Reddit, Gawker, and the new rules of online free speech
For all of you who do not religiously follow inane online drama, the past week has been an absolute soap opera on two of the web’s most popular websites. Reddit is a tremendously popular content aggregator where users vote on what content they find most interesting. Gawker is part of a popular family of news sites and mainly focuses on news about contemporary culture.
One of Reddit’s most infamous users was Michael Brutsch, aka Violentacrez who was responsible for creating or moderating various discussion groups or “subreddits” such as “Chokeabitch”, “Rapebait”, “Hitler”, and “Incest”. The main purpose of these subreddits was to piss off other redditors and the general public. Gawker ran an article revealing Violentacrez’s offline identity and Brutsch was unsurprisingly immediately fired from his job because most employers don’t want employees like that. What followed was a furious online brawl as Reddit accused Gawker of violating the free speech that is vital to the web site and Gawker claimed Reddit blocking all Gawker articles was itself a form of censorship.
Untangling this mess requires a new analysis of what constitutes acceptable online conduct. First, though, there are several facts that should be easy to agree on:
First, Violentacrez is pretty despicable. His actions can only be justified on free speech grounds. Second, Violentacrez is a moron. Nothing on the internet is private, and nothing is anonymous except in extremely specific settings. Reddit is not one of those. Violentacrez would be caught as soon as someone put in a serious effort to find him. Thus, the only real area of controversy is whether Violentacrez has a right to say what he wants on Reddit.
In this case, Reddit acted incorrectly. This situation reveals interesting aspects of the changing state of online privacy and free speech.
Free speech rights are not absolute – the classic example is that free speech does not allow one to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. The federal government does censor free speech online in some respects. For example, child pornography is illegal on Reddit as it is everywhere else. Merely angering people is not sufficient grounds for blocking speech rights however, and the federal government correctly did not overstep its bounds by censoring Violentacrez.
On the other hand, private corporations can fire employees for any reason that is not explicitly illegal. For example, the United States has made firing an employee due to race illegal. However, there is no law against firing an employee for being a creep online. Corporations can have more stringent restrictions on employee actions than the state can on the actions of citizens. This is because one chooses to be a member of a corporation, but typically has no choice on which state one belongs to.
Gawker violated Reddit’s terms of service by revealing the identity of a Reddit member. However, Gawker has no obligation to follow another site’s rules unless they are on that site. On the other hand, there is no justification for Reddit banning all Gawker links. If Reddit really values an open conversation among members, the input Gawker has to that discussion might be valuable. The only justification for banning Gawker links is petty revenge.
In the future, discussion sites need to establish clear rules on which sites they can ban. For example, a discussion site for middle school students may be perfectly justified in banning all pornographic links. Perhaps other sites might ban links or discussion that only serves to infuriate its members. By allowing Violentacrez to post, Reddit clearly was not one of those sites. Reddit can restrict sites from posting, as long as the rules are consistent and further the purpose of the site. Some sites should probably be extremely open and some sites heavily moderated. If restrictions are consistent, and their rules promote the interest of the site, then they are justified. If the restrictions are arbitrary, as Reddit’s retribution towards Gawker was, they are not legitimate.
Online discussion sites are steadily growing in importance. Important public figures, most notably Barack Obama, have participated in Reddit discussions. Major websites drive the conversation on sites such as Facebook. Developing a consistent set of standards regulating conduct and site policy is crucial for these burgeoning sites.