reddit.com has been one of the most liberal of social media websites. Liberal in the classic sense: tolerant. Open-minded. Welcoming. The company’s now joined the post-Parkland culture War on Guns being waged by corporate America (e.g., YouTube). Check out the official notice below . . .

(courtesy reddit.com)

Read the second half of the announcement listening to It Wazzunt Me.

[Click here for the live links.]

The incredibly popular subreddit /r/gundeals? Nuked. /r/gunsforsale? Toast. /r/brassSwap? That too. Not to mention r/gunnitforward and r/secretsniper.

The subreddit /r/GunsNotForSale is now up! But not for long. ‘Cause the moderators are moderating . . .

We want to let you know that we have made some updates to our content policy forbidding transactions for certain goods and services. Please review this post in r/announcements for specific details.

Due to these changes and the nature of your sub, we want to inform you we are no longer able to keep your subreddit active. The subreddit will be banned effective immediately.

Please also note that any attempts to reconstitute this community under an alternative subreddit would be a violation of our site-wide rules regarding ban evasion.

We’re also hearing some mighty disturbing rumblings from the YouTube jihad. Watch this space – for as long as you can.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

91 COMMENTS

  1. Sue them for 1st amendment violations of our constitutional human rights.

    Make sure federal judges enforce limits on private property rights.

    • I’m not sure you should be commenting on a board about the Second Amendment if you don’t understand the basics of the First Amendment.

      • Perhaps you should take your own advice? Free speech protections are not limited to the 1st amendment.

        • Facepalm.

          Sure. Screaming “I wAnT tO bE aBlE tO pOsT oN mUh ReDdiTs AnD tHeY wOnT lEt Me!!” is a genius case for a 1st amendment violation.

        • The ban on slavery only protects you from the government… got it… any other human rights that are only “protected from the government” that I should be aware of?

        • Except for the fact that there is no guarantee nor right of free speech on an internet forum set up by a private company.

        • A public square is a public square. Just as we have common law protections for your right to keep and bear arms, we should have legal protections for free speech.

        • Duh, you can talk in a public square, you can talk in your living room, you can talk in your neighbors living room, . Its your human right to say whatever you want because I FEELZ this is a public square. Is your excuse about Reddit is they are defacto monopoly? You know instead of a facto monopoly, or some such.

          I WANNA IT BE TRUE, BE MY SAFE PLACE CUZ I FEELZ BAD, BIG MEANIES.

        • In addition to what RogueVal said, you are free to start your own Internet forum where you make the rules… just as Reddit has.

          I would think your understanding of this kind of stuff would be greater, Serge.

        • It’s quite adequate. Please keep the non-sequitur “arguments” to a minimum. Requiring a business that presents itself as a forum for the exchange of ideas to treat all legal ideas equally is not the same thing as requiring people to offer a new service.

          We have common law protections for most of your rights protected from the government by the Bill of Rights. Why should free speech be treated differently?

        • So, pwrstooge, please share with us the law congress made that abridged the freedom of speech when Reddit decided to do this.

        • Texheim, Mike Dexter’s A GOD, Dev, RogueVal, Swarf, & Brainman:

          When you lose the ability to freely exercise your 2nd amendment right, will the loss taste better to you because you naively clung to an idealistic belief in a free market of social media on the internet (that doesn’t exist) and weren’t willing to get your hands a little dirty in the fight? Is it better to lose like a gentleman than win with dirty hands?

          Let us know how it feels to lose your duel when you’re shot in the back while you’re still counting off your paces by your unethical opponent who doesn’t play by the rules.

        • Tell me you are not smart enough to know that reddit is not a public forum, its private. You agree to their terms when you sign up. Freedom of speech does not apply.

          Its like the diffence in private or public property. A shopping mall can kick you out as its private property.

          Please, try to get educated.

        • OK, but you can’t invent new rights under the constitution. So you have to follow the law, and the interpretation of the constitution for the last 100 years is private property rights exist.

          PragerU has sued Google over exactly this, but it doesn’t look like a very likely case they’d win in Northern California, but they could always appeal for a few years to get to SCOTUS to change current interpretation.

