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Why I Cancelled my Reddit Q&ASERIOUS TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE ETA: It’s almost midnight, and there are now close to 400 comments on this post. I’ve read them all, and I want to thank those of you who contributed to the conversation, on both sides. A decade ago, I would have been good for at least three more hours, but as one commenter pointed out, I’m old. I’m therefore going to declare this party over, thank you for coming, and kick you out of my house so I can go to bed. (I.e., I’m turning off the comments now.) I know some people will take this as further proof that I’m a grandstanding, hypocritical, pro-censorship, freedom-hating, puppy-kicking, fascist poopyhead. That’s fine. But with this many comments, I think most of the arguments have been made, and most of the insults hurled. Have a good night, all. # One of the events I had lined up for the launch of my new book was a Q&A with Reddit’s fantasy community. I did an “Ask Me Anything” session with them earlier this year and had a great time, so I was looking forward to another round. And then Twitter pointed me to an active Reddit discussion which starts with, “Reddit’s had a few threads about sexual assault victims, but are there any redditors from the other side of the story? What were your motivations? Do you regret it?” Numerous rapists jumped in to tell their stories. I’m not going to link to them. The comments and reactions were mixed. Some people were horrified. Others tried to reassure the rapists, to minimize what they had done, or to praise people’s courage in anonymously talking about how they committed rape. There’s plenty of victim blaming, and comments from the “Women lie about rape to attack men!!!” contingent. Earlier today I emailed the person who was coordinating my Reddit event to tell him I will not be doing it unless that thread is removed. Given the nature of Reddit as an open, relatively unmoderated community, I don’t expect this to happen. An announcement was already posted that I would be giving away a copy of Libriomancer on Reddit. I don’t think it’s fair to back out of that, so I’m planning to post an additional giveaway on my site and ask my contact to update that announcement with a link to the giveaway. (He has been incredibly cool and supportive of my decision, and agrees that the rape posts are offensive and should be dealt with by the moderators.) There are aspects of this decision I need to talk about. A Jezebel post called Rapists Explain Themselves on Reddit and We Should Listen talks about the way this thread provides insight into the minds of rapists, and how it’s important to have this conversation in unprotected spaces like Reddit: “Nothing will change if we discuss rape culture in a vacuum. Taking the discussion beyond that vacuum, however, means opening it up to a wider audience that isn’t necessarily sympathetic. Reddit may not be the best place for that, but it’s certainly a start — and that’s important. It’s in these less-protected, less-sacred spaces where the conversation is needed the most.” Others have argued that it’s important to understand evil, to see where it comes from and recognize that these are seemingly-normal people who’ve committed horrible acts. One person said that reading the posts helped her to realize that there are men deliberately targeting women, and that her rape wasn’t an accident or a “misunderstanding,” but a deliberate choice by the rapist. In other words, it helped her see that it wasn’t her fault. That really stuck with me. But for me personally, the harm far outweighs the good. It is important that we understand why people rape. But there are other ways to find that insight. Books, essays, research, and more. I’ve spoken with rapists and batterers, and it did give me a better understanding as to how this crime happens. But the circumstances of those conversations were very different. They were controlled, with people who had been convicted and held accountable for their actions. People who, as far as I could tell, appeared to genuinely regret what they had done. In situations where excuses were not tolerated. Some of my problems with the Reddit discussion are as follows. -Who are these people? My guess is that most of these stories are true, but I have no way of knowing who is telling the truth and who is trolling for attention. In the overall scheme of things though, this is a minor complaint. -No accountability or responsibility. In none of the stories I read were the rapists held accountable for their actions. Nor did they take responsibility. The pattern tended to be, “Here’s the story of how I raped this girl, and here are all of my excuses. I got away with it, but I feel really bad now of course, so give me cookies!” -Some of the posts are essentially How-To guides for rapists. Rape is not an accident. It’s not a misunderstanding. Predators practice their technique. They learn how best to target and overpower their victims. And now we have a thread from experienced rapists sharing their successful techniques. -Rape is a crime of sex and power. I read some of these stories, and I see rapists getting off on the chance to relive their crime. The sexual aspect comes from the graphic descriptions of what they did, and the power comes from the reactions of the commenters. The dynamic I’m seeing here is one that allows a number of rapists to recapture the rush of their crimes. -The Hurt Outweighs the Good. I won’t deny that some people have taken positive things from all this, but I believe the harm far outweighs that good. # I know Reddit is not a single unified group, any more than Twitter or LiveJournal or Facebook. My guess is that very few members of the Reddit Fantasy group have any idea what’s happening in the rapist thread, and that many or most of them would be horrified. I feel like I’m punishing innocent people for actions they had nothing to do with, and I don’t like that. I’m also a big believer in freedom of speech. These people have the right to tell their stories. But that right to speech doesn’t obligate one of the largest sites on the Internet to provide a platform for their speech. Reddit, as I understand it, prides itself on a relative lack of moderation and an “anything goes” approach. To quote one member, “It allows any voice to be heard no matter how uneducated, insensitive or outright wrong.” I don’t think people should be silenced for lack of education, for tone, or for having a different opinion than me. And I’m not going to tell Reddit how to run their sites or communities. Nor am I going to try to say everyone who chooses to stay with Reddit is a bad person. But I’ve made the choice to walk away, both for myself, and for the hope that it sends a message to those with the ability to make a change at Reddit. 384 comments to Why I Cancelled my Reddit Q&A |
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Thank you.
Next we should see if we can get him to stop writing books until rapists stop reading them.
Chris – if you’ve got something useful to add, fine. But you’re coming close to getting booted for trolling.
There ya go with your love of free speech
It’s his website, he can ban if he wants to.
Of course he can, but if he claims to be for free speech, banning would go contradictory to his claim.
I can also tell from reading this that the author has no idea how Reddit works. This story is very nit picky. Reddit does a lot of good for a lot of people on a daily basis. Then one bad post gets frontpaged and some nobody author gets butthurt about it and doesnt want to do an AMA? Thats probably fine with most people, your AMA probably wasnt going to be that popular anyway, and a lot of people on Reddit are sick of people like you treating AMAs like they are some talk show where you can just plug your new book or whatever.
TL;DR: Fuck you, no one was going to read your book or AMA anyway.
Brutal but true. Even as an every day user, I did not know about either the AMA or the er… Rape-a-thon talk. It’s easy to censure a group of people based on an anecdotal case example and it’s not worth trying to get through on this one… in my anecdotal experiences, the folks who are likely to discuss sexual assault issues tend to be those who are emotionally compromised by doing so. God knows I don’t give a shit about yet another C-lister plugging in a space I wouldn’t look at anyway…
Hilarious though… can’t get folks to talk about: fair-trade, the diamond trade, manufacturing practices, ethnic genocides, the staggering state of the world slave market, or the sub-subsistence of easily half of the world’s population but talk about rape in the developed world and we all become perfect martyrs to the worthy cause of being a hero in our own narrative. How Noble! How Brave you must be! What a difficult cause to get behind…
Could not agree more. OP is clueless.
A) Bullshit. Belief in a legal right to free speech does not in any way obligate one to personally host any kind of speech.
B) It’s not “one bad post”, it is one very incredibly awful and damaging thread that is part of a pattern of tolerating awful and damaging things in general on Reddit. There is a pervasive culture of misogyny and bigotry on the site, which has been demonstrated time and again. This is not an isolated incident.
This. How long and what degree of exposure did it take until Reddit removed the ‘lolita’ forums? This is how change begins.
It’s his blog. If I came to your front porch and started screaming my opinion of you at the top of my lungs, are you a hypocrite if you tell me it’s your property and you wish I would leave? Jim is in no way whatsoever abridging your free speech rights — if you don’t like what he has to say, there are literally hundreds of thousands of other places on the Internet you can go say it. If Jim were trying to stop you from speaking there, in public forums, you would have a legitimate complaint. But he isn’t, and you don’t.
I was going to borrow it from the library. Now I’m buying it. Your move, douche.
Waaah! I said something stupid and got slapped down for it! Oppression! Oppression!
Another ignorant jackass talking about free speech. The Right to Free Speech (First Amendment) ONLY says that the government can’t hinder your right to free speech. It says exactly nothing about your fellow civilians. The owner of a website can do whatever he wants. Read a book. Graduate high school. These things will help you, I promise.
Yeah but when someone claims to be for free speech and then censor people, it makes them a hypocrite. This has nothing to do with the government.
Clearly graduating high school didnt help YOU figure many things out if I had to explain that one to you.
Exactly. Law has nothing to do with it. Anya is just making herself look ignorant with her misrepresentation of the situation.
How about this: the next time you have a party, how about I go visit your house and spend the entire evening screaming abuse at your guests? (And at you, of course… wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out.)
And then when you kick me out I can exclaim, “I KNEW YOU WEREN’T REALLY FOR FREE SPEECH! YOU’RE TRYING TO SILENCE ME!!! THEREFORE YOU’RE A HYPOCRITE!”
If you think that it’s hypocritical to say ‘go have your free speech somewhere else’, then yes, I’m afraid that that does make you dumb.
Heh, great minds think alike. I’ll bet now they call us sock puppets.
But it’s such an obvious comparison, I can’t believe they didn’t think about it — if they are indeed sincere about giving a damn about free speech, and aren’t just in a snit because Jim’s daring to speak ill of the Reddit Tribes.
Read yourself a book.
I’m not trying to sue him for violating my free speech, I’m criticizing his values in an extra-legal capacity.
Free speech is a value, not just a part of our law. Jim does not share it with me.
“I’m not trying to…”
Do I smell a sock puppet? ‘Cause I think I just found a sock puppet.
If you were abused on acid as a child, that’s one thing, but don’t take it out on everyone else, will you?
I feel like your confusion stems from the fact that free speech, in addition to being a legal concept, is also an ethical concept.
This is because most legal concepts are based on ethical concepts. Take the example of murder: Only certain types of killing are illegal. Others are perfectly legal (for instance, the government will even pay you to do it in Iraq /rimshot). But there’s still the closely-related ethical concept of pacifism. It’d be ridiculous to get mad at a pacifist for being against legal forms of killing.
It’s the same idea with free speech. Only certain types of censorship are banned by the Constitution – namely, when it’s done by the government. Other types of censorship are perfectly legal. Just like many people believe there are good reasons to kill someone, many people believe there are good reasons to censor someone. But there’s the closely-related ethical concept of free speech, and it’d be ridiculous to get mad at a free speech advocate for being against legal forms of censorship.
Anya,
Calling him an ignorant jackass who needs to read more is ironic. Yes, many people use the term “free speech” w/r/t to the US too promiscuously, since, very technically, it refers to the first amendment, but generous debaters recognize that people who say “free speech” generally mean something wider and even more robust than that. They are talking about an ethic and practice of expression and inquiry that they think shouldn’t be hindered, legally or socially.
Since you recommend reading books as a cure for the diagnosed ignorance, you might take the time to read JS Mill’s On Liberty to see what I’m talking about.
Having said that, our host, obviously, can ban who he likes; I just happen to think that should be an absolute last resort when discussing contentious topics, since I think it is a matter of free speech in the wider sense that you ignore or are unaware of.
there ya go with your gang mentality.
gang?
I think the point he’s making is… Why? There was one distasteful thread on reddit, therefore… Cancel allowing people to ask you questions? Why? What’s the point of doing that? What does it achieve? The rapists will still be unrepentant, but now your fans don’t get to talk to you. I don’t get it.
You get me
It’s not just one thread, and it’s a hell of a lot worse than distasteful. It is a particularly awful iteration of a culture of misogyny that is broadly apparent on the site.
Censorship protects the rapists by keeping them hidden.
By using Reddit as a platform to discuss his works, he would be tacitly implying that he’s okay with their policies – including the “Yeah, it’s okay to high-five each other over heinous crimes against other human beings” policy.
You folks can keep whining about how this is punishing his fans (because there are no other platforms on the internet in which authors can ask questions, and authors are obviously required to do things like this, because their fans deserve nothing less than their total devotion), and you can keep whining about censorship (because telling rape apologists to shut up is exactly like silencing people to enforce propaganda), and claiming he’s losing fans over this, but for the record, I was going back and forth on whether or not to hunt down and buy the rest of the fairy-tales verse books (I have limited book-buying-budgets, and even though they’re excellent books, they were not at the top of my priority list), and this pretty much pushed me over the line to yes!
And I’m going to link to this post everywhere I know, with a sincere, detailed, and heartfelt endorsement of his excellent fantasy series, and ask others to do the same. And I’d put good money down that People Who Want To Read Books By Decent Human Beings outnumber rape apologists, by a lot.
Its disappointing that you can’t see that the backlash against Jim isn’t from rape apologists but free speech advocates.
Well, Stay off of our reddit, you fucking censor.
*tears of impotent rage*
Um … the whole point of this post was to explain why I’d be staying off of your Reddit. I’m sorry, was that not clear?
You seem to have problems keeping up with one thread with a few hundred (generously counted) people. Now monitor 13 million. Go ahead, we will wait.
I just wish you had backed out without making it an ultimatum. It’s really sad that you had to try to throw your weight around to limit the speech of others. Next time, do everyone a favor, and just back out without making the demand that content be deleted. Don’t pretend that you’re for free speech as long as you continue to make ultimatums like that.
+1
I will rape you
ITT: an author that doesn’t understand sarcasm.
The whole idea of free speech is that even the vile repulsive stuff is protected. Uncontroversial speech doesn’t need protecting. To boycott an entire site for this reason seems silly, but Jim is free to do what he’d like. I just wish he had backed out without asking for the thread to be taken down instead of making an ultimatum. That really rubs me the wrong way.
Wow! Are you just butthurt that he cancelled his AMA, or are you just really that big of a jerk? I hate that he cancelled it, but I understand and respect his decision (even if I don’t agree with it).
In short…grow up.
If he get praised for making pompous illogical ultimatums, why can’t I make pompous illogical comments?
Dude, you can totally make pompous illogical comments! But other people have the right to point out that you’re being an ass. (It’s part of that whole free speech thing, you know?)
No one is butthurt about this being canceled. This would probably be the least read AMA Ive seen on Reddit.
