Archive link for the mod statement. From the statement itself:
Anyway, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Gore and pornography are still not allowed in /r/PICS.
- Remain civil toward one another.
- Do not violate the site-wide rules.
- This link directs back to this comment.
- It is normal to experience special feelings while looking at John Oliver.
There’s some chance that Reddit Inc. replaces r/pics mods with someone else, due to NSFW’ing the community, so they might need to give in.
Even then the move should show how fucking huge of a difference there is between the global rules being enforced vs. what they want you to believe on. i.e. that the mod code of conduct is toilet paper.
To be (un)fair, the ToS is toilet paper on most for-profit websites.
Well… yes. Still - the mod code of conduct is a really strong example of that, as Reddit did nothing whatsoever to pretend that it had any validity. And for a long time it was even hidden as “guidelines”, or “look, those aren’t actual rules, we’re just guiding you okay?”
I wonder if this shouldn’t be legislated against - as it’s basically deceiving users.
Fair point. To the extent that a ToS is legally binding, then yeah, it should be illegal to make it deceptive. But my understanding is that a lot of what’s in a ToS policy has no legal force, and taking steps to regulate certain aspects of a ToS might have the unwanted effect of giving a ToS more legal recognition overall. It is possible to sign over certain rights to a company, but that doesn’t mean the company can sue a customer for breaking the ToS when the customer isn’t breaking any laws. So, Reddit can write all the menacing emails they like, but if someone feels like posting a bunch of softcore porn in a large subreddit, all Reddit can actually do is ban them, and if they go too hard on the threatening emails, they could get sued for harassment.