        • Dear God you guys are retarded… Nobody is talking about muh’ constitution. The Constitution only exists to protect pre-existing rights. In the 1700s those rights needed the most protection from government. Why should we not enact laws that protect those same rights from predatory corporations?

        • The ban on slavery only protects you from the government…
          You know anyone who reads TTAG has access to the internet, right?

          The 13th Amendment prohibits slavery in the US and her territories, and gives Congress the authority to write laws to enforce the prohibition and punish any who engage in slavery. The First Amendment clearly only applies to government interference…starting with the word “Congress” should have been a good clue to that.

        • OK, so you say its not the constitution. So what law are they violating? You’ve been spouting off that its “free speech” and the 1st amendment, so if its not the constitution, what law are they violating?

        • Ok…

          1. Never once have I used the first amendment as an argument in this case. Please address arguments that I’ve actually made.
          2. My point is that there is clearly a law needed to prevent this exact sort of abuse.
          3. Fundamental rights exist without the Constitution and without laws. Such things simply protect those rights.

          Now can I get an argument that doesn’t revolve around some variation of “muh’ free market” or “muh’ big government”? The reality is that laws exist to correct natural power imbalances in a society. The laws against physical violence protect those less capable of physical violence. etc… or do you think that the government having a law against murder is also “big government”?

        • You’re saying free speech is not an enumerated right in this case, and your not talking about the 1st amendment? Your talking about a theoretical law that doesn’t exist, that is not the 1st amendment, that wouldn’t trump either Article 3 interpretation of the SCOTUS prior judgement, the 3rd, 4th, or 9th amendments.

          So. if there is no law, and its not the 1st amendment, then what “free speech” are you talking about, and how are you not saying that. Its a peculiar view of how to view “free speech”.

          I’m using quotes “free speech” to differentiate between 1st amendment free speech, I guess, as I’m not sure as to which, or what you’re referring.

        • “The reality is that laws exist to correct natural power imbalances in a society.”
          …
          That sounds like something the average socialist would say serge. You want want to ponder on that although I’m sure you won’t.

          People may gather together in many public spaces that happen to be private businesses. That doesn’t deprive them of the ability to set standards for their establishment. What Youtube is doing is abhorrent but that doesn’t mean that I believe the force and might of the gov’t should be wielded to not let them run their business as they see fit.

        • The temptation to violate one right in hopes to gain an advantage in another never works. Thats what the left is doing now with the 2nd.

          It seems like its working for them, but in fact, its galvanizing opposition against them.

        • Even if you were completely right that compelling private businesses to permit any and all speech in their products/on their premises wouldn’t be a violation of other constitutional protections, the comment you originally replied to was still responding to someone directly making a “1st amendment” violation argument, so even if you never say that yourself, you’re still jumping to the defense of someone who was. The OP wasn’t saying “there are non 1A guarantees of free speech in common law which the government should enforce.” He was saying “sue them for violating the 1A” to which “I don’t think you understand what that means” is still an appropriate response.

        • Pseudo

          My argument is not to force them to “permit any and all speech”, my argument is that if they can’t pick and choose who gets to use their platform just because they don’t like their politics. That “right” is toxic to a free society.

        • Youtube, Reddit, and other public forums based on user content are PUBLIC FORUMS. Lets let Lion Ted Cruz take it home: “And the opening question I asked of whether you are a neutral public forum — if you are a neutral public forum, that does not allow for political editorializing and censorship. And if you are not a neutral public forum, the entire predicate for liability immunity under the CDA [Communications Decency Act] is claiming to be a neutral public forum, so you cannot have it both ways.”

        • I think its high time we make it law that rights like free speech, apply to platforms that are privately owned but are intended to be for open public use. That, or turn the likes of reddit, google, facebook, twitter, all of which may be privately owned but are very clearly intended to be public podiums, like utilities.

          These aren’t small shops with walls and a door, and catering to selling products, they are essentially open plazas and parks where anyone can walk in and expect to be able to speak freely. Unless they want to wall it up, turn it into a private club, invite only membership, rights should apply to this type of business by law. If they want to collude with eachother to subvert America, they deserve harsh blowback.

