Richard Lewis banned from Reddit - Page 6

Hi Richard,

On reddit, you managed to belittle someone by talking about a video he made in highschool. Apparently you found this video on his Facebook. I am pretty impressed, since you must have gotten his real name and other sensitive information via a reddit handle. I am curious as to how you did it.

Secondly, on the video you posted, you showed a screenshot of your Linkdin being examined by a reddit mod. I am curious how you found out that's a reddit mod. Since you chose to blur out the names, I can only assume this isn't some publically available information. You must have figured out that person's real name somehow.

Of course you could just be doing all of this for your own research purposes (not doxing), but it does seem to me that you are very good at digging up information from the internet. It's like you carrying a loaded gun and not afraid to tell other people that you have a loaded gun; you can shoot people with it, but you insist that you won't do it. So at this point it's a matter of whether or not we can trust you with the loaded gun.

On May 11 2015 00:34 RichardLewis wrote:


Googled his username. It linked to an account on another website where he posted his video. I posted video. He said it was his. Elite level doxxing obviously.



I do know the names of the mods. Found that out over a year ago, as I said I would on Twitter. I still don't understand why it's OK for them to gun after people's jobs - keep in mind they already made William Turton quit after smearing him in public and stating he'd reported inaccurate information, which was accurate - but their real names are somehow sacrosanct.



I believe people who have power over people's livelihoods should not be able to hide behind anonymous usernames and exert their influence without any potential reprisals. I think most people agree this is sensible. Ironically, the moderators are effectively proving the arguments that are used about trolls - that anonymity will make people behave in unreasonable ways they wouldn't if their identity was on display.

I'm not against anonymity to level the playing field against oppressive governments or other noble causes. Hiding behind an alias for the sole purpose of not wanting to be held accountable when you fuck with people's lives is far from noble. I don't even use a gamer alias these days because I believe that as someone who reports on things I need to be transparent too.

So I have two issues with this.

1. I don't think it's up to you to decide whose anonymity is appropriate. In the US, "public figures" have almost no protection on their privacy, but the laws may be different elsewhere and it's not even clear if the mods are considered public figures in the US.

2. Reddit is a for-profit platform; your usage of it is a privilege, not a right. This is the same with Teamliquid or anywhere else. They can technically exclude you for any reasons or no reasons at all. They can technically kick you out for having short hair, wearing glasses, or because your last name starts with letter L. Reddit is not a public government service and they have no obligation to include you.

That being said, I am not denying that there is a problem. The /r/lol reddit is too big and too inclusive. While I will strongly disagree with you that there is any tangible "Riot influence" on the /r/lol mods, I am definitely concerned with other third-party influences. For example, if I run theScore, can I give 10K dollars to the mods so /r/lol will ban contents from one of my competitors (e.g. DailyDot)?

That was just a hypothetical question, of course, my bigger concern with /r/lol is that not all mods know what are banned and what are not banned. A few months back I complained really loudly about this "secret blacklist" of banned domains on /r/lol, and my impression is that because the blacklist is so complicated that only a few mods know what it is and who are on it (I can tell you for sure that my blog was banned on /r/lol and it was definitely not due to the things /u/Tjonke mentioned. This makes it super easy for a third-party organization to bribe a single mod to modify the "secret blacklist" - and no other mods will ever know about it.

On May 11 2015 00:34 RichardLewis wrote:


Googled his username. It linked to an account on another website where he posted his video. I posted video. He said it was his. Elite level doxxing obviously.



I do know the names of the mods. Found that out over a year ago, as I said I would on Twitter. I still don't understand why it's OK for them to gun after people's jobs - keep in mind they already made William Turton quit after smearing him in public and stating he'd reported inaccurate information, which was accurate - but their real names are somehow sacrosanct.



I believe people who have power over people's livelihoods should not be able to hide behind anonymous usernames and exert their influence without any potential reprisals. I think most people agree this is sensible. Ironically, the moderators are effectively proving the arguments that are used about trolls - that anonymity will make people behave in unreasonable ways they wouldn't if their identity was on display.

I'm not against anonymity to level the playing field against oppressive governments or other noble causes. Hiding behind an alias for the sole purpose of not wanting to be held accountable when you fuck with people's lives is far from noble. I don't even use a gamer alias these days because I believe that as someone who reports on things I need to be transparent too.

On May 11 2015 01:58 Sufficiency wrote:
1. I don't think it's up to you to decide whose anonymity is appropriate. In the US, "public figures" have almost no protection on their privacy, but the laws may be different elsewhere and it's not even clear if the mods are considered public figures in the US.