It’s pretty amazing that this site offers a chance to find out the perspective of even our pariahs. I didn’t see the thread in question and can’t judge whether it lived up to its potential, but it seems like a rare opportunity to look into the criminal mind. It’s a shame Jim has a problem with that.
It’s fucking disgusting how they think they ought to be lauded for what they’ve done. You could read the underlying pride in the telling. We’re never going to get past this, as a society, so long as there are so many who secretly admire these sociopaths.
For sticking by your guns, you’re a good man, sir. Better than you think.
I dont think he understands what reddit is. Also, as a victim of sexual assault by my own grandfather I loved that thread. I work in psychology so I am constantly examining the motivations for why people do things. Whenever I think back on what my grandfather had done to me (and other family members) the only question I have is “why?” We all know how victims are affected but not the actual perps, you know? Isn’t a step towards healing diagnosis? Cant we advance from these sort of atrocities by understanding the psychology of these men (and women)? If we tell everyone to stop telling us why we do fucked up things, society will not know how to fix these problems. His protest hopefully will fall on deaf ears because reddit to me is beautiful in that we have outlets to glimpse into each others minds and experience what they experience.
There are many ways of listening to and trying to understand people who commit horrible and evil acts. While I don’t support this particular collection of rapist-stories in Reddit, I very much agree with you that it’s important to understand where these acts originate and how to better prevent them. I just think there are far better ways to get that information.
I am interested in what better ways there are (that includes public discourse on the subject).
What kind of public discourse? There are a ton of sites that talk about rape and rape culture and such, for example, but I get the sense that’s not necessarily what you mean.
Any kind, I suppose, you said there are tons of better ways so I was just actually wondering what those ways were. I meant public discourse as in people from all walks of life being able to see the thread and read it, be able to comment, etc. (I dont think many people would actively seek out a site dedicated to rape but that could just be my opinion.) I just really try to get both sides of a story before I start labeling things as “good or evil”. I have found that no human being is inherently evil, there are just really poor decisions being made or a combination of poor experiences to produce a poor individual.
Kai,
Sorry for the delay – date night with my wife, and I’m working to catch up on the 200+ comments and emails that came in while I was watching Batman.
Some of my education came from first-hand work with various perpetrators. It was powerful and opening, but I totally get that it’s not a realistic possibility for most people.
But there’s also been a great deal of research, including interviews both with convicted rapists (who are, much like the folks on the Reddit threat, often more than happy to tell their stories). There’s also a lot of research done with “ordinary” men and people in general, asking what they would and wouldn’t do. It’s amazing how many men will admit to being willing to commit rape, or that they’ve done so, and talk about why … if you don’t use the word “rape.”
I’m a bit overwhelmed with everything right now, and I apologize for not having specific references for you, but hopefully this at least gives a kind of starting point?
There’s another thing to consider here, Jim. We live in a world where rape stats are regularly underplayed by institutions that encourage under reporting. That make it much harder to obtain a conviction of rape than any other similarly-affecting crime and, hell, one in which in several major first world nations (that all constitute ‘the market’ for your work in fact) don’t even recognise female rape as a crime.
All these things right-minded people would like to change and yet with all those ‘legitimate’ opportunities for discourse you highlight that change isn’t happening, or isn’t happening fast enough. So, with the greatest of possible respect, your claim that there are ‘enough’ is at best unfounded in reality.
With spaces like reddit and other public internet forums something new is being tried. Sure it’s base and ugly and confusing at times, but that’s the nature of new public discourse and always has been, from the hellenic states onwards. What you’re witnessing is simply people who have done nothing more than listen to the words of wise men for years: If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always have what you’ve always had.
Right now we have a rape culture and we’ve always limited discourse to your ‘legitimate means’. That needs to change.
Why you have chosen to act contrary to that goal, besides a supremely arrogant claim that you know best the way to shape public discourse on such a weighty subject for so many people I guess we’ll never know, but be under no illusions that is exactly what you are doing.
So please, feel free to ‘disassociate’ yourself from people trying to do something different in the hope of affecting real social change. I truly hope that you enjoy the period of back-patting it earns you. But later, when exposure of these people leads to real change – I hope you wake up one morning sweating because you realise everything written here is true – and you just made yourself one big part of the problem, not the solution.
Good day to you, sir.
With the greatest respect sir it appears that your objection is simply academic snobbery.
What right do you have to suggest that an open candid forum in which rapists and victims are incredibly truthful about their positions and actions is morally wrong? Of course I would never side with those that commit sexual assaults, but I do appreciate the openness of a forum that allows those heinous individuals to explain succinctly their motivations.
Thanking them for participating, and understanding their actions in a sociological way is not appeasing or even legitimizing their actions. But I believe it can only be a good thing that Victims, and those that wish to learn about the causes of sexual assault can be found in a easy to access, colloquial language, not hidden in a subscribed to Journal is far more beneficial.
I beg you reconsider your position, as this would be equal to refusing to allow Google to register your website as they have links to ‘immoral material’.
That thread gave hundreds of thousands of people insight into what rape is really like. I saw it and it disgusted and horrified me, but I would never advocate censoring it. It is a useful window into the ugly. It is reality.
I find your desire to censor what you disagree with disappointing.
“…it disgusted and horrified me…”
That’s why you are here “LOLing” at the other people who were horrified.
Yeah, right…
I call BS.
Hes not doing anything of that sort. Hes here calling the author a hypocrite, which he is.
I would like to see someone show me another place where a bunch of rapists would just come out and tell people the story of how they raped someone. The author is not concerned with understanding and fixing the mind of these people at all, as he claims to be. Thats the 2nd act of hypocrisy Ive seen in the 10 mins Ive been here. He claims that there are other ways to look into the mind of rapists, so we would like to be shown these ways that he refers to.
Show me another place where rapists would willingly come out and show us their thought processes, where they dont feel like they are being set up to go to jail as soon as the story is over. Dont worry, Ill wait.
So far the author claims to be for free speech but demonstrates otherwise, and claims to be for learning about the criminal mind in order to fix the problem, but also demonstrates otherwise.
Good thing your a fiction writer because you apparently struggle with a lot of the concepts the real world has to offer.
Hi, as a man who has been a victim of sexual abuse I found that thread invaluably theraputic. I am not someone who would ordinarily subject myself to a dedecated forum about rape, however, when it came up in a thread on a familiar website, I read some stories and it got me thinking about my experience and from diffrent perspectives (as one among millions/ the viewpoint of many diffrent abusers from serial to the arguably accidental.) Please be careful about feeling outrage on others behalf, lest your very aware, but confused thinking on the topic starts to look like self publicity. Thank you for caring about other humans tho.
Hi Hod,
All else aside, I’m very glad that thread was helpful for you. And I know you’re not alone in that. I’ve heard from at least one other rape survivor who found it disturbing as hell, but also helpful.
I’ve also heard from rape survivors who were simply hurt, and took nothing positive from it.
I wish it was a simple clear-cut decision, but I had to go with what felt right to me.
Best,
Jim
Maybe in a setting where the clear objective was education that would have been helpful, but Reddit has a very clear bias on the opinion of rape. This was clearly showcased by the top voted comments and replies. Most of the comments were by men who went through with a sexual act they “thought” was mutual, only to find out later the girl felt victimized. Other men then flocked to these commenters to console them, saying things like “bro she gave you ‘the look’ it wasn’t your fault.”. Reddit as a whole is simply not mature enough to handle an intelligent, informantive discussion on rape.
I read that story, and if you read it, he specifically says that earlier in the night they were “play-wrestling” and wound up in a moment of eye contact. “the look” is something anyone who’s about to hook up with someone else has experienced, and if you read the REST of the story she did it again – He didn’t even get a chance to kiss the girl, let alone rape her. He thought she was coming on to him, and made a move – the moment he saw how horrified she was he stopped.
If you censure this kind of discussion, we would never get a glimpse that maybe that girl has experienced some kind of sexual trauma, and to me that seems like the real story there. What’s going on in her life? up to that moment, it seemed to the person telling the story that she was interested in him. Maybe she has a deeper issue than this man – maybe her father or uncle or brother (or mother or sister or girlfriend) abused her at some point.
What the author fails to understand is that where else do you have an anonymous forum to talk about this sort of subject? Only a repentant rapist, or a rapist full of braggodocio will go online with *intent* to talk about their story. Reddit gets over a BILLION pageviews a day and has MILLIONS of subscribers, all with different interests and from all walks of life – it’s not that the “male audience flocked to these commenters”… do you know *anything* about demographics? HUNDREDS of people replied to that guy, and I promise you will find several posts stating “as a woman, I feel etc…”
You don’t understand reddit at all. The whole point was that ANYONE can participate in that discussion and the COMMUNITY WILL DETERMINE THE MERIT TO THE CONVERSATION, not some specialist, not someone on their high horse. No matter what, EVERYONE will get a say.
Saying that you’re not going to the site because some of it’s members told their personal stories in an anonymous setting and that offends you is like saying that you’re not going visit to new york because there are people there who have committed crimes. Where are there *not* people who have committed crimes?
The purpose of that thread is not so that we can have a “collection of rape stories”. The purpose of Reddit, the true purpose, is to allow information to flow easily between all different kinds of people and provide prospective you are UNABLE to achieve on your own due to the limited ability humans have of only living one life. On reddit, one can take in the information and experiences of thousands if not millions of people at once.
tl;dr – reddit is no different than society. There are trolls, there are scholars, and everything in between – boycotting reddit is the same as refusing to participate in society.
The fact that you and everyone else commenting here is referring to Reddit as a single entity with one set of opinions shows me you know nothing about Reddit at all.
Old man doesn’t understand technology.
Sees the words of few on a site of millions.
Demands censorship.
Leaves internet.
LOL.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
LOL?
why are there so many
I’ve read this thread three times, and I’m not sure what’s happening, but it amuses me. It feels like we’re on the verge of starting in on a “Who’s on first?” type routine.
Thank you so much for posting things like this on your blog. A lot of my male friends dismiss “female” issues because they don’t feel such things concern them, and it really bothers me because it makes me feel like they secretly consider themselves superior to me because of their gender. It’s so refreshing to read about your outrage when it comes to things like this and sexual harassment at conventions. I appreciate your vigilance and genuine concern for the safety of all human beings regardless of gender. You’ve gained a fan for life.
Find better male friends if you actually think that. I don’t have that feeling with a single one of my male friends.
The Reddit thread in question helped me understand how women in my life have to act in our society. My SO calls me when she has to walk home in the dark at times because she is concerned. I’ve been at parties and tried to keep my friends safe, but more often then not my female friends don’t go or don’t drink at all. I’ve seen the impacts of our culture surrounding rape, but I didn’t understand why, or assumed it’s normalcy as acceptable. Because of that thread, the stories and responses to them, I now understand my own privilege as a male and what all the women in my life have to go through. Could this have happened in a different way? Maybe, probably so, but I will be honest, I don’t go searching for this information and wouldn’t have found it if it was not in a place I normally go. Many problems in the above sentence for me and my own life, I know.
+1.
Good for you!
Well said, sir. While I support free speech, I believe it should be practiced responsibly. Unlike some of the people posting on the rape thread, you have posted responsibly. I commend you.
>While I claim to support free speech, I believe in censoring people I dislike.
FTFY
Oh my God, give it a rest.
free speech != freedom from people getting mad at you.
Apparently, they think they have the right to not be offended by us being offended.
I don’t just have the right, I have the pleasure of seeing you be offended.
But he’s not just “getting mad” at the repulsive comments he found. If that was all he wanted to do, he could have just posted his own disapproval of those comments in the Reddit thread itself, or brought it up on his Reddit Q&A, or written a post here about how he disapproved of the thread. He went beyond that, and told Reddit that he would withdraw his own promised participation on the site unless they removed the offending thread.
It does seem like he is confused or of two minds about what he wants to achieve, or alternatively just doesn’t quite want to own up to it. Either way, there is some politician talk in his conclusion. First he says, “I’m not going to tell Reddit how to run their sites or communities.” But then he says, “I’ve made the choice to walk away, both for myself, and for the hope that it sends a message to those with the ability to make a change at Reddit.” Emphasis added. So he doesn’t want to tell Reddit owners/moderators what to do, but he hopes that his move will convince him to do something. He doesn’t want to tell Reddit owners/moderators what to censor or not, but he hopes that his move will convince Reddit owners/moderators to censor this thread. OK.
I believe in free speech when it’s something I agree with, like all good liberals> FTFY
Welp, it was only a matter of time until someone brought up politics for no apparent reason
Hello Jim I have to say that I am very impressed with your stance and have also decided to refrain from reddit posting due to some of the disgusting threads that are open. I admire your resolve and hope you set an example for others who wish to post on the AMA thread.
You dislike some of the content on a site and decide to abstain completely? That’s like saying you don’t like some of the people at work, so you’re not going.
Well, yeah. If I worked with even a single rapist or rape-apologist, I probably wouldn’t show up either.
No, it’s saying that a company (Reddit is a for-profit company, part of Conde-Nast) does things you don’t like, therefor you will not support it by giving it your time and energy. It’s a boycott.
Sites have their own culture. Reddit’s culture is why I don’t frequent that site, either.
I believe very heavily in not supporting things that you disagree with. If you do not like what ReEdit is doing, I’m 100% cool with you not supporting it. You have a RIGHT not to put yourself in the position of appearing like you’re supporting something you are CLEARLY adamantly against. I applaud you for standing up for what you believe in. Everyone should!
I also agree with you that I’m not sure if this is remotely helpful. The stories I read on Jezebell are all rather similar.. there seems to be lots of drinking and an “easy” girl out there. A woman (and a man) has a right to be hot, sexy, flirtatious or anything else they want without being attacked for it! I have a friend who is just super nice, bubbly and well gorgeous. While she was working, she’d have to ask people how they were doing and well interact with the public. Some guys would assume she was hitting on them just because she was being nice and doing her job! She would always take it with stride, but guys just assume too much because they WANT someone interested in them.
Anyhow, kudos for not supporting ReEdit
.