        • If you miss a day on TTAG, you miss these silly arguments:

          pwrserge says:

          “Perhaps you should take your own advice? Free speech protections are not limited to the 1st amendment.”

          But they’re defined within the constitution within the 1st amendment.

          “The ban on slavery only protects you from the government… got it… any other human rights that are only “protected from the government” that I should be aware of?”

          Slavery, what in god’s name are you blathering about, it wasn’t until the 13th amendment that slavery was banned. In point of fact, it was specifically a constitutional right.

          “A public square is a public square. Just as we have common law protections for your right to keep and bear arms, we should have legal protections for free speech.”

          Except a public square isn’t a thing, The 1st amendment states”—Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”—No place does that say “a public square”, subsequent laws and SCOTUS interpretations have defined it, so that private property rights exist within the constitution, and none of that trumps “congress shall not”

          “It’s quite adequate. Please keep the non-sequitur “arguments” to a minimum. Requiring a business that presents itself as a forum for the exchange of ideas to treat all legal ideas equally is not the same thing as requiring people to offer a new service. We have common law protections for most of your rights protected from the government by the Bill of Rights. Why should free speech be treated differently?”

          In 1938, the U.S. Supreme Court in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins , overruled earlier precedent, and held “There is no federal general common law,” thus confining the federal courts to act only as interpreters of law originating elsewhere. Texas Industries v. Radcliff (without an express grant of statutory authority, federal courts cannot create rules of intuitive justice, for example, a right to contribution from co-conspirators). Post-1938, federal courts deciding issues that arise under state law are required to defer to state court interpretations of state statutes, or reason what a state’s highest court would rule if presented with the issue, or to certify the question to the state’s highest court for resolution.

          “Dear God you guys are retarded… Nobody is talking about muh’ constitution. The Constitution only exists to protect pre-existing rights. In the 1700s those rights needed the most protection from government. Why should we not enact laws that protect those same rights from predatory corporations?”

          What the hell, the constitution protects pre-existing rights from before the rights were rights as America wasn’t a country. WTF is this ass clown talking about.

          “Pseudo
          My argument is not to force them to “permit any and all speech”, my argument is that if they can’t pick and choose who gets to use their platform just because they don’t like their politics. That “right” is toxic to a free society.”

          Oh god, just reading this claptrap makes my head hurt from the exceptional power of the stupid.

      • It will be interesting to see how the gun community will deal with 400 years of discrimination just as black people had to deal with 400 years of discrimination. No business dealings with “those kinds of people”.

        Libertarian logic.

        But don’t worry the Libertarians are working very hard to get you your legal marijuana intoxication and legal crystal meth to shoot up to improve your sexual experience. What’s going on in San Francisco is a great example.

  3. …Reddit does know the type of people who use their website, right? They are literally the birthplace of the shitposting internet troll army, and they just put the spotlight on their own front door…

    Good luck with that

    • Reddit? The birthplace of the shitposting troll army?

      4chan would beg to differ. And by beg, I mean post Orgish pics to your daughter’s MySpace profile.

        • You’re both wrong.

          Trolling was *born* on usenet, and festered and matured in the .alt hierarchies…

          *snicker* 😉

        • While alt.syntax.tactical was used for some planning, the ordnance mostly seemed to land in the talk.politics.* hierarchies, particularly the eternal flamewar known as talk.politics.guns.

          rec.guns was far more civilized.

        • I miss rec.guns.

          It was kinda tough to keep up with it, in the early 2000s, it was about 500 posts a day, and that’s with moderation…

    • From what I have seen come out of Reddit over the years… seems more like the home base for the current SJW generation and a troll nursery. I use to call them “Reddit heroes” before they were commonly known as “social justice warriors.” They migrated from sites like Digg because they needed a new home.

      Reddit has been a SJW haven for a very long time. I never liked using that site because of that. The leadership of that site is just like Google, Twitter and Facebook.

    • And these are the same or descendants of the same liberals that fought and railed about censorship years ago.

