I don't totally agree with that. I was there for a while (over 3 years) and I never was exposed to the violent racists unless my curiosity got the better of me. Reddit itself didn't shine a light on the harassing/vile users and subreddits, but they were there if you yourself decided to expose yourself to it. For the subs: I didn't know coontown was a thing until the last couple of weeks when the whole FPH thing happened and people were complaining that it was taken down when other stuff like coontown were still up (that was the first time in the 3 years I even knew subs like that existed). Those places are truly f'n disgusting, but I don't see how anyone could have been exposed to them unless they sought it out (or other users sought it out and pointed it out to them). What I'm saying is that I felt that it was welcoming to everyone. It didn't welcome violent racists OVER people who didn't want to be exposed to that, because they weren't being exposed to it unless they went looking for it (for whatever reason). For users: In this case I can agree with you in a sense. When a community gets that large and is unregulated, vile users and horrible opinions are going to end up surfacing. People have a platform to say what they want and there is no fear of someone attacking you from behind your keyboard. In that case yes I think you are right in that allowing those people to say what they want placed the freedom of the violent racists for saying what they want as a priority (not their voice specifically, but that everyone has the right to say what they want regardless of content). I don't know how you could do anything about that though. That happens here too and I'm not sure censorship is the right choice. The downvote/upvote was pretty good at burying a lot of that stuff to the bottom, where once again, you wouldn't see it if you didn't seek it out. Obviously not always the case however.
It isn't even just an issue with /r/coontown and their ilk anymore. The bigots frequently metastasize into other subreddits. I remember seeing threads in default subreddits like news and worldnews completely dominated by racists who upvoted bigoted comments about Muslims and black people and downvoted everyone else, until all alternative perspectives were silenced. Democratic forum moderation is only effective if on the whole the users are reasonable. When you give bigoted people a platform like that, it dilutes the quality of the user pool as a whole and affects people even outside the hate subreddits.
Exactly this. I'd be prepared to grudgingly tolerate "fringe" views if that favor were returned. But it never is. There are certain threads on reddit - really, anything that looks like race might be involved in, or if "feminism" or "rape" is in the title - that I simply will not go. (unless it's a strictly moderated subreddit.) OTOH, there are forums that seem perfectly reasonable, like /r/politics, until you raise an issue - and then you are banned. I was and I still have no idea for what reason. For all I know, it could be valid. It would have been nice to have a chance to respond. It feels like walking on eggshells and I don't care to do that.
Ya, you're right. I also saw that happen. One of the reasons I transitioned away. I'll be honest. I've been very pro-free speech but lately, as I read more discussion on Hubski about the topic and what can happen when it isn't moderated, I'm moving away from it. I do feel there needs to be fair moderation that promotes discussion without harassment. I can see how censorship can be a tool for that but censorship can be and is abused just like free speech is. I still don't think reddit itself was promoting hate speech or putting certain users hateful opinions above welcoming other users. I definitely do no think reddit was doing that. I do understand the issues with free speech within such a large community. I just don't see how censorship isn't a double-edged sword. But you are also correct about democratic forum moderation. It seems you have to entrust a few moderators and believe that they have the well-being of the community in mind when they are moderating and they won't be tempted to moderate to push an agenda or promote a certain ideology.