I am not at all impressed with that Reddit thread. I read part of one of the replies to the post. The writer said that he had a beautiful wife, was successful in work, had lots of friends, and that he’d started raping women in college when he got bored with how easy it was to get all of the sorority girls he wanted. Then he began to describe his technique in detail. Umm. Really? That post was a transparent bit of repellant fantasy.
should that one person (or several hundred people) reflect the opinions of millions of people?
Ever read American Psycho? Have you considered that because of the anonymous nature of that site what you had been reading could have been written by a 19 year old woman taking creative writing?
I’m not defending anyone who ever did anything like the things in that thread, but isn’t it going overboard to condemn a forum with millions of entries for one thread?
Totally overboard
It’s not just one thread. It is part of a pervasive culture of misogyny, demonstrated over and over again.
I’m proud that you stuck by your beliefs and refused to do the appearance. We writers are under so much pressure to hustle non-stop and sell our work, never mind where the money came from. Keep standing strong, Jim.
He wasn’t getting paid to do an AMA, he was using reddit to promote himself.
@ Fred: Self-promoting is done in the hopes to sell; it boils down to the same thing in the end.
As a woman, a reader, a writer and a human being, I appreciate your integrity.
Thank you.
Continuing your affiliation with Reddit at this juncture might make it appear that you endorse such threads by mere association, however untrue that might be, and the fact that you choose to distance yourself on principle speaks very highly of your character.
Also, I’m only a sometime fantasy reader, dragged (figuratively) kicking and screaming into the genre through my husband’s adoration of the Wheel of Time. Now, I’m going to find your books and read them.
I don’t have to like the personal views of every author whose work I admire, but I’m damn sure going to read more of your words. They’re good words so far!
So you think every single person out of the millions that use Reddit endorses rape? Your incredibly ignorant to how the internet works, and you should probably shut your computer off. Im surprised you were able to find this site, given the level of competence you have just demonstrated.
BTW just because you have a blog your husband reads doesnt make you a ‘writer’.
>you should probably shut your computer off
HURR WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SPOIL HER FREE SPEACHES?!
(Yes, that is how stupid you sound.)
she clearly has never visited spacedicks.. otherwise we endorse a lot of weird
Okay, “spacedicks” is officially the most bizarrely random thing to pop up in this discussion…
click my name
I was the person on twitter who said that reading that awful thread helped me realize my rapist made a conscious decision to ignore my ‘no’ and I’d like to add some nuance that’s not possible in 140 char soundbites. I agree entirely with you that the harm far outweighed the good; I think I wasn’t clear on twitter that anything positive I got from reading that post was a silver lining, and a paltry one at that. I’d already come to terms, years ago, with the idea that I can’t blame myself for being too afraid to scream or fight physically. The self-recrimination that still lingered was pretty small, along the lines of “Well, of course you shouldn’t have *had* to fight because he should have asked for explicit, enthusiastic consent, and it’s totally on him that he didn’t. But maybe if you had, he would have realized what he was doing.” It really hadn’t occurred to me that he knew I was trying to say no, but I could have (and it probably would have been better for my mental health & my productivity at work if I had) come to the same realization by reading a much more controlled environment.
Sara,
Sure, you might have gotten to that same realization in other ways. Regardless, I’m glad you got there, and I hope you’re in a slightly better space. Because it absolutely wasn’t your fault.
…and yet the actual world, the one you’re living in, seeing, smelling, hearing touching and tasting every day is telling you that she *hasn’t* gotten to that realisation ‘in other ways’.
Surely you are not so self-unaware that you can’t see the extraordinary hypocrisy of your position here?
That you would presume to know what will and won’t work for rape victims, whilst not being one yourself, speaks volumes as to how much this ‘stance’ of yours is truly about morals and how much is a pinch of arrogance mixed with a smattering of self-promotion.
As a self-proclaimed ‘champion of rape victims’, you sure are doing a fine job of capitalising on their misery whilst belittling their experiences for your own pageviews, aren’t you?
[Oh, FFS. Making up a fake rape story in order to link to your gold bullion website? Yeah, this one gets moderated. -Jim]
This is spam – look at the website link
Wow, spammers have reached new lows…
Thanks. Moderated that one.
I was a Psychology major in college, and I fully understand the mindset of trying to understand evil in the desire to try and prevent it in the future (a while ago I did a series of posts on my blog where I discussed sociopathy as it shows up in our society and fiction), but there is a time and a place to have those discussions, and an open forum on the internet is neither the time nor the place.
Like Lora, I haven’t read any of your books yet (I recently purchased your Goblin series and they’re the next books I’m going to read) but I’ve been following your blog for some time now and I will continue to do so because you are a fantastic writer and your blog is one of the best that I’ve ever found.
I used to find reddit generally interesting and informative. It’s started to get real shitty lately, filled with trolls and jerks and haters of all kinds. I think it’s good that you’re standing up for your convictions, and I hope the reddit mods and community see this as a wakeup call to shut down the hate and worthless postings.
I like that reddit is a space available for all opinions, even the horrible ones.
I’d rather live in a free but ugly community than a fascist censoring one.
Are you 10
I’m not sure a ten year old would have such thoughts
Permit me to say I think you’re doing the wrong thing for the right reason. I’m having a hard time articulating all the details of that the way I’d like, but I can at least say that I think demanding censorship, even with the best of intentions, treads a dangerous path, a fact few should know better than a writer.
I think Jim’s line of reasoning is sound, if reddit as a whole is a community. I’m not sure it is. I think it’s more a technology platform. Individual communities exist and all have that platform in common, which makes it easy to cross-over to many communities.
I think not doing a r/Fantasy AMA because of something happening in a thread on an entirely unrelated subreddit community is akin to no longer answering fan mail because someone else is using the US Postal Service for a marketing scheme.
I respect Jim’s decision, but I don’t think I would have come to the same one myself.
I wholeheartedly agree. While I do not agree with everything on reddit, in-fact, some of the things on the site completely outrage me- the website is broken down into different forums, or, ‘subreddits’. Each subreddit is moderated by their own set of moderators, there are no global moderators (aside from reddit administrators). If Jim preferred to stay away from the AMA board, he could always go to the Fantasy board and perform his AMA there.
The way I see it is like this: Reddit is a strip-mall. Sure, there’s a few shops here and there that sell pornography, some sell weapons, another shop there sells tobacco and alcohol. And if Jim prefers to stay away from those things, that’s fine. He can set up shop at the book store and sign autographs there.
But to stand and say, “I don’t want to go to this strip mall because of the over-looming porno, sale of firearms, tobacco and alcohol!” is in-fact what he admitted to earlier, he feels like he is punishing his fans.
However, Jim is his own person- and Jim can make these decisions on his own. If he feels that he doesn’t want to do the AMA, I support him- but to hope that reddit.com censors it’s community? I believe that’s where I draw the line.
I wouldn’t want to go to that strip mall. I wouldn’t want to go to a signing there, either. That’s not a place I would want to be.
All Jim said is that Reddit is a place he doesn’t want to be. Frankly, I don’t blame him.
74% of redditors are rapists. Don’t punish the other 26% because those doucheboxes can’t get laid the ol’ fashioned way.
Reddit is a single company, one which permits this behavior. Why should Mr. Hines provide that company with content and view when the company does things he thinks are awful?
Fair enough. Obviously I came to a different decision, but I recognize and appreciate that not everyone agrees with me. Thanks!
Oh, last thought: Do not judge all of Reddit by the actions of a few — it’s a very big place, and even a thread or comment that gets a thousand upvotes may not reflect the view of the majority of readers.
You realize I made essentially that same point at the end of my blog post, right?
But still did so?
Ooh. Burn!
Come on Jim, you’re better than that.
I try to be better than that, but there are times when the sheer volume of dumbassery gets to be a bit much, and some snark slips through.
Point noted, though.
Jim, stand your ground. You are a person that has made a perfectly reasonable decision to try and make a difference. Honestly, it is totally admirable and a lot of people stand behind you. It’s a shame that everyone else is making a lot of noise about how stupid this is. It isn’t – and you are doing the right thing.
You say that, but… you are asking a group of millions to censor a dozen people…
Comes across as more of an ego trip than activism.
….what did I just read?
How exactly is not doing an AMA connected with a questionable Reddit thread?
You’re on a site with literally millions of members, you find a thread with people saying some stupid things… so now you’re refuses to have anything to do with the website. A site which -remember- has a daily population larger than many counties.
Do you refuse to travel to North Carolina because their government amended gay marriage?
Do you refuse to watch the news because they covered a KKK rally?
Do you cancel your newspaper subscription because someone used the classified ads to sell their first edition copy of “The Turner Diaries?”
Do you refuse to use the internet at all, because people use it to traffic kiddy porn?
Ridiculous as any of those are, a fair argument could be made for any of them being more rational than your decision.
Your arguments are halfbaked, either irrelevant or absurd. “Some of the posts are essentially How-To guides for rapists.” Really? Welcome to the internet. I typed “rape how-to” into Google and got far more explicit advice. Then I typed “ANFO bomb recipe” and learned how to duplicated the Oklahoma City bombing.
The “website X provides dangerous information” argument stopped being valid shortly after the internet grew beyond 50 sites.
The “website X provides a platform for bad ideology Y” stopped being valid as soon as Reddit moved beyond a single homogeneous interest group, something you acknowledged it is not.
“I’m also a big supporter of free speech.”
No Jim. No, you’re not. At best your view towards free speech is mired in paradox. The need to claim otherwise is the first warning sign.
“These people have the right to tell their stories. But that right to speech doesn’t obligate one of the largest sites on the Internet to provide a platform for their speech.”
Translation: These people have the right to tell their stories… so long as no one is present to listen.
Say what you mean. You’re not a big supporter of free speech. You’re a big supporter of carefully moderated speech.
Reddit provides an open forum for debate and discussion, and that is the beating heart and soul of the internet. Any moderation must be carried out in extreme moderation. Censoring a thread like this one, because you think it doesn’t blame the rapists enough, or you think some sick bastards are might possibly be getting off telling their story… its would overstep the bounds of reasonable moderation to such a degree as to be unthinkable.
Look. You have your right to choose whether or not do an AMA. I’m not faulting your decision. Or even your implicit opinions on free speech. Believe what you want. The argument for moderation has valid points.
I’m just pointing out your decision to connect the two is utterly irrational.
You’re committing a shallow knee-jerk reaction which follows no rational pattern.
Yes, there’s no rational connection at all between “this company does or allows something I find abhorrent” and “therefor I will not give my time, attention, work, or money to this company”. Reddit is a for-profit company, you know. The company provides space for this filth, so Mr. Hines declines to give his valuable time, energy, and work to the company, which would gain traffic by his work. Not logical at all.
There are many for-profit companies that “provide space for this filth”: Facebook, Google, Twitter, newspapers, broadcasting companies, publishers, etc. I’m willing to bet Mr. Hines still spends some of his time and energy on these companies’ services. His website makes use of WordPress technology. WordPress is another company that “provides space for this filth.” If it is really so logical that Mr. Hines does not want to give his time and energy to companies that do things he finds abhorrent, why isn’t he little more consistent?
exactly. The arguments in this post equally apply to Jim leaving the internet, or never reading a book again.
I think you’re getting confused about what free speech actually is. These people may have the right to share their stories and opinions, but others also have the right to find them offensive and label them as such.
Free speech is certainly NOT asking for the speech of others to be removed, let alone doing so as an ultimatum.
Jim has every right to find the discussion in question morally reprehensible and potentially dangerous, but he can’t call himself a proponent of open dialogue and ask for the censorship of views he opposes without being a hypocrite.
Is it an ultimatum to say, “This is the choice I’m making, and here are the reasons I’ve made it”?
In related news, Jim C. Hines stops driving on the highway because numerous rapists drive on the highway.
In related news, Jim C. Hines cancels his Costco subscription because numerous rapists shop there.
In related news, Jim C. Hines stops drinking water because numerous rapists drink water.
In related news, Jim C. Hines stops breathing air because numerous rapists breathe air.
In related news, fantasy author Jim C. Hines dies of being an idiot.
I’m not a reader of your work and I do use Reddit daily. I understand your decision and support it, but I would respect you more if you had simply said, I don’t agree with Redit for these reasons and shall not participate in any form. But you added the caveat about participating if the offending thread was removed. Does removing the thread change that it happened? No, it doesn’t. Does removing that thread prevent another thread about similar topics from appearing? No, it doesn’t. If you truly have a problem with the mindset you observed, why not fully commit to your stance and offer no recompense?
If someone says something to offend you so deeply as to make you disassociate with them, why come back just because they say they’re sorry for saying it? They still hold the values you took offense to.
That’s a great question.
I’ll preface this by saying I didn’t and don’t expect Reddit to pull that thread. But … okay, this might sound weird, and I can’t guarantee it will make sense. I guess I’ve always felt hopeful for change. I remember sitting down with a rather sexist cartoonist at our University newspaper, working with students referred for sexual harassment, sitting in on DV groups. My hope was that these people would see how their actions were hurtful and choose to change them.
An apology is just words. Sometimes they’re good words, and a lot of the time they’re weasel words. But actions … actions are the beginning of change.
It’s totally Reddit’s choice what they want to do. But if they choose to make that change, that’s something I would want to support.
Hopefully that makes sense?
Where did Jim issue an ultimatum? He didn’t say “take these down or else I won’t do an AMA!” He said that he could not in good conscience use the site to promote his work when it also allows people to harm others.
He did say that:
“Earlier today I emailed the person who was coordinating my Reddit event to tell him I will not be doing it unless that thread is removed. Given the nature of Reddit as an open, relatively unmoderated community, I don’t expect this to happen.”
But I don’t have a problem with issuing that kind of ultimatum.
Oh, good point. Hm … okay, now I’m getting caught up in my head about what is and isn’t an ultimatum. I can see arguments on either side, depending on the definition you use.
To the Bat-Dictionary, Robin!
“Do (this) or I (do/don’t) do (this2)”
there’s your formula, fix it for grammatical correctness depending on your subjects etc.
“If you go drinking with your friends again tonight, I’m going to leave you.”
“Take that thread down or I’m not going to do the thing I committed to do.”
“I’m not going to play with you unless you stop playing with Sarah.”
and so on
It’s nice to see you sort of willing to own up to errors but you’re equivocations are losing you intellectual credibility here.