  4. Time for us gun owners to throw our support behind a truly friendly platform. Whether that is full30 or something else isn’t relevant. Right now we are held hostage by their rules.

    • I’m sure gunbroker.com, retail gun shops, gunsmiths, kitchen table FFL’s in Texas are going to be heart broken 😢 snark

  5. I’ve already been labeled an NRA bloodsoaked terrorist, told I’m worse than ISIS, so I guess it’s no surprise that I’m banished from that site in the same category as drugs, counterfeiting, and prostitution.

    • Reddit is a news and discussion website. It is huge, with 234 million UNIQUE visitors every month. It is the fourth most visited website in the U.S.A. and sixth worldwide.

      Reddit censoring Second Amendment, along with the Youtube, Google, and others, is a big deal.

  7. How much money do they expect to lose doing this? That’s more ad-viewers they’re banishing.

    • Reddit has had an annual $35mill revenue goal, but has yet to hit $20mill. They’re a tiny company, ~250 total employees, and have been passed around like a $5 hooker for the last decade. They had a VC funding round that valued them at $1.8bill, then a few years later, sold a majority share to Snoop Dog and a bunch of celebrities for something like 3% of that. It looks like they’re a money hole that trades on a larger than life rep, but little user traffic compared to others in their segment, and continuously looks for VC float to continue. Think tiny Yahoo.

  8. Man, that’s too bad. I was just about to offer on Reddit a stolen grenade launching AR-47 that runs on bourbon and cocaine and gives head, all with falsified papers. Now I’ll have to use Craigslist.

  9. Why do you think Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Reddit and others are so opposed to rolling back internet regulations?

    They know that if the government forces equal treatment of data packets right up to their networks – they can be the arbiters of opinion on the internet.

    Net neutrality isn’t about equal and fair treatment of data packets – it is about deciding who has the power to control the flow and content of information on the internet.

      • Paul Nehlen’s America First world views fits in quite comfortably with the those of our Founding Fathers, friend. But the opinion of the bluecheckists on Twitter matter so much to you, please suggest another Republican with a real legislative solution. I would be happy to support them, too. Ted Cruz is the only other guy I know even in the same ballpark. But his trying to find a roundabout way to make it easier for private individuals to sue corporations is weak. https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3595

        • How about his words.

          I’ve compiled a list of ’verified’ Twitter users who have attacked me *in just the last month alone* for my #AmericaFirst positions, Of those 81 people, 74 are Jews, while only 7 are non-Jews.

          He regularly goes on the podcast–Fash the Nation. Which is a white supremacist podcast.

          He just hired the founder of the “American Freedom Party” as his spokesman.

        • What does any of that have to do with his proposed #ShallNotCensor legislation? The Founders had many views unpopular today but their ideas brought prosperity and liberty to millions. LOL, Jefferson would have been banned on Twitter, like they tried to ban Trump. Again if you have another politician with a great idea to restore the freedoms of Americans under attack from the Left please put him forth. My first instinct would not be to character assassinate him.

        • We should round up all of these lefty traitors and tech takers, and force them to understand what the constitution really means. Make all of these traitor politicians learn what the Declaration meant, or else.

    • “This is still up and clearly violates Bullet 2:
      https://www.reddit.com/r/WeedDeals/”

      This community has been banned

      This subreddit was banned due to a violation of our content policy, specifically, a violation of Reddit’s policy against transactions involving prohibited goods or services.
      Banned 51 minutes ago.

    • “I have never ever used reddit. Or cared…”
      And I don’t own an AR, and never have.
      That has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I will work to protect your right to do so.
      Look up “parochialism” some time.

  16. Censoring legal content on what is effectively a public forum is immoral, regardless of who owns the platform. There is no publicly owned alternative to these platforms either. This isn’t like booting a rowdy customer in your store out onto the street. There is no street. This is like inviting everyone to join a discussion, then surgically removing the vocal cords of those you disagree with.

      • You misunderstand. I’m not arguing that Google’s servers are public property. YouTube is a forum open to the public. At the very least, gun channels have a claim at an easement. They’ve been using YouTube since its inception. You can’t just boot someone from your property when they’ve been using it for 10+ years without your objection.

