For the record, I want to point out that the way that paragraph was framed and the context in which that statement was made means that you intended to speak of censorship in a scope that reaches far beyond Reddit. You were speaking of censorship in general, not just about Reddit or TRP.

I agree. I was just going to use it as an example. After all, if it's not a necessary evil, then it cannot be necessary ever (depending, one could actually parse that slightly differently, but that was my strict interpretation).

Anyway, the scope of this conversation doesn't matter. Let's compare and contrast Reddit with email as an example.

Sure.

Email was originally designed to be an open medium for communication. Spam and abuse was not heard of in the early days, and the entire system chugged away happily on the honor method. But because the Internet was mainly full of researchers and academics at the time, it worked. And it worked well.

Aye.

Indeed the idea of "open relay" SMTP servers was permitted---even encouraged---because "hey, I'm out in the field, and I need to get this message out." Reach for the nearest mail transport and off it goes, no questions asked. The idea was to achieve maximum ubiquity.

Yep. Kinda fit the general model of the Internet overall.

Any filtering of messages was performed by the users, by themselves, as they saw fit. There were no benevolent dictators or committees. Men were real men, women were real women, and it was a triumph of free speech. Few people whined and cried over what they read.

Ah, the halcyon days of yore.

When spamming started to make its appearance, the nerds were called in and were told "here, fix this." Nerds aren't perfect, and the solution that they came up with was quick and dirty, but most importantly it was wrong: the kind of censorship you speak of, where suspected spam is filtered or deleted (and I might add that false positives can and do happen). Nevertheless, it stuck, because it (mostly) worked.

Right.

A better approach would have been something like Hashcash, which raises the cost of sending email by requiring the sender to perform an expensive computation before the message is delivered (an analog of this over HTTP could be considered to be CAPTCHA). Email costs fractions of a penny in terms of electricity, which is why it became such a target for abuse. Raise the bar and it stems the tide.

I'm familiar with that one as well as similar approaches. I definitely agree that it's a far better solution than spam filters.

That's just one example where wholesale censorship is not necessary in the strictest sense of the word. It's optional. It works, but it's not the only way.

Right, I was parsing the necessary there slightly differently but you're right, it's not necessary in the sense of always required. I was parsing it as a denial of the necessity of it under any circumstances.

Free speech = say anything, but be aware of the cost and the consequences. Think first, be responsible, own your shit.

Right.

So, now what about publishing platforms like Reddit, or blogspamX or whatever. Two angles here: first, under the current model, they are legally required to censor under certain circumstances. Surely you agree it's necessary then?

Second, for considering hypothetical ideal models, do you advocate some type of broader and unlimited safe harbor laws for common carriers of information then? That is, an email provider is not responsible for anything their users send under any circumstances; Reddit wouldn't be responsible for anything its users post (depending, of course, on whether they qualified as common carrier, but for the purposes of this part of the discussion, assume a 'spherical Reddit', in this case, no censorship Reddit which is defined as a common carrier), etc.

4chan is amusing and I'm a /b/tard lurker and all, but despite the fact that I make Reddit == 4chan jokes from time to time too, it's not really a replacement for everything that Reddit is. TRP as it is here could not and would not be in 4chan. It's just a very different format.

Edit: I'm quite surprised that this is apparently the most controversial thing I've said here. Not sure whether it's because everyone hates /b/tards, rather reasonably, we tend to hate ourselves too, or if it's because everyone loves 4chan and thinks it's totally inconceivable to say that it can't replace Reddit. Or the typical hate on anyone who is seen to equate 4chan to /b/. For whatever the reason, I stand by my claim that TRP, as it is here, is not possible in the 4chan format. It's not about if the people are the same. "The Medium is the Message [or massage, but that's a whole other detail]".

Edit 2: And yes, I find /b/ more interesting than bodybuilding. I know, I know, fuck me. "Bro, do you even life?" No, no I do not. I understand its utility and there's a lot of good, healthy things I don't do. Like not smoking. Maybe someday. We all have our own priorities.

It's rather more complex than that. Are you familiar with the network effect? That's the bigger issue here.

Late reply because some tabs of messages bot buried in my browsers lol.

edit: oh, apparently these were only 20 min old; found message tabs I totally forgot about, figured it was older heh.

Again, you're seeing TBP as some standalone entity. It's not. It's one tiny part of SRS. If they win this campaign, they're not going to be bored. After all, there'll be all the lovely aftermath to chortle about, and looking for anything sympathizing with it throughout Reddit (TBP becomes an even closer SRS analogue at that point, just with more specialized focus). And then they can return to focusing on the MRAs. Or the PUA. Whatever. It's not hard to get more foils.

They're not afraid of us going away. This is like arguing army generals don't want to win a war because then it looks like they're useless. No, they don't want wars to end. Winning a couple campaigns is quite fine.

It could be. But it's not. It's just the standard timestamp stuff. The procedure has nothing to do with age. Nor was there any claim of any such issue on the posts in question. Also note that there are posts on the frontpage there without verification, although the top items are verified.

Edit: And they specifically say it's optional there:

We now offer optional verification for gonewild submitters! If you're up for it--and again this is totally optional--you can submit a picture of yourself with a sign that confirms your identity. Get approved by the mods and we'll slap a little "verified" badge next to your submissions. This is an opportunity for gorgeous submitters to demonstrate they are in fact real, or an opportunity for regular lookin fellas like me to feel special. Ha!

Yet on one of them in particular, I had messaged the poster out of curiosity to ask why it was removed and she said it was for verification. Thus:

So, secretly, the mods demand verification from anyone they want and remove it otherwise?

It's pretty straightforward. Again, I don't really care, it was just the sort of interesting detail about moderation a person can find out from following /r/undelete.

Edit 2: And again:

I'll say this one more time: Verification is an OPTIONAL means to confirm that your posts contain you, a real, live, sexy-ass redditor. When users call you out to submit verification, it's always your call whether or not you do it. Please note one exception, however: If a mod questions the authenticity of a submission, and fears the subject of the photos is being exploited (by an ex without permission, for example), we may take the post down. You'd have to verify in order to continue posting, for the protection of the person in the photos. We hope everyone can respect that.

So they leave themselves the option to demand it as mods if the "fear the subject [...] is being exploited". Again, no such allegation. But sure, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure that was their only motivation despite never saying that and there being no reason to suspect it.

It's just for their protection. Nothing to see here. This is totally optional, except that it's required.

Edit 3: Also, the mods made no comment on the posts they removed as I recall. On other subs, they at least tend to flair it with whatever rule was being violated or leave a message. Doesn't mean they aren't still making things up or being biased about it, but they at least say "this is because of rule X". I recall specifically looking for that and not seeing it. If they really were justifying it on the basis of "I'm afraid this isn't you and you're being exploited", one might suspect they would say so.

A lot of gone wild posters just post for the ego boost and validation and then delete their pics when it's over.

Duh? And?

They don't want that shit floating around the internet, but still want the compliments and ego boost.

...right? And guys want to fuck chicks bareback and not get stds. What's your point here?

Disgusting creatures.

I'm not sure you've fully digested the red pill.