“I will not X unless Y” is an ultimatum. It’s pretty simple. You demanded censorship in exchange for participation. What’s the other way of looking at this you are referring to?
It seems to me you are in no way an advocate of free speech in any way that I’m familiar with. In fact your actions are positioning you firmly against it.
+1. Spot on.
>Say what you mean. You’re not a big supporter of free speech. You’re a big supporter of carefully moderated speech.
I’m really disappointed by this post, Jim. You’ve lost a fan.
Me too
Of course, by the logic displayed here, you are censoring Mr Hines by refusing to read his books. How dare you deny Mr Hines his free speech rights because of something he said!
That is the most asinine thing I’ve heard as of late. Censorship is the prevent of speech not the inability to find an audience for said speech.
Yes, indeed. You may want to research the difference between a positive and negative right. It would be very educational in this situation.
Bravo to you Mr Jim. This world would be a much better place if more men felt the way you do. Sadly,sex is and always has been a very powerful thing between man and woman. How sad that such an intelligent species still thinks so little of anothers’ well being. Society will stay in the gutters until people are held responsible for their actions. Stay strong in your beliefs and continue to speak up for what’s right. Remember the best thing we can do is teach our children to respect themselves and each other. No means no in any language.
Or between man and man, or woman and woman, and so on
I like Reddit. I browse there a lot. I love the AMAs with everything from authors and celebrities to regular people with interesting jobs, the pictures of cute animals, and the discussions that can be fun and insightful with opinions from people from all walks of life.
I also find the community to have a deeply, deeply fucked up attitude toward women.
I’m glad you’ve done this. It makes me feel a little better whenever someone makes a point of saying that this shit is not okay. I hope your action will draw the community to crack down on this. Unfortunately, from the discussion I’ve seen, they’re angrier at you for taking something nice away from us than at rapists for bragging about being fucking rapists.
I post at Reddit sometimes, though I haven’t for a while, and choose to keep things gender-neutral so it’s not obvious that I’m a woman. That way I know I’m being judged for my words and not my gender. I don’t know if that says something sad about Reddit or something sad about the world in general.
What about all the people in that thread who said that raping someone had traumatized them? Should the fact that we can learn about the psychology of people like this be disregarded because if makes you uncomfortable?
and as a man, I almost never self identify as male and I post all the time, my comments are judged on their quality not my gender.
If they were traumatized, why didn’t any of them turn themselves in?
maybe some of those who were, did, or sought psychiatric help. And many of them were unrepentant. I’m not qualifying anything, I’m taking about learning about it. Should we not learn about it because it is too disgusting? Too vile? Is that not the *purpose* about learning as much as we can about it so we can fight it at the root, not bitch about people telling stories on a website? Do we stop our kids from learning about the Holocaust? The Civil War?
Do we not want to know ourselves better so that we can truly understand and correct our inherent flaws?
Lo! What is that sweet sound? It is a choir of self-righteous angels. And look! The master ascends into the light of political correctness where he shall pat himself on the back for all eternity.
Oh, but seriously… Reddit is not one thing, but a diversity of free speech communities, which include things much worse than what you have cited. I hadn’t even heard of the thread you mention, and I spend entirely too much time on Reddit. All you’ve done is alienate potential readers, the great majority of whom are decent people.
Not much to say, just wanted to show my support for you and your decision to take a stand here. Thank you. You’ve gained an ardent supporter today.
Will you also be quitting the internet (reddit) because some ISPs (subreddits) allow their users to transfer immoral materials like child pornography (that god-awful rape thread)?
The thread was awful, start to finish. But refusing to do an AMA in a completely unrelated subreddit over it is flawed reasoning at its finest.
Next you should cancel your internet subscription because your ISP also serves up StormFront. Makes sense right?
This certainly has won you praise and adoration from the people who have staked their identity on searching out things to get upset over (here), so I guess it is working out for you, keep it up!
I read the Jezebel piece. Have never heard of Reddit, and not feeling tempted to visit it now
This all makes me recall my experiences when I took a basic self-defense program designed for women. I studied martial arts elsewhere with enthusiastic practitioners, mostly male, and enjoyed it very much. This women’s basic class was my first exposure to a self-defense class of women–and, in paticular, of women not otherwise interested in martial arts, fight training, etc. They were there to enhance personal safety. Several of them had been raped. Others wanted to set good examples for their daughters, sisters, or mothers. Others just wanted to feel more confident when leaving work late at night or that sort of thing.
And what I found interesting, shocking, and really eye-opening was HOW HARD most of the women in the group found it to defend themselves. I don’t mean they couldn’t learn the skills. I mean that their upbringing ahd socialization had sCOMPLETELY indoctrinated them with the idea, the belief, and the behaviorial pattern that they DIDN’T HAVE A RIGHT to defend themselves. to such an extent that trying to practice self-defense moves against an attacker in a classroom setting was traumatic for them.
The teacher would teach us a move, we’d rehearse it in the air. Then we’d each work with the “attacker” (an instructor wearing heavy padding). And more than half the class had a VERY hard time bringing themselves to engage in defensive moves–which they had practiced and knew–when attacked. They found it extremely difficult to bring themselves to shove someone away, to kick someone, to hit someone, even just to shout at someone. They had been taught their whole lives that they had no right to defend themselves or fight back, and being taught to hit and kick an attacker went against everything that had been ingrained in them.
This conditioning was so powerful that there were women in the class who stood facing the attacker, weeping helplessly over their own indoctrinated inability to lift a single finger to defend themselves against a physical attacker.
Fortunately, since this is such a common problem among women, the course focused a lot on working through this, and all the women were able to beat off an attacker effectively by the end of the 5-week course. But as someone who’d never dealt with this issue myself, it really opened my eyes to how many women have been taught their whole lives, by everyone and everything that’s ever had influence over them, that if they’re assaulted, attacked, raped, then they must lie there, still and weeping, rather than fight back.
And because of that conditioning, rapists like the ones bragging on Reddit can convince themselves they didn’t do anything really wrong since, gee, it’s not as if the assault victim really FOUGHT, right? She just cried a little and lay there, right? “So that must mean what I didn’t wasn’t a violent felony, right?”
This. Girls and women are not raised to defend ourselves. All my life, I was taught to be “nice.” I was raped in a park when I was 17. It was somewhat violent in the beginning, with him (a “friend”) pushing me down onto the ground, basically letting me know that he was able to force me. During the act itself, I was silent, petrified. It took me a long time to come back from that, and to be honest, I’m still not “all the way back.” A couple of years ago, another “friend” forced me down and got on top of me. And you know what? I was LOUD and VIOLENT in my response. I kicked, screamed, scratched and punched. He got off me in a hurry. I promised myself NEVER AGAIN and I’ve kept that promise and I’m proud of it. This happens to women more than people realize. Because we are silent about it.
Mr Hines – I’ll be honest, I’ve never read your books before, or even heard of you (I’m a voracious reader, but not much into the fantasy genre). But next time I’m in my local book store, I’ll pick up one of your books, read it, and I’ll pass it on, and I’ll tell them about this and why I like you as a writer and as a man. Thank you.
” A couple of years ago, another “friend” forced me down and got on top of me. And you know what? I was LOUD and VIOLENT in my response. I kicked, screamed, scratched and punched. He got off me in a hurry. ”
One of the most inaccurate, erroneous, and dangerous concepts taught to girls and women is that “if you fight back, you’ll just make your attacker made and he’ll hurt you more.” Thinking on this started to change only when police stats of attacks were studied, and it was discovered that about half of all attacks break off the INSTANT a woman resists. And as long as the woman KEEPS resisting from that point forward, odds are better that even a persistent attacker will break off.
The reason is amazingly simple. A man or a group of men attack a lone woman because THEY EXPECT IT TO BE EASY. They’re not looking for a challenge. They’re not committed to winning at all costs. They’re looking for an EASY felony. Make it hard for them–even just by shouting a lot (and, as you discovered, by kicking, scratching, and punching) and a substantial number of attackers give up–and studies suggest that this happens -immediately- in about half of attacks, bcause “no resistance at ALL” is how easy most people want it to be when they choose a lone woman as their victim (including a lone woman who is known to them and doesn’t expect to be attacked).
I’m glad that you’re standing for what you believe in and that you don’t want to associate with Reddit (despite the fact that I frequent Reddit myself). That thread was honestly one of the worst things I’ve seen on Reddit, but sadly, I’m not suprised by it. Redditors hold “freedom of speech” as this holy untouchable thing, and if you disagree with someone you’ll be accused of censorship and being “too PC”. And now there is a thread full of rapists and people patting on the back for being “brave” in posting their stories (anonymously and with obvious pride in getting away with it). I hope that thread gets more publicity, so people have some idea about how low Reddit can and will go.
On the upside, in discussions of this I’ve seen people talking about and reccomending your books and you’ve already gained a few fans that wouldn’t have known about your books if it wasn’t for this blog post! I hadn’t known about your books either but taking a look around they sound like my kind of thing. And it’s a plus to know that there are
It’s been fascinating talking about freedom of speech with people from other countries. Here in the U.S., free speech is seen as this almost-holy guarantee (though even here, there are limits), whereas in many places, while free speech is still a right, there’s more of an emphasis on responsible speech, and on consequences for certain types of hateful or threatening or dishonest speech.
I’m not saying one is right or wrong. Just something I find interesting.
When you talk about other countries encouraging “responsible” speech over “free” speech, I think of harsh British libel laws being used to silence journalists and critics, and laws against Holocaust denial inadvertently giving credibility to racists and neo-Nazis who talk of “Jewish conspiracies”.
Would you do an interview with a newspaper that had previously interviewed Roman Polanski?
I read this thread too, and I think you’re totally misrepresenting the nature of the thread.
A majority of the folks that responded said the actions were heinous, that the people belonged in jail.
My own impression as a woman and someone who has been sexually molested, I found it to be insightful and somewhat therapeutic, even when I found myself disgusted by some of the details.
It also reaffirmed something I had come to realize long ago about my own sexual molestation , that I wasn’t at fault. The guy that did it KNEW what he was doing and probably manipulated the situation so he use me like he did. I think maybe if we talked frankly about the methods sexual predators use on their prey we could counter these tactics by recognizing them for what they are.
*happy to know there are authors who will speak out about rape culture.
(sorry, I accidentally cut myself off)
Thank you for this. I’m a redditor, and I read through that thread in utter disgust at the pervasive atmosphere of rape-apology. I can’t tell whether it stems from ignorance or genuine malice (hopefully the former – ignorance can be helped), but either way I’m getting tired of reddit’s culture of rampant bigotry. Anyone who thinks that thread is the only problem with reddit is willfully blind, and those are probably the same people that object to your decision as “self-righteous” or irrelevant.
Jim,
I’ve been a long time member of /r/Fantasy, I have read quite a few of your books, and I’m looking forward to your next work. I must say however, that I am extremely disappointed to read that you cancelled your AMA for this irrational grandstanding. Reddit is not how you describe “relatively unmoderated community.” /r/Askreddit has 27 moderators actively looking for violators of the subreddit rules and violators of the Reddit TOS agreement. Which none of the comments, disgusting and horrible the few comments out of 12,000 may, they did not violate any of these rules. This is because free speech reigns on Reddit regardless of the unpopularity or vileness of the words that were typed. Reddit was on the leading edge standing up for free speech on the internet with SOPA and PIPA and it’s not going to go backwards to censor unpopular and horrible posts about rape.
If you really supported free speech you would use your AmA as a platform to not only promote your book but to give your views on this issue to more people than actually view this website. Instead you took this quixotic stand that only alienates 17,000 readers of /r/Fantasy, and only stand for free speech when you don’t have a vested interest in the topic. I’m not going to boycott your work because Amazon sells digital and paper copies of Mein Kampf or because Penguin books published the works of Sine’, I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater and neither should you. It may surprise you I’m still more than likely going to buy your next book because I’m not going to make a knee jerk reaction to something I don’t agree with. I strongly wish for you to rethink your position on this matter.
For people not on Reddit read the thread for yourself, do not trust a Jezebel article which cherrypicks 13 comments out of a thread with over 12,000 comments
Yes, because refusing to associate with a company that does something you find abhorrent is automatically grandstanding and anti-free-speech. What utter bullshit. I suppose you think it’s wrong not to eat at Chik-fil-A or shop at Wal-Mart, too. *eyeroll* What you’re really saying is that you’re an entitled twit who thinks that what he wants (to read Mr. Hines’ AMA) is more important than anything else (like safety, human decency, morality, integrity).
Just look at the context of the situation Reddit is way more than one highly controversial post. Reddit have over 12 million unique visitors a month, /r/Askreddit has almost 2 million subscribers, and that thread, if you read it. You would see the highly objectionable comments did not make up the majority of the thread, and were highly disparage the whole thread had 12 thousand comments which is less than .01% of the subreddits population.
But I guess I’m an entitled twit for feeling there is more good to be done than throwing ones hands up and saying “I’m done” When there is so much more to the story than Reddit is bad. Also I’m sorry but canceling a promotion and then making a blog post to draw attention to it saying
“But I’ve made the choice to walk away, both for myself, and for the hope that it sends a message to those with the ability to make a change at Reddit.” is the definition of grandstanding.
Again Reddit is more than that one post, so are you saying the 13,000 great people at /r/suicidewatch doesn’t care about safety and human decency? but making a blog post disparaging Reddit and basically hoping to cause a firestorm on the internet sensationalist websites shows more integrity than going to the community you have issue with and having a discussion about a topic you care deeply about?
Also please note that I did not insult you in my reply I request that you do the same.
Luke, I occasionally frequent reddit, and my boyfriend goes there every day and shares things he finds there which he thinks I will enjoy. I agree that reddit is a large site with a great deal of subreddits that are not repugnant. I understand your disappointment at Jim canceling his AMA, but I’m going to tell you a (seemingly irrelevant) story, and ask you if you can see what I’m getting at.