        • Believe it or not, there’s a big difference between the sidewalk and my front yard.
          They may be adjacent, but your rights to free speech are very different, depending on which one you’re standing on.
          “Public forum” doesn’t mean it’s owned by the public, just that the public is invited. When you enter, you agree (contract, if you will) to certain rules. If you violate those rules, you’ve broken the contract, and your privilege to use that public forum may be revoked.
          Either that, or I can say and do whatever I want on your front lawn.

          Do not interpret this to mean I agree with Reddit’s new rules, but they have the right, whether I (or we) agree.

  18. My wallet may be secretly rejoicing the loss of r/gundeals.

    Still, I used to spend a LOT of time all over reddit. Lately, it’s primarily been in r/gundeals and r/justrolledintotheshop. Guess I’ll have to find a new way to waste time. Or (gasp) be productive.

  19. What kind of idiot still uses Reddit?

    The entire site was a poor design that did nothing but encourage bland comments subject to mindless approval. The first comment displayed is not the chronological first but the highest rated reply to the initial comment. To get the highest rated isn’t a matter of being useful, insightful or original but to have the most. There’s no actual conversation on Reddit’s system, there’s just a post and a reply expressing bland approval, then some leaches replying to the highest rated reply for their own attention.

    Worse still this “karma” carries over between threads and impacts overall visibility. The effect is that anything remotely controversial, regardless of being liked by a plurality, quickly sinks to the bottom. This quickly becomes a place where independent thought is, at best, discouraged. Contrast this with a typical chronological thread virtually every other BBS on the web uses. There dissenting views can only be judged by the reader and those who reply.

    That, of course, is not even counting the horrific mismanagement, corrupt mods and censorship of the whole website. The whole thing is a mess nobody in their right mind should touch.

  20. Reddit is anything but liberal. They are left wing extremists and they don’t believe in free speech.

    It is basically a website designed for college students or immature, broke adults who have been indoctrinated into the left wing ideology.

    • Liberal = Left-Wing extremists.

      Saying otherwise is like saying an acorn isn’t an oak tree.

  22. On the plus side, now that reddit’s gundeals site is down, we will all save some money now on impulse buys.

  24. Conservatives better wake up and put together their own networks. Silicon valley has made their choice and that choice is “liberal hellhole”.

    They’re shutting down conservative commentary and news on you tube, shutting down firearms discussion.

    We dont start getting ‘Con-tube’, and ‘gun-ebay’, we’ll be back to classified & newspapers.

  26. All it is going to do is further the divide between left and right. The left will have their outlet and the right will have theirs. I feet with the advent of social media the days of compromise and seeing the other guys point even if you don’t agree with it, is OVER.

  27. At some point we all need to realize a forum hosted by someone else no matter the size is governed by the owners, not the costitution.

  28. Need a Reddit and Youtube alternative. That’s the solution.

    They are trying to make guns appear “immoral” so they can make them illegal. That is their goal. And website that ban perfectly harmless and legal activities such as gun discussions and buy/sell/trade for firearms are doing their part in making them appear “immoral” so they can then get laws passed that make them illegal.

  29. I have never used Reddit. I didn’t like the many the things they did before this immoral action. And I never will never use it.

  30. Used Reddit for a bit. Unfortunately, found it was mostly a collection of trolls looking for opportunities to pick a fight. Chucked a while ago. This news is just another data point reinforcing the thought that I made the right decision.

  31. I’m on reddit fairly often. It’s better than that disaster called Facebook, where everything you say and most of the special interest groups you interact with are wide open to everyone you’ve ever known. Reddit allows focusing on specific areas of interest, and that school acquaintance you haven’t actually seen in 30 years who’s off her meds and proud of it doesn’t have to get dragged in. But as of a few days ago merely saying “yeah I know HSTs tend to be expensive, but they’re on sale at store X, here’s a link” is technically against the rules and could get your subreddit nuked. Very uncool. There’s some major pushback going on even now. Protests on Reddit itself and investigations into alternative platforms.

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