Whipped this up over the weekend, looking for feedback on it. It's pretty interesting what is moderated especially in the political subs. Includes user deleted comments, as the illusion of true comment deletion is false. The reason for its creation comes out of research detailing the reddit/stratfor connection along with antique jetpack.
This is a very good idea but I have to ask this: what are you going to do if your site archives a deleted comment that was deleted because it was illegal? (like CP or personal information)
Thank you. Since reddit only allows links, I don't expect CP to be much of an issue. At most it would be a link and afaik the correct action would be to bring it down at the source rather than a site that contained a link to it. If someone let me know there was CP linked I would try to notify the actual host of it, and it would be removed quickly. Doxxing is unethical, not illegal. I would do nothing but advise people to take better care of their personal information. Sounds harsh but it's the truth. I cannot solve that problem by hiding it from others.
No they wouldn't. Numerous people are collecting all of reddit's comments. To say it is deleted when it is mirrored by a hundred people across the globe is a complete farce, and that is reddit's fault for playing into that lie. Things put onto the internet are almost always mirrored by someone. This is a truth that most people do not accept nor understand, and that is unfortunate. However, services like this can help to remind people that they should be careful when posting online. Truthfully I wish it was not that way, that deletion actually worked, but it just isn't the way it is. Likewise, there is no distinction between deletion and censorship. This site is designed to expose reddit's censorship, however, self-censorship will be exposed by the same system. There is no way to make this work, reddit has designed their moderator tools to make it seem like people just delete their own comments, they are using it as a shield for their own censorship.
It is mirrored by a lot of people privately: for marketing purposes, by intelligence agencies, etc. Most people do not realize this. Additionally, most people do not realize that their presumed legitimate websites are censoring information and/or pushing certain narratives. The downside from that is great, and will only show itself more as time goes on. >Also while I'm sure there are people saving this data privately, there are very few public stores. Major difference. There are multiple public services but they aren't as good as unreddit imo - was incentive to make a better one. I also don't see a major difference - instead of the NSA having a monopoly on mining your internet accounts, why not democratize it and expose it? I see no difference when storing the data whether or not it is public. >This is kind of like robbing people to remind them to lock their doors in order to prevent robbery. I disagree. No violation of property rights occurs by recording what is happening in public in the present for future viewing. > Do you mean the reddit moderators or the reddit admins? Both. The admins are involved with intelligence agencies and marketing, and the mods are too as far as I can tell. We have different ethics perhaps :) I do really appreciate your criticism, just trying to give my side / my thoughts on it.
>Data availability is not binary, it's continuous. So you increased the availability of this information in order to decrease it? My goal isn't to decrease it. That is impossible at this point. To bring understanding / knowledge of it so people can protect themselves is a side goal of the project, the main one being exposing the narratives being pushed / suppressed as I am diametrically opposed to censorship. >You don't see how information in the hands of an intelligence agency is different from it being public to the entire world? I see how it is different. But I think it being unknowingly in intelligence agencies reach is more dangerous than it knowingly being out in the open. Governments are much more of a threat to people than individual citizens to such a degree that the downsides of this are incredibly minor to the upsides. Your example of framing someone is a real one, though hypothetical. Did you know that through JTRIG this is already being done - but by intelligence agencies? I also don't see how this would be solved/fixed by unreddit not existing? Once info is out there, even if it is "deleted" it is still passed around. The mobs have no issue currently carrying out these... witchhunts. >You claim that this site exists to alert people of a wrong being done against them, except the site is perpetrating that same exact wrong. The cat is out of the bag. Whether or not this system exists nothing changes. The fact that people can download things in public on the internet in and of itself is not a wrong. But most people do not realize that it doesn't work to delete. I don't think its wrong to store public information, even if its a marketer or whatever. It's public. Though I might disagree with how they use it, and try to bring light to it, and make their data worth less. If I felt it was wrong to store or display public information, I would have never partaken in such a project. >Which means somebody could follow you around with a video camera every time you leave the house, and post it on the web. The entire world would know your every daily activity. Do you see how that's different than a person NOT doing that? Do you see why people might not want that? I can see that. And yeah, it would be a dick thing to do. But I don't think the analogy fits. It is rather, someone uploading clips of their own life to some public website, and someone else storing those clips and keeping them accessible. Sort of an archive. The people already decided to make them public, then recanted their decision after someone else stored them. Would you argue people who mirror deleted youtube channels are committing an immoral act? >What do you mean exactly by "involved", and what evidence do you have of this? If you look on unreddit there are a few links regarding stratfor and antique jetpack. imo the best way to see though is to go check out which comments are deleted on pages and it will paint a more clear picture than leaked emails ever could.
>So basically the goal is to expose the alleged censorship of social media by intelligence agencies, and you don't care if that hurts other people in the process. Got it. You are intentionally shifting what I am saying in order to push your idea as the only true and correct idea. An archive doesn't hurt people, only people hurt people. >What's the first comment I made on hubski? No clue. I have little interest in doing something similar for hubski as it doesn't seem to suffer from rampant censorship, and most of the userbase is intelligent enough to understand how "deleting" works on the internet. >I asked you for specific accusations not more vague ones. You've made enough of those already. If you don't consider documents detailing the meeting with Stratfor enough proof, I don't know what else to tell you. I've tried to answer your questions reasonably but it seems your goal isn't to actually hear what I have to say, instead it is to smear it. Good luck.
Thank you for your answer, it sounds reasonable. Also thank you for the site.