I recently broke my leg, annoyingly on the day I had decided to do a full overhaul style cleaning of my apartment. In the days leading up to the cleaning day, I had left a lot of crap around rather than put it away, figuring I could deal with it when I cleaned. Instead I spent the day in the ER and had a very hard time getting around my place on crutches. My mother, who lives relatively nearby, offered to clean my apartment for me while I had surgery done. I live in Prince George’s County, MD, which is known to be a not-very-safe county, but I am in a very safe building in a very safe area in that county, and I feel safe here. On the day of my surgery, when my mother arrived, I showed her were the laundry room and trash rooms are (on the floor, but not in the apartment) and told her she could spend the day with the door unlocked. I regularly do that when I am home. Her reaction was to beg me for my keys so she could lock the door because it upset her and made her feel unsafe to have the door to my place unlocked, despite the fact that she does so at home.
Should Jim do something he is uncomfortable with because other people are not uncomfortable with it? Should I have refused to give my mother my keys because I don’t feel I have to lock my apartment door during the day?
Let’s avoid namecalling, please.
OK. Is “twit” the problem?
So you don’t like Reddit, but you’ll use tumblr to smear people by using their real names – is that right MadGastronomer?
I feel like I’ve missed something significant here…
She has grudgewank against me because I reblogged something once upon a time that called her a racist because she said something racist. She threatened to sue me over it, and made a series of posts on her own blog calling me all sorts of nasty things, and then took them down again. You can google “Nancy McClernan is a racist” for more.
Wow. you’re just being petty now.
…wow, the irony.
Hi Luke,
I do understand that there are moderators, which is why I said relatively unmoderated instead of unmoderated. Yesterday, someone pointed me to the fact that Reddit recently amended their rules, making the “reluctant” decision that maybe they shouldn’t allow child porn.
I’m curious – do you disagree with Reddit’s decision to ban child porn, or do you see this as another infringement on free speech?
Best,
Jim
There never was any child porn on Reddit. Everythng present there was legal.
Why can’t I edit posts? It’s a quite needed feature…
I haven’t found a plugin for WordPress that would allow comment editing, I’m afraid. Though if there’s a typo or bad HTML code, I can fix that from my end.
Blatantly untrue. Not only was there real child porn, there were sections where they asked underage users to provide them with material, and told the other users to not speak with them so that they didn’t “scare them off”.
Or, you could just read the article Jim linked to, since, you know, it actually links to at least one news article over real child porn on Reddit.
Jim,
No, of course I agree with the banning of child porn, but the argument your trying to make isn’t similar in the least. Being in possession of child porn is illegal and you get arrested because there is tangible evidence to the fact. If someone posted a video of them committing a sexual assault, I would be the 1st one to report to the site admins and I can guarantee the user will be banned and reported to the popper authorities. Sadly the few questionable posts were just anecdotes, they do not contain evidence, and they are free speech issues.
Look if you do not want to associate with Reddit that is your right. My issues is with you stepping away, making this post and attributing a highly controversial thread in the community itself with the rest of the monthly 12 million unique users. With a user base that large your going to find people you do not agree with or even absolutely abhor. However, You could have taken this opportunity to highlight the issue and your work with it. Instead you took he chance to take a shot at one of the largest site that does some good in the world. Look at /r/suicidewatch the largest and completely volunteer group committed to suicide prevention, the funds Reddit has raised for various charities count into the millions.
thank you
Luke
The point of bringing up the child porn is the moral bankruptcy of the Reddit administrators. It took them a long time to come around to simply stating that child pornography would not be allowed. The underage sex reddits were some of the most popular, and the one entitled “jailbait” was voted best Reddit by the community. The majority of Redditors were against the decision, citing “free speech”. Now we have a thread where rapists are telling their stories and receiving support, yes support, from the majority of commenters. Right at the top of the post it says “We’re trying to have serious discussions and some people feel deeply bad about what they did and need support to talk about it.” From what I can see, most of the support takes the form of saying “that wasn’t really rape”.
I know many communities that would not tolerate support for rapists. Reddit is not one of those places. And that’s fine, but if Mr. Hines doesn’t want to be associated with that then he has a right.
I’ve never heard Jim Hines before, I was linked here from Metafilter. I will make a point to read some of his books now. That’s a choice I get to make, to support his speech.
I am a redditor and I read the thread yesterday, and as a rape survivor, I was horrified by 95% of it. Reddit is full of crap threads about “friend zoning” and other items that explain why men feel entitled to women’s bodies and I know alllll about their frustrations when they find they have no access to women’s bodies. Sorry, but the larger subreddits are full of pigs.
>Sorry, but the larger world is full of pigs.
And, oddly, people get to choose to disassociate themselves from pigs with whom they are voluntarily in contact.
>If you really supported free speech you would use your AmA as a platform to not only promote your book but to give your views on this issue to more people than actually view this website.
+1
I’m genuinely curious to know what you see as grandstanding here.
Mr. Hines, thank you for your blog post. I found myself drawn into this debacle, and it has really made me reconsider how I use this website. I found myself having to explain basic ideas of morality to a couple of the posters there, and it showed an astounding lack of thought and maturity on the part of the posters. I eventually had to leave the discussion because it just wasn’t getting through. It was good to read your blog post.
“Will you also be quitting the internet (reddit) because some ISPs (subreddits) allow their users to transfer immoral materials like child pornography (that god-awful rape thread)?”
This is hilarious because a sizable chunk of reddit was basically trading CP in plain sight until earlier this year.
Please, though, everyone continue throwing a tantrum about how someone exercising their right to disagree with how a private entity conducts itself is a grave affront to free speech. No, seriously. Keep doing it. It’s amazing.
A sizeable chunk? It was a few users trading it via PMs on a site that has more users than some countries have people.
“A few users” doesn’t match the accounts I’ve read, but even if you’re correct, how much child pornography trafficking do you think is acceptable?
If a forum allows private messages, it is impossible to prevent illegal actions. All content was immediately removed when reported and no doubt reported to the pertinent authorities. If child abuse images were permitted on reddit, do you think reddit would still be operating?
Yeah, Jim. Do you think Gmail should be required to read every email message and decide whether it is morally acceptable?
This is exactly how fascism begins.
Absolutely none. Facebook also has incidents where people PM child porn. Is it fair to then brand all Facebook users as CP traders?
Absolutely none. So you approve of censoring Reddit users, and taking away their freedom of speech and expression when it comes to child pornography?
I approve of Reddit removing illegal content.
this guy gets it
That’s a completely different kind of censorship. Posting child pornography is an illegal activity. Talking about how you were convicted for rape is not.
Hines, I respect you, but in what world is posting pornographic PICTURES of children the same as having a DISCUSSION about rape?? Removing illegal content is not censoring. Removing a TEXT post because SOME of the users find it offensive (even if they all should) is censoring… removing any post because it’s offensive and not illegal is censorship. I’m so disappointed you cannot see the difference.
Sigh. This would be an easier conversation if people weren’t using a half-dozen different definitions of censorship.
I have no problem with people hosting a discussion about rape, as evidenced in part by the number of such discussions I’ve initiated and hosted here.
My point about child pornography was in response to various, “Why do you hate FREEDOM OF SPEECH!” comments, to make the point that freedom of speech is not unlimited, nor should it be.
I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but I can’t take responsibility for the rest of what you’re reading into this.
>I have no problem with people hosting a discussion about rape, as evidenced in part by the number of such discussions I’ve initiated and hosted here.
But you won’t do your AMA unless they take down something you have no problem with them keeping up…?
Wow Jim. You clearly need to read up on these philosophical issues before making hay about them. You seem to have not even worked through the most rudimentary arguments for and against differing forms of free speech an censorship.
How to deal with illegal activity has little or nothing to do with the free speech issues you’ve brought up. The issues around the non-illegal posting of legal pictures of young people are complex. No one was confused about what to do about illegal activity. You call the police.
Your failure to be able to separate these leads me to believe you have not considered this issue very seriously past your immediate emotional reactions to what you do and don’t like.
If this is how the community has decided to view Violentacrez’s little rallying cry then, honestly? I am truly sorry. I don’t want one of the most popular websites on the net to be terrible. I’d love for it to at least be a vaguely positive place, with a net positive impact on its surroundings.
But the message I’m getting here is that you guys haven’t learned, and the only time you as a community develop anything approaching empathy, it’s when something affects you all personally. Your administrators are fine with people swiping pics of children off facebook and exploiting them for the erotic pleasure of at least thousands of adults spread out across multiple subreddits, all of them exclusively focusing on at least the sexualization of minors, and at most the trading of what in any courtroom would amount to child pornography (a kid doesn’t have to be naked and getting molested for something to be CP, y’all). And what do the admins say? ‘Don’t leave pictures of yourself lying around the internet.’ Tough love, right?
Well, here’s some tough love coming from the rest of the world, and I could just kiss Jim on the mouth for being as reasonable and adult about it as he’s been. Reddit is developing a horrible reputation, and it’s all because you guys pretend that you have nothing to do with each other and refuse to moderate your community’s behavior. Why do you think people are so quick to assume that your rape confessional thread is horrible and filled with horribleness? Seriously, think about it. Like it or not, you’re judged by the company you keep. And Reddit has decided that its company is anyone, and they can say and do anything, and if anyone has a problem with it, with the community, with the atmosphere, well they must hate free speech. And that’s fine. It’s within your rights (when it’s not CP) to create that kind of community.
But this is what you asked for. If you want to be the wild west of the internet, that’s great. Just don’t expect the rest of civilization to sit down and make themselves at home.
Not all of us jump on the “we should accept all free speech” bandwagon. There are rabid defenders of “free speech at all costs, and to hell with anyone offended,” but I wouldn’t paint most of us with that brush. Most of us never see anything like the rape thread, and if we do, we remove that subreddit from the list of things we see. Reddit itself is a platform, the individual subreddits are the communities.
I avoided joining reddit for a long time because all I saw were the default subreddits. Now I never see them and it’s not even the same site in my mind.
That said, I can’t fault Jim’s decision.
It’s difficult to explain the way most of us see reddit to people who aren’t redditors. “Yes, I’m a redditor, but my reddit is different than the one you’re thinking of.” It’s still the same company. /r/Fantasy may be moderated by a few great folks and populated by the same, but reddit is corporate-owned and that company is making money off of the rape discussion and pictures of dead kids. If someone refuses to get involved in that, I can’t fault him.
I understand, you’ve found a nice group of people there. Obviously you’re not all foaming at the mouth, otherwise this second AMA wouldn’t have ever come up at all.
And there will always be a few bad apples in any community. I’ve got Redditor friends, I know they’re not rape apologists or anything like that.
But the foundations just seem so cancerous to me. I’m not sure it’s fair to paint Reddit as simply a platform when ‘Reddit Culture’ is a thing that exists. The stereotypical Redditor is a thing that exists in people’s minds. The in jokes, memes, references, etc, these are all communal things that preclude it from just being a platform. Simple platforms don’t usually come with political manifestos. And if they did, you wouldn’t fault someone for not using it.
And if at the end of the day you find yourself repeating things like “yeah, but I’m not like *those* redditors”, well…do I need to say it? Why would you good people want to stay? There’s got to be healthier communities out there that would love to have you, you could even make your own.
Sorry for sounding like something very close to a condescending ass, I really do appreciate you representing your fantasy community so well.
Any disgruntled anti-rape people are welcome to come to Enter the Fray: http://www.enterthefray.org/forum/index.php? We debate things, even things like rape, but it’s mostly respectful.
Sorry Mr Hines – hope that plug is okay. If not, please just delete.
No worries. I’m not familiar with the site, but the comment and link seem to be on-topic, so it’s all good.
Tomato, I want to kiss YOU on the mouth!
If you’d let me, of course.
This is exactly how I feel about reddit. And the feeling only becomes stronger the longer I use the site.
It’s a hole filled with hate.
“A few users” trading CP?
Dude, the /r/jailbait reddit was listed on the google index page 1 of reddit. It wasnt just publically traded, but the subreddit was listed on reddits google sitemap so google could find it. That was almost certainly a decision by someone at Reddit HQ.
I’m a redditor and I’d like to say that there’s absolutely no unity between communities. These days, we select which subreddits (or forums) we see when we log in. I’ve attached a screenshot to the bottom of my comment to show you this. In other words, reddit isn’t a single community, but is instead hundreds or even thousands of smaller communities. Unless we want to, we never see a particular subreddit.
Some of those communities are disgusting and do hide behind free speech in order to do disgusting things – I won’t discuss some of the subreddits I’ve stumbled upon through links that left me in shock, but I will say that this discussion on rape isn’t the worst thing you’ll find there.
Most of the communities are like /r/fantasy – people come together to discuss one particular thing that interests them. It’s really hard to judge “reddit” as a whole, and I ask that you look at he particular communities, instead. Nothing like that discussion could ever happen in /r/fantasy. I’m positive that it would be squashed by the community itself before a mod ever had to jump in.
I understand your desire to avoid a community that glorifies rape, but /r/fantasy is not that community. I hope you reconsider. http://i.imgur.com/DC35C.png
Thanks, Matt. I’m definitely reading and listening to the comments put forth by the Reddit community. I think there are a lot of awesome people in the /r/fantasy community, and I had a blast the first time I did an AMA over there.
Ultimately though, I’ve got to do what feels right to me.
I understand your decision, even if I disagree with it.
The thread wasn’t intended to praise rapists at all. You can’t ignore these people exist, and perhaps someone might have learned something from the thread. You’re letting trolls/general idiots win here and that’s about the whole of it.
I certainly don’t think we should ignore that rapists exist, and I acknowledged that some people had taken positive things from the discussion.
He doesn’t think we should ignore that they exist, he thinks we should ignore ALL INTERNET SERVICES that rapists use.
I have no idea whether what Jim did was logical or not. I admire that he is prepared to take a stand though and the debate about free speech it has generated is interesting. If we have the right to free speech then we also have the right to not agree with some of it and respond to that in our own way. We can debate, argue, leave or withdraw our custom. A company who thinks it might lose money or reputation might start looking at things differently if more people did as Jim did. But who knows?
Just out of interest; if this thread was how people who had got away with murder felt about it now and were allowed to re-tell what they did would it still be allowed on Reddit?
On reddit as a whole? Yes. On most subreddits? No.
That is truly gruesome.
I am taking a stand! Macaroni salad is the best tile grout you can buy! I don’t care what you say!
