

That is one place I never really got into over the years. Yeah some of those sources raised my eyebrow and some that they left alone did too.

Hopefully they will adjust their filter if they get negative feedback.

[The Straight Story]

89. One thing you should check out, and I love:

The I am A (whatever you are) ask me anything.

Lots of famous folks go on there (I got to ask Peter Mayhew some questions) but also avg folks. One I read tonight was:

IamA Movie Theater Employee AMA!
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ph5ir/iama_movie_theater_employee_ama/

(So you can see why one would link right to reddit in cases like that)

More here and a list on the right side of upcoming ones (and yes, they do verify people before they can do an AMA)
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/

I can spend hours there....

[Eleanors38]

102. Did Reddit give an explanation for its bans, esp. regarding political sites like DU?

There was a posting here, and an Esquire article about the political "centrism" of younger people. Does this purge or ban seek to rid Reddit of sources which its main viewers consider "Bo-r-r-i-n-n-g" and irrelevant to its youth-oriented mission?

I read earlier this year an article in the alternative weekly Austin Chronicle where Reddit and other private sites were trying to become the new legitimizing forces for national discussion & policy, thereby replacing the diminishing roll of MSM. The Ask me Anything feature was mentioned, btw.

[The Straight Story]

103. Well, again, this is just relevant to one subreddit out of many hundreds

and someone else already created a new subreddit for politics that does not ban any sources.

The whole idea was not to have people posting what they call blogspam - that is, loosely, when you post links to sites which the story didn't originate on and that are more focused on commentating on news stories (again, a somewhat loose definition).

DU is not a news originator on most our posts. Others asked about freerepublic/etc - they didn't make the list most likely because no one used them anyway (the list has grown and changed over time).

It is not that the banned sites are 'bad' they just weren't seen as news and more of commentary on the news.

I don't agree with mods on it myself - the community can upvote/downvote themselves and don't need to be babysat. I can understand the logic, just not the heavy handed implementation.

[TroglodyteScholar]

87. Fuck those guys anyway

I've never spent a moment on Reddit that was worthwhile. And the same can probably be said of the people who use it every day.

[BootinUp]

95. I don't care about Reddit. nt

[mattclearing]

96. Reddit is the gutter of the Internet.

Seriously, I'll take Alternet and Vice to Reddit, which is basically a comments section without journalism, anyday.