I have no idea whether what I just said is logical or not, but I’ll bet you admire me
Okay, the trolling is annoying and boring, but the macaroni salad bit was funny.
You could always do an Ask Me Anything on your blog. I’m guessing anyone who was going to come to reddit would come to the blog, too. Sarah Monette did something similar when Corambis came out, and it was awesome all over.
As always, <3 for being a vocal ally for women, survivors and folks who’s voices are not always heeded.
I think the issue wasn’t about people coming to reddit to see Jim’s AMA. It was about Jim interacting with a community of over 17,000 users (the current number of r/Fantasy subscribers), along with whoever else was going to come along.
Information should be free. Actions should be controlled. You are supporting suppressing information, which inevitably will lead to uncontrolled actions. You are hurting your own cause. No one is going to unintentionally read a Reddit thread and suddenly decide to rape. Rapists do not need or want a Reddit thread to help them rape. Rape is an astounding part of society, with ~1 million women raped by men annually, same-sex rape is wildly unreported enough for statistics but some say rivals male->female rape, and female->male rape is basically ungoverned and taboo to talk about by societal standards. This being the case, the more information that can be spread, the better. The biggest power rape holds is that it silences victims, and you are now contributing to that rather than supporting. Isn’t it always better to give a voice to the voiceless so that cooler heads can prevail? I fully expect you to delete this with all the other critical comments I don’t see in your replies.
I haven’t seen anything deleted, and I’ve been watching this post all day.
My thoughts on comment moderation are here. My blog is not an unmoderated space, but I haven’t felt the need to delete any comments yet. (I hope you won’t take that as a challenge.)
As for not seeing any critical comments, um … might I suggest you slow down and read a little more closely?
Thing is this type of unmoderated thread does not give a voice to the victims. It gives rapists out there validation. ‘Oh look all these guys do what I do – might not be so wrong after all?’
I am genuinely interested in what people really mean by freedom of speech and what would definitely not be allowed on something like Reddit (which i know very little about) and why.
“I am genuinely interested in what people really mean by freedom of speech and what would definitely not be allowed on something like Reddit (which i know very little about) and why.”
On reddit as a whole, anything is allowed that isn’t illegal in the US. It’s like that because the site owners (and frankly, probably most of the users) want it like that. Some users post the most disgusting, offensive things they can find *just to exercise their right to free speech.* Think of a million little Larry Flynts, all using the same url to share pictures and stories.
Most subreddits wouldn’t allow those things, but most subreddits are relatively small. While I have no data to back this completely anecdotal observation up, I generally see 1000 – 15000 subscribers in the smaller subs, and among those, I’d guess that less than a quarter (if that) are active commenters – maybe 10% are active posters. A rape discussion on /r/fantasy or /r/PrintSF would be squashed unless it was about the presentation of rape in fantasy or science fiction literature.
The big subreddits are different. /r/videos, /r/pics, /r/funny, /r/wtf, /r/askreddit – there are hundreds of thousands (and even millions) of subscribers on these forums. Within their self-imposed rules, found on the right side of the page, anything goes. Comments in those subs go incredibly far off topic and generally devolve into blatant racism, sometimes ironic, but usually genuine.
Matt – I just wanted to say I appreciate your comments here, and you sharing your experience and perspective on Reddit. Thanks.
I’ve found some really great communities in isolated subreddits, but I’ve also felt the same level of disgust at what goes on elsewhere on the site that you do. If there was another place that had such great aggregated information for all of my interests, I’d abandon reddit in a second. /r/fantasy, /r/printSF, /r/startrek, /r/writing, /r/literature and about a half-dozen other small subs are great, respectful, and friendly communities. It would be nice if they were transplanted elsewhere.
Thanks. I suppose ‘birds of a feather flock together’ and we turn to tribes even on theineternet! At least most of the scumbags are contained in one place!
Heather, I think it’s important to note that there are regular threads on AskReddit that discuss rape from all different perspectives: the victim, a friend, a loved one, etc. If you don’t believe me:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/search?q=rape+victim&sort=top&restrict_sr=on
It’s not as though there is no voice for a victim of rape. Victims of rape come to AskReddit for anonymous advice sometimes and I feel that the community as a whole benefits from being able to participate and help in such discussions.
My point is that you are not silencing rape victims by having a discussion that is for rapists and alleged rapists to come forward. It would be a similar argument to say that if someone creates a thread asking people who prefer movies over television why they feel that way, then that thread silences the voices of those who prefer television over movies. It isn’t that those people are being silenced; it’s purely that their perspectives on the issue was not the point of creating the thread.
I might or might not agree with Mr. Hines’ reaction.
But I find the swollen sense of entitlement of some Redditors to be distasteful.
Mr. Hines gets to react to things however he want. Human reactions to things are idiosyncratic. Mr. Hines saying “gross, I don’t want to have anything to do with these people or anyone associated with them” is free expression as surely as is the thread he is reacting to.
Redditor’s sense of entitlement?
How about Mr. Hines sense of entitlement?
“Remove this post or I’m not doing an AMA”
It’s one thing for him to decide not to the AMA, but another thing entirely asking that Reddit censor legitimate content.
Honestly, I think that Mr Hines only wrote this article to stir up controversy and get more free publicity from Reddit.
I appreciate what you are doing, Jim, but if you are going to publicly make a moral stand like this please pull your books from Amazon and B&N. They host material far more damaging than the Reddit rapist AMA. There are plenty of books, novella, and other media promoting Rape Fantasy which goes quite far in reinforcing the rape culture which still exists in society. Additionally there far more examples of how to commit a rape written into the books these retailers sell than are in an obscure Reddit thread.
It’s one thing to kill your own AMA and garner more support from you fans, but will you really take a stand when it affects your check book?
It’s interesting that you think backing out of a spotlight discussion in a community with 17,000 fantasy fans doesn’t affect my checkbook.
I have a hard time believing that most of us who currently buy your books would stop because you cancelled an interview, especially an AMA on Reddit. However, removing access certainly would. It’s anecdotal, but I would never have read the Goblin Series, which got me into your writing, had I not seen it recommended on Amazon.
I can’t fault you for a moment for the work you’ve done in the victim support and education arenas, and I certainly don’t really want you to pull your books but you made the statement that you couldn’t participate on Reddit because of the type of material hosted there all the while selling your books on Amazon which stocks and sells things that are much worse in this same vein. I believe if someone steps up to make the moral argument they should follow it through to it’s logical conclusions.
Making a stand on Reddit like this will bring you positive support and I would be hard pressed to believe people will decide not to buy your next book because of this. However, pulling from the major retailers would have a direct and immediate negative impact on your livelihood. One really cannot really take the moral stand only when it’s beneficial and shying away when it isn’t. That’s just marketing and if I may be frank, I think you are much stronger and braver than that.
I would like to see you reinstate your AMA and use that platform to discuss not only your writing but your works to improve society.
Fair enough. I was looking at it as the loss of potential new readers. I think you’re right and I doubt many of my current fans are going to stop reading me over this. (Probably a few, but there’s always going to be someone who does that, pretty much no matter what you say or do.)
I’m still not sure which side of this debate I come down on, but Simon raises a fantastically intriguing point which you entirely failed to respond to. Given the equally offensive content sold by Amazon and B&N, will you also be withdrawing your material from their sites? If not, why the different standard?
I understand why you’re making this choice and I am all in favor of you doing what you think is the right thing to do. That said, I don’t know that it’s really a logical choice. That’s fine, logic isn’t the only thing involved in choices nor should it be and being grossed out by the association is a completely legitimate reason not to do it, but it does have the air of giving an entire class a zero because one student didn’t turn the assignment in.
I am not a big fan of Reddit and that thread was difficult to read. There were only two kinds of commenters: rape apologists and rape victims reading every post to see if maybe their rapist had written about them. It was twisted.
Agree or disagree about whether that does more harm than good, agree or disagree about the value of free speech in this case, but I think that you’re only punishing people who support you and not those who created and promoted that thread. It’s like refusing to work with wikipedia because their article about rape doesn’t condemn the crime. That’s a legitimate thing to be bothered by, but it’s not the point of the site and your punishment implies, rightly or wrongly, harsh judgment on those who continue to associate or don’t feel one flaw justifies rejecting the whole.
Just my thoughts, I don’t really comment here, I think you’re a wonderful writer, please don’t take this as an attempt to be mean or anything, it is not meant that way.
Ashley,
It didn’t come across as mean or unkind in the slightest.
I understand people describing my choice as a punishment or an ultimatum. I might not necessarily agree, but I see where they’re coming from. In the end though, right or wrong, this was the choice that allowed me to sleep last night, if that makes sense?
Thanks for commenting.
Well, for those that are disappointed, it’s not like you don’t answer questions in the comments of your own blog. A mixed blessing that your presence is something people are sad to lose, just a testament to the fact that people recognize your awesomeness
Really? Because he never answered my questions in his own blog.
RE: the “child porn” thing — what the deniers are saying is that there weren’t explicit nude pictures of children, or pictures of children in sexual acts. There do not seem to have been such in public forums, though what triggered the shutdown was somebody suggesting he had some and being bombarded with private messages asking him to share it.
What there *was* was an immense forum dedicated to sharing pictures of children in varying degrees of scantily-cladness, many of them stolen from innocent contexts, and presented in a sexual context (the forum was called “jailbait”). Legally, that is a form of child porn, softcore though it may be, and it was not only tolerated by the site owners, it was one of the most popular subreddits of all till it was the subject of a piece by Anderson Cooper. And after it was shut down, a horde of others sprung up in its wake, which were themselves not shut down, for many months, before a group of Reddit users decided to publicize them to as many news outlets as possible, at which time they were “reluctantly” shut down.
Reddit has a huge problem with misogyny and rape apology. Nerd culture in general has a big misogyny problem. Jim is doing the only responsible thing by not *literally putting himself in the same category as a serial rapist* by being the subject of a Reddit AMA.
I hope more people follow his lead and the moderators of Reddit somehow grow a goddamn conscience.
Though honestly they’ve had many chances and do not have a good track record.
May I remind everybody that while the “technically child porn but not hardcore child porn” subreddits are gone, http://www.reddit.com/r/beatingwomen still exists, despite many calls for it to be shut down.
Let me repeat that.
http://www.reddit.com/r/beatingwomen still exists, despite many calls for it to be shut down.
http://www.reddit.com/r/rapingwomen also still exists, despite many calls for it to be shut down.
(TW: DO NOT EVEN GO THERE.)
REDDIT WILL NOT SHUT DOWN SUBREDDITS SPECIFICALLY DEDICATED TO DEPICTIONS OF WOMEN BEING BEATEN AND RAPED.
These fora have been there for *years*, there have been complaints about them for *years,* and they are still there. And many others just as awful.
Is it any wonder that the rapist AMA was filled with rape apology, on a site that explicitly
And Jim doesn’t want to be part of a site that allows that? That encourages that? Well how terribly, terribly un-PC of him
As long as it’s free speech that is legally protected in the USA, Reddit will continue to allow it.
Thank you for posting this. I am not yet a fan of your work, but I will be purchasing a copy today based solely on this excellent post.
I dislike the way you have polarized reddit. You’re judging millions based on the actions of a few and I feel many readers of your blog now have an incomplete picture of what reddit is really like. Reddit is a bastion of free speech and with that comes a few undesirable elements but we hold that the greater good will always prevail. I have been turned on to very many new authors thanks to r/fantasy AMA’s yours being one of them Mr. Hines. r/fantasy is one of the most respectful fantasy forums I have ever seen on the internet and has greatly increased my exposure to the fantasy genre.
I will ask that you be consistent by abandoning other social media sites like facebook and twitter if you ever see something taboo discussed there.
There were 11,000 comments on that post the last time I checked, and a commenter just above you has pointed to communities about beating and raping women. I disagree with your characterization of this as the actions of a few.
That said, I agree with you that there are some wonderful people on Reddit, too. Like I said, I had a blast doing an AMA there earlier this year.
But in my opinion, based in part on some of the comments and examples that have been brought up here, this does not appear to be an isolated thing. And I personally don’t feel comfortable participating at Reddit.
I understand and respect that you disagree with me, but I hope you’ll respect my choice as well.
Thanks,
Jim
11,000 comments does not equal 11,000 rapists and rape apologists.
That’s true enough. I still disagree with your characterization.
What a cherry-picked argument. Two subs, sparsely subscribed (remembe?, Redditors number in the millions) widely hated among Redditors, out of thousands? And as another pointed out, 11K comments is very different from 11K apologists. Seems an awfully thin premise for dragging a site through the mud.
You mean someone posted something you don’t like on the internet, BIG DEAL. It happens everywhere so you can go crusade there too if you want to make such a big stink go do it everywhere, don’t just take pot shots at what you said yourself was a community that “prides itself on a relative lack of moderation” I mean what are you expecting really. You went next to the stove and said damn that’s hot, yeah we know it is please shut up. So basically it comes down to this looking like an advertising ploy to stir things up and get your name out there.
Good on you, sir!
I have never read your books, but I will certainly look into them now.
I support your choice and for many of us who are assault survivors on reddit, that thread was a complete horror show.
Salon has also done a (better, in my opinion) article on the event. You can find it here: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/27/inside_the_mind_of_a_serial_rapist/
I cannot stress strongly enough how thoroughly I support your choice to distance yourself from the whole community based on its actions.
I look forward to reading your work!
Good on you, really.
I don’t find it surprising that redditors feel that their mythical “free speech” trumps your free association. Free speech doesn’t mean speech free of consequences.
Jim Hines, you’ve just gone to the top of my “Books to buy” list (and your blog has been added to my feed). Thanks for taking a stand on this issue.
To be pedantic, in the US, freedom of speech is enshrined in the first amendment to the constitution, and freedom of association is derived from freedom of speech. I fully agree with the rest of your post. In fact, here’s something I just said on Reddit:
Freedom of speech means that the government can’t control speech. People can still demand things, and you can choose to accept or reject those demands, but you should know that speech has consequences.
_____
That’s fine, we can talk about it in the context of reddit. Reddit admins guarantee freedom of legal speech. There will be no consequences from reddit admins for any legal speech.
But there are still consequences for speech from others. Among those consequences is the fact that some people won’t want to associate with you if you (using a generalized, plural “you”) post things that disgust and offend them. It’s John Doe’s right to spout obscenities all day long, just as much as it’s my right to not let him in the house.
Similarly, it’s Dan Cathy’s right to say that he abhors homosexuality just as much as it’s your right to avoid shopping at chick-fil-a and supporting his ideals.
Your post doesn’t make much sense.
Freedom of Association is the right to choose who you are associated with, and freedom of speech is the right to not be censored.
So what does it mean when you say (translated):
“I don’t find it surprising that Redditors feel that their mythical right to not be censored trumps your right to choose who you are associated with.” <– See how freedom of speech and freedom of association aren’t really related to each other in this context, and the sentence doesn’t make any logical sense?
Thank you. I wish more men would take your stance as being part of the solution of rape rather than seeing it as a “woman’s issue.”
I am an avid fantasy reader but haven’t yet read your books. I will use your links to give your books a try.
So if it wasn’t for the rape thread you would have done an AMA.
That means you like associating yourself with racists, because there was a bunch of racist threads in /r/videos just days before and you were willing to do an AMA then.
This means you don’t give a damn about minorities of racist piece of shit.
I’ve spent several minutes trying to imagine what a “minority of racist piece of shit” would be…
This caused me to do one of those “caught by surprise” barks of laughter, so loud that it scared the dog out of a sound sleep.
If it’s any consolation on the loss of exposure from the original AMA, I might not have read that AMA, but I did find this link from Reddit’s front page. I hadn’t heard of you before (no offense), but your name is now firmly engrained in my mind. I respect you for standing up for your beliefs, and I fully intend on heading out this next week and picking up a book in support.
Excellent decision sir. The ‘net should be free of censorship, but that doesn’t mean we can’t choose with whom we will associate. I don’t want to be near them, and I’m glad you don’t as well.
Thank you for doing this. I am a reddit user who has been appalled by many of the facets of the community that have been discussed here. I hope your stance will encourage others to follow suit. The site moderators and admins need this kind of pressure to do the right thing.
Good for you! That thread was disgusting and reddit is rife with misogyny.
Thank you so much for backing out of this. I haven’t checked out your writing before now, but you’ve earned yourself a fan. That thread was disgusting and I’m glad to see people are standing up against it.
When declaring that Jim’s decision about how and where to promote his work, spend his time, or participate in online communities is a failure to respect freedom of speech, people would do well to remember that your (or anyone else’s) freedom to express yourself does not include the right to be taken seriously, to be respected, or to be humored by people who find your speech repellant.
Hey Jim, first off, even though I don’t agree with your decision I want to thank you for opening an interesting discussion, which is somewhat ironic given the circumstances… but that’s not the point I want to make.
You’re making a living in the fantasy genre which, even in the hands of it’s most talented creators has turned out female characters in exploitative positions, I’m not saying that you, personally, have put female characters in rape-danger to heighten tension, etc. But I think it’s a common trope going back to the likes of masters like Robert E. Howard and current favorites like George R.R. Martin.
It wouldn’t be fair to judge your work by the atandards of others and, in this case, I don’t think it’s fair to judge all of reddit because of one thread you took issue with. Certainly not fair to judge /r/fantasy unless there’s something specific there that upset you.
Thanks, Jordan. That’s an interesting analogy, and I certainly agree with you that SF/F has a rather problematic history in any number of respects.
Instead of comparing it to the genre as a whole, I’d probably liken it to a specific publisher. A publisher can produce a range of books, but if a publisher shows a tendency to publish things I find hurtful and offensive, I’m much less likely to support that publisher. Which sucks, because it might mean authors who have no control over who else is getting published there end up getting hurt by association.
I’ll definitely admit that it’s not a perfect solution. But it’s the choice that lets me live with myself, if that makes sense?
Thank you.
I believe that there is a difference between freedom of speech, and freedom of action. By providing a place for the approbation of rape, Reddit is providing freedom of action, not just of speech.
I’m positive that the only people that were providing approbation for rape are trolls as the commenter below me has stated. You dont feed those. They make it pretty clear that it’s a bad thing but that doesn’t change what happend and the fact that people should talk about it instead of it being some boogieman hiding in the dark.
The posts in that thread that received the most attention were likely trolls. Remember the part about not feeding them.
Well, the thread discussing this in r/fantasy now has more posts than your first AMA, so I guess the little controversy that your sanctimonious posturing has stirred up is officially the most interesting thing you have ever created.
What? More interesting than my LOL Books? Okay, *now* I’m depressed.
Jim, I have never read any of your books! Sorry about that, I’d like to, but I fully support your decision to not grace reddit with your presence. Free speech is fantastic until it empowers shitlords such as rapists. Argument to the contrary, on how rapists deserve to be empowered like anybody else, will be ignored. It’s disgusting.
There is absolutely zero need or reason to apologize for not having read my stuff.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I recently responded to one of the more “popular” threads in the category and I am absolutely disgusted at the piece of shit who thought up the Rapist AMA in the first place. Should I start up a Child Molester AMA, then, if it’s okay to allow these scum creatures to “tell their side of the story” in order to boast about it or make people believe that THEY’RE the victim? Why not open such an AMA for those who claim to enjoy “learning what the attacker was thinking”? ‘Cause damn the actual victims – we want to give the attacker a voice, right?
Pathetic.
It’s hilarious to see so many people so excited to be upset over something. I guess it gives your lives meaning.
Thank you. Reddit was the wrong place for a discussion like this.
“I think people should have the right to free speech, I just don’t think anyone should support that right when I disagree with it.”
This is like not going on a radio show because you heard a radio show one time that you disagreed with.
I’m a woman who has been raped and a two-year Redditor. My experience with Reddit is rarely a positive one when it comes to issues regarding my sex. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the internet is a hostile place for women and that rape is a topic that is still not taken seriously enough. Rather than turn a blind eye to the misogyny that exists in Western culture, I — like you — choose to speak out against it. I thank you, Mr. Hines, for adding your voice to the choir of people who are saying, “This is unacceptable and needs to change.”
I think a better solution is that more women need to be ON Reddit to make our voices heard. It’ll balance out the crowd and change the tone of discussion. I honestly believe this is a better idea, than abstaining from it.
Mr. Hines,
I don’t know you or your books. I have never heard of you or of them before today. But as a writer myself, the idea that a fellow writer would openly call for censorship is disgusting. Can you imagine the next step? “I refuse to do an AMA if Jim C. Hines is allowed to do an AMA!” and so on. Where does this get us?
I myself have been a victim of a false rape accusation. While I did not participate in the thread in question, I did read it closely, and found a lot of solace and comfort in the fact that others had had similar experiences. It also helped crystalize in my thoughts what really was rape, as described by actual rapists, and how their acts were quite distinct from anything I had ever done.
Any speech is going to be viewed negatively by someone. But so long as one person finds something positive in it — even if it be only the speaker — I have a hard time condemning it. I will condemn the content, certainly, if I disagree with it. But I don’t condemn the act.
Paraphrasing Justice Brandeis, “The solution to bad speech is more speech.” You will find this sentiment echoed across the Internet.
If I were of a more cynical bent, I’d suggest you were publicly withdrawing from the AMA precisely to generate more media attention than you would have otherwise gotten had you gone ahead with it. But that would be unfair. As I said, I don’t know you, and I don’t know your books.
But given the attitude you’ve displayed, I have no interest in knowing them, either.
Bruce
When will you be stopping use of Twitter? The tweets I’ve read on there are just as bad or worse than anything you have mentioned. Twitter has done nothing to censor them.
How about livejournal? Lots of rape fantasy and pictures of scantily clad girls that are under 18. Flickr has those pictures too.
What if I were to start a big commotion since the hosting you use also hosts degrading porn sites, bigotry, hate speech, pro anorexia sites, a site that encourages suicide, and etc?
Reddit is a host. Users can create their own community. Greyware and Verizon are hosts. This website is your community. Using your logic I should disassociate myself from you and your community since I find what goes on elsewhere at the host to be reprehensible.
“I will not be doing it unless that thread is removed.”
Goodbye you fucking fascist!!!
Female Redditor here–you do realize a lot of people on Reddit troll and make up stories for “points”, right? I know some of the threads on Reddit are creepy, but most of the people posting in them are liars. You have to learn to ignore them.
For me, Reddit is helpful because I can tune in to my particular city’s subforum, where people list events and fun things to attend, that I had no clue were happening otherwise. Same for a subforum dedicated to my university. It’s a great way to communicate with other people like me (young, otherwise stuck looking for announcements on unhelpful newspaper bulletins for events, or looking at Craigslist).
I do understand your shock, but people on the internet lie. A lot. Don’t let their antics get to you.
I should probably add, since some commenters here are listing their association with rapes and whatnot–I was an assault victim once, but I stabbed the guy who attacked me. I had PTSD for the longest, but I’m well over it now. Conversations about rape don’t even phase me anymore.
Oh right, because men don’t actually rape women, they just lie about doing it on the internet for man points.
I’m sure there are some people telling the truth, but there are also people who are lying to make others angry. The problem is, you can’t tell who is who.
It doesn’t matter if even all of those submissions were made up, the (ridiculously highly upvoted) responding comments showing pity and supporting them is enough reason to want to disassociate oneself from reddit. I’m not saying all the responses should have been scornful but commending and telling them it wasn’t their fault is shows the site’s true mentality.
I think honestly, as a former assault victim? Maybe I’m just stronger than that or something, but it doesn’t bother me. Do I think those people are idiots? Yep. Do I think they’re pandering? Yeah. But I guarantee you, it’s nothing to get too upset over. Why? Because half of them don’t really mean what they say. To me, providing some space between yourself and what you read and see online, is one of the best ways to deal with the internet in general.
That’s great and all that it doesn’t bother you but that’s just your opinion and Jim has the right to voice his. You just seem to want to pretend that most of the things said in that thread was just people purposely being awful when we know that is not the case when it comes to most of reddit. Again, most of the crap supporting those rapist was upvoted extremely highly. You’re telling me hundreds of those people upvoting those comments didn’t really mean it and were just being “edgy”?
If it makes you feel better that this is my motive, then I don’t think I can convince you otherwise. But let me share another example with you of another website–Society6.
Now, Society6 is a website that is paired with some pretty prestigious art organizations, like Threadless and Milk Made. These places host very nice-looking art, that you can not only sell your work on, but get a lot of exposure that way. When you post work, people can upvote it there too. The most upvoted and visited works, get a spot on the front page, something coveted by many users.
One day, I visited Society6 and saw a picture of Mitt Romney, with the word “n****r” written across his eyes (actually spelled out, I’m just censoring it here). It made me upset to see that smack on the front page, so that it welcomed me every time I clicked on the site. What was worse? People were UPVOTING it. They upvoted and commented on how “edgy” it was. And they were using, supposedly, their real names in conjunction with their account to support that crap.
It’s unbelievable what people will upvote sometimes, right? Yeah. It is. Especially when those users left comments like, “Great work!” And “You’re such a great artist!”
To be frank, that thread is not the most offensive thing on Reddit. There are whole subreddits dedicated to glorifying violence especially towards women. Ever heard of /r/beatingwomen? What about /r/rapingwomen? /r/rapingretards? There are more than that, but even going on one of those is enough to make me sick. I’m glad to see you are able to say that post is not okay, but getting that post removed wouldn’t mean anything when they allow communities of people like that.
Anyone who goes on that site does so at their own risk, it is most certainly not a safe space.
Well done. I fully understand your position, and admire that you take it.
People say lots of hateful stuff on Facebook and Twitter too. Why are you still subscribed to those?
Jim, in February 2003 Dan Rather held an interview with Saddam Hussein. Should I boycott CBS because I don’t like Saddam Hussein?
Did CBS agree with Hussein’s ways and telling him that what he did wasn’t his fault? Seriously, purposely being obtuse isn’t going to help your case in anyway.
I commend you for sticking by your morals. I also found the thread fascinating, but in a morbid sort of way. I’ve been a member for a little over one year and for anyone who frequents the site they will be quick to realize there is a common trend once rape is mentioned. Most redditors will micro analyze ever aspect and detail in an attempt to argue that the situation might not really qualify as being rape. This leads to the strong majority opinion that most rapes are just false claims and that the victim is horrible for even considering pressing charges (and don’t even pretend that not all of reddit isn’t like that, the upvote/downvote system is a clear indicator of what the majority belief is and even a slight stray from the hivemind will completely bury your comment).
Back to the thread, what really disturbed me was how most of the perpetrators didn’t even seem to understand that what they did was rape and is completely reprehensible. They just made excuses about how they were drunk and/or horny and how even though what they did was wrong it wasn’t actually their fault because X. And then the responses were even worse. People commenting about how much it must have sucked for them and sympathizing with these rapist basically treating them like they were the true victims in the situation. I hadn’t even thought about how most of the submitters never mentioned being convicted or even arrested but it certainly is unsettling.
Not wanting to associate with all that is courageous and and admirable. You have just as much right to freedom of speech as they do and them getting angry about you not doing your AMA proves that they don’t support the very thing they are harking about when it goes against their beliefs.
It’s really sad, most people who commit crimes do tend to see themselves as victims.
I’m a pedestrian, and sometimes when I cross the street, someone will not pay attention to the red light. In the case of a person who almost hits me, I see a very familiar look on their face. I call it the “not me” face. Not me! It can’t happen to ME! Why? They’re “them”, they’re normal, they’re the good guy. Good guys don’t run people over or kill them, or rape people either. Voila, victim mentality.
tl;dr: In a community of Millions, I didn’t like some of them. Grow up jim.
It makes me extremely happy to see that people take notice of these deplorable types of people and discussions and doesn’t think “you’re brave for posting this have some internet cookies” and say it’s all okay. Rapists should give us their “insight into their minds” from behind bars. These people are still out there, and ready and willing to hurt more people. It’s disgusting to let them tell everyone how they feel and give them internet cookies for “being honest”. Anything that makes these people feel anything other than shame and disgust for their actions is not a good thing.
I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand. Reddit isn’t one entity that controls what’s frontpaged like a newspaper. Not one person really decides what’s discussed on the site. It’s one of the largest and most visited websites daily. It could be possible that the group of people you would’ve talked to could be completely different than the ones in the thread you mentioned. I think you were wrong to back out or even ask for the post to be taken down. In a way you punished the community more than you helped it.
Thank you. I watched Reddit over the last few years go from “kind of gross, but they’re just trolls at the bottom of the page” to an absolutely unreadable cesspit of racism and misogyny. I’d laugh at all the butthurt redditora in the thread do their usual song and dance of “I’m standing up for FREE SPEECH! Wait, how dare you take a stand for your beliefs?”, but at this point it’s just sad. :\
Suppose I am interviewing for a job, in a state with no protection for sexual orientation. Everything goes great, until at some point one random employee doing the interviewing says, “You know, I really don’t like gay people working here, so I’m glad you’re married to a woman.”
Based on this, I decline the job. Have I censored that employee?
Of course not. The idea is absurd. He can keep doing what he wants; I just decline to be a part of it.
Reasonable people can debate if they would have done the same thing in Mr Hines’ position. But to accuse Mr Hines of censoring anyone is nonsense. Free speech does not mean “no one is allowed to make any judgments or take any personal action whatsoever because of what someone said.”
Declining the job offer is one thing. What Jim did the equivalent of agreeing to do the job, and then saying, “Fire that employee, or I quit.” And yes, that would be censorship.
But it’s worse than that. The employee in question doesn’t even work at the same company as Jim; he works in a different company that’s owned by the same parent corporation. And he wasn’t even talking to Jim; he was talking about something else.
This is like an author refusing to be interviewed on ABC because Disney owns ABC and (at the time) also owned Miramax and made a movie said author found objectionable.
> This is like an author refusing to be interviewed on ABC because Disney owns ABC and (at the time) also owned Miramax and made a movie said author found objectionable.
And that would be entirely and completely within the author’s rights, and not be censorship in the least. In what imaginable way would that be censorship?
> And that would be entirely and completely within the author’s rights, and not be censorship in the least.
It would be entirely within his rights, but not at all reasonable. It would also be hypocritical. Is Mr. Hines refusing to associate with any professional SF writing organization considering they’ve included the likes of Orson Scott Card and Marion Zimmer Bradley? Of course not. His sanctimoniousness only goes so far; he has a career to consider.
> In what imaginable way would that be censorship?
I left that part of the analogy out because I thought it was obvious. It’s censorship because he didn’t simply refuse to do the interview; he said, “ABC, get Disney to censor all copies of that film and I’ll do the interview.”
> It’s censorship because he didn’t simply refuse to do the interview; he said, “ABC, get Disney to censor all copies of that film and I’ll do the interview.”
So, if Mr Hines had put it as, “Given the presence of this subreddit, I am not comfortable doing the AMA,” that would not be censorship, agreed? The *only* thing that makes it censorship is the request on his part to remove the subreddit?
I am not the commenter you replied to but yes, that would roughly be my take. Backing out of the Q and A is not a censorship issue. But using the decision to back out of the Q and A as a way to pressure the owners/moderators to censor the offending thread is. He’s still not censoring anything himself, but he’s trying to use whatever clout he has to persuade others to censor something.
> But using the decision to back out of the Q and A as a way to pressure the owners/moderators to censor the offending thread is.
Yet everyone, including Mr Hines, agrees that there is no realistic expectation of that happening, so I am having a hard time seeing the censoring here.
In any event, even if Reddit caved and deleted that subreddit, that would *still not be censorship*, because Reddit is a private, commercial site owned by the Newhouse family, and can publish and or not publish (or allow to be published or not published) anything it cares to for any reason. Everyone’s talked endlessly about how it is not a newspaper, and that’s true; thus, it has absolutely no duty to retain anything on its pages it does not want to.
That’s the only thing that makes it (attempted) censorship, yes.
Mind you, not participating in a reddit AMA because of this is still STUPID and HYPOCRITICAL for the other reasons I mentioned. But it wouldn’t be censorship.
Deleted the redundant comment for you.
Thanks but how about responding to the criticism I made elsewhere?
I’m not responding to everything. Mostly, I just don’t have time to write thoughtful/mindful responses to everyone’s questions and arguments. (And even writing some of the less-thoughtful comments I’ve posted takes time.) This has already taken up the majority of my time and energy today. Sorry.
And just to be clear, this “Reddit is a giant amorphous blob and NO ONE IS IN CONTROL” is nonsense. It’s a commercial website owned by Advance Publications, one of the largest media companies in the United States. They’ve made a business decision not to moderate or edit it, but that’s all it is; Reddit is not some magical wellspring of Free Speech.
But /r/fantasy isn’t in control of /r/askreddit, any more than ABC News controlled the content of Miramax. ABC News doesn’t even control all the content of ABC, let alone a different division of its parent company. (Note: Disney no longer owns Miramax.)
> But /r/fantasy isn’t in control of /r/askreddit, any more than ABC News controlled the content of Miramax.
So, every single subreddit is a different *legal entity*? Wow, think of the tax returns.
Please. They’re all just boards on a single site run by a single company. Reddit may not empower the mods of one subreddit to moderate another, but treating them as autonomous units is just an editorial convention, not a legal fact.
Why are you bringing legal entities in to this? It sounds like you don’t even know how reddit works.
The guy who runs /r/fantasy isn’t employed by reddit. Neither is the guy in /r/askreddit. Reddit simply owns a playground where two different groups have staked out areas to talk about stuff. The guy in /r/fantasy trying to get Mr. Hines to talk to them has no control over the guy in /r/askreddit that Mr. Hines thinks is bad, nor do they have any power to make reddit, who owns the playground, to kick them out.
What a douche you are. Like most others, I have never heard of you, nor care about an attempted AMA by you. But from what I can tell, you are a total douche trying to get your “white knight” on to push traffic to your site. You taking a “stand”, if we can call it that, is completely pointless and utterly useless. You don’t like that some people are rapists, so you won’t post on a web site. Yea, makes sense. (/s) And from reading some of your responses on here, you seem like a completely immature asshole. You act like your doing something noble, but deep down, you know you’re not. In that little head of yours, I know you thought about the “benefits” doing something like this might have. Such as getting to pretend you stand for such noble a cause. If doing this prevents even one half of one rape, I will eat my shoe. I have no respect for you at all.
Someone once sent me spam, so I stopped using email. I stand up for my values, just like you!
Someone in the comments said something offensive. I will not continue to make comments unless that other comment is removed.
Promise?
Let me preface this by saying that I am very far from being a rape apologist or anything ridiculous like that. I just think that you’re going to punish your fans for something that they had nothing to do with, because they use the same site as some (alleged) rapists. That’s stupid, are you going to cease to promote yourself on Facebook or interact with your fans on there because there are sick people that use that medium of communication too?
I have no idea who you are or what I’d be missing from another IAMA, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Take care.
One of your commenters made a comment, and now I blame your website for that comment. Disgusting!
REMOVE THAT COMMENT OR I WILL STOP COMMENTING! I’M SERIOUS!
The difference in your situation being that everyone wants you to stop commenting.
I know I promised to comment, but I won’t comment, unless another comment is removed. I respect the concept of freedom of speech, and the free flow of legal ideas/information, except now, because I don’t like it.
Dude, you really need to stop. Now you’re just being immature. I was respectful of your opinions before, but after seeing this behavior, you’ve lost me.
@ Woodman: I posted here before under the name “LifeisGrand,” (and no, I’m not trolling you).
I did this as a test to see if we can use a name previously employed by someone else. If my reply is posted, then the “Chris” who posted above you may or may not be the first “Chris.”
We don’t know.
Don’t know how much it matters, but the IP address confirms it’s the same Chris.
I would much prefer to see the world as it truly is than to live in a fantasy never acknowledging evil. We will never accomplish meaningful change if we can’t come to terms with reality
Well said. I understand Hines’ mindset, but I don’t agree with it. This is probably the best reason I’ve read in these comments so far.
Agreed, but I think there are many ways to acknowledge and come to terms with evil that don’t seem to support, excuse, or even reward it.
While I understand the resentment to being grouped together with alleged rapists on some board I never go to. I’m on reddit just for r/fantasy, and r/books. I don’t think resorting to name calling is helpful at all. I find it very distasteful and it does nothing to further a discussion.
What name calling are you referring to?
I both agree and disagree with you, Mr. Hines. I don’t think the thread should be taken down, though I do feel that it should never have been posted in the first place.
Nevertheless, I love the idea that there IS a place with mass appeal and enough safety to engage in such talk. The problem isn’t the thread itself though, it’s the class of people who were drawn to it. Not necessarily the rapists, but the sympathizers who may have vindicated the rapists, and THAT is where Reddit begins to falter.
It’s been said from some of the Reddit “Old-timers” who have been there for years that the integrity and quality of the site has plummeted in recent years. The “Endless September,” they call it. A site with such popularity is bound to attract people from all walks of life: teens, the uneducated, the socially incompetent, the immature, people who have done horrible things, victims, and perpetrators alike. And there are plenty from my generation that are just jaded and cynical and haven’t really experienced life. Ergot, threads such as the rape one are bound to be flooded with all these undesirable mindsets.
The website, it’s moderation, it’s infrastructure, etc. isn’t the problem. It’s the class of people that visit it. I’m not sure how you would remedy that. But, as with everything else in life, sometimes you tolerate the demons for the sake of an angel.
Interesting. Yeah, I’ve got no idea how to solve that one either, but thanks for this comment.
So much for free speech, eh, Mr. Hines?
The percentage of redditors engaged in that discussion is probably close to .01% of the regular posters on Reddit. I’m sorry Jim, but this is nothing but a glorious overreaction. Chik Fil A has a bigot for CEO but that doesn’t mean I have to stop using roads because people use roads to get to Chik Fil A.
I also did a AMA on Reddit and it was really a high point of my otherwise drab and dreary life. It does appear, however, that you are taking a slightly narrow view of just what Reddit, itself, is. From here Reddit seems to be something like a city with lots of amazing neighborhoods that can enrich the mind and spirit. But, like any large city, there are also neighborhoods that one should
It is true that it is sometimes better to light a small candle then it is to curse the darkness.
Good luck. I will be interested to see how you develop as a writer and thinker.
Be kind to yourself.
sdbear
Should read “there are neighborhood that one should not walk alone in, especially at night”
You said yourself that you have interviewed rapists. How many people really have the opportunity to do that? This may have been the only chance for a person to get specific answers to questions they may have. I personally came to terms with my rape through 4 years of hard therapy. Others may need this for their catharsis.
Aside from all that, freedom of speech means protecting that which you may not agree with.
That’s an interesting point. You’re right of course that some of my own experiences aren’t things that would work for everyone, and the specific interactive Q&A of the Reddit thread isn’t something you’d get out of the essays and research and such.
Most of the things I saw in that thread were things I had come across in the literature, but the interaction … that’s a piece I need to think about, thanks.
So brave.
How come I can’t downvote anything here?
By downvote, I mean rape.
Stop being an ass. Seriously. Just stop. You’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave, you’re not making much of a point, you’re not doing Reddit any favours, you’re just trolling, and you’re not even doing a good job at that. And if this was Reddit, you’d have been downvoted to oblivion and, depending on the subreddit in question, yes, banned.
AskReddit helped me deal with one of the most difficult situations in my life. I still talk to people I met in that thread and have received incredible support from the AR community. Generalizing and judging us all by things that were said in one question is insulting and offensive in so many ways. I haven’t read your books, I’m not a fan, I don’t care whether you do an AMA. I do have to speak up when a website that has been so supportive of me is slammed by some dude who only read one part of it, though.
Great post, Jimbo!
But your trigger warning wasn’t in a big enough font and now I’ve got a case of the sadsies.
I didn’t care for that thread myself. Went expecting to find interesting thoughts from rapists as it really isn’t something you get to read. Saw a lot of bullshit instead and it wasn’t interesting. I did my down voting and left.
However Mr Author I have never heard of before. You don’t have a fucking clue how reddit works. It’s an entirely different subreddit. I agree that the thread was wrong but you know what could have had more impact? Doing a fucking AMA and expressing your concern to the fucking audience you dipshit. If people value your work at all there is a chance they value your opinion. So instead of reaching out and possibly changing some minds about the issues with victim blaming. You take your ball and fucking go home, coming off like a complete ignorant prick.
Didn’t like the thread great, go cry some more fuck face.
It’s funny how many redditors are so up in arms about this as a “free speech” issue. Bull, free speech is all about the government restricting the rights of individuals to express themselves. Jim isn’t restricting reddit’s rights at all, just choosing not to participate.
Jim, I just wanted to extend a sincere thank you for this. It’s been reassuring to know I’m not the only person who’s found this unacceptable, and I appreciate you not furthering a for-profit company that has no interest in even basic standards. Please stand by your decision.
It is not just the existence of rapists but the rampant display of support and the clear evidence that the majority of the community has no problem excusing rape. One survivor posted her story, and in response a redditor said This thread is for stories of perpetrators, I just knew some dumb c— (not censored at reddit, obviously) would mess it up. That received a ton of upvotes. That kind of environment is not conducive to learning – it’s creating a pro-rape atmosphere.
Once again, thank you for taking a stand.
“[T]he majority of the community has no problem excusing rape.”
In December 2011, Reddit had 34,879,881 unique visitors. The thread in question had ~11,000 comments — assuming the highly unlikely case that every comment was from a unique user, it’s some 0.03% of the user base (probably far less if growth in the last six months has kept pace with the growth indicated in the blog post I linked above) that even commented in that thread. Even if every one of those had been a post by a rapist or an apologist, the math does not bear out your assertion.
I never wished for Mr. Hines to reinstate his event — he can do as he pleases. But I want to make it clear, this has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with Mr. Hines, and plenty of others in echoing him, tarring millions of people with a very foul brush indeed over the actions of the tiniest fraction of a community. I trust you understand if I don’t like being called an apologist.
Jim, thank you for giving your reason. I’ve been on Reddit over five years and witnessed the slow moral decline. What makes it worse us that some felt a need to comment and attack your character and opinion, as if you have no right. I’m very sad and scare for this sociopathic, selfish mindset of the majority.
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