Reddit the past few days has been nothing but blind rage, this time directed at the censorship of our freeze peach and our right to personally offend those who aren't us. FPH was banned by the admins (otherwise known as the singular Ellen Pao), along with 4 other subreddits nobody really cared about. Why was it banned, you ask? The admins declared it was because of Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them. In other words, FPH was brigading, doxing, and harassing reddit users on and off-site.

The fallout from the banning of FPH brought about a raving outrage and the /r/announcements thread was full of self-righteous indignation toward the ban and general hate toward Chief Feminist Ellen Pao. Some of the more cliche reddit platitudes were posted and their incoherent ramblings were lost on us that day. Here are some of the more choice bits:

Yishan Wong, the site's former CEO, has stated that "We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it." So much for that

http://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/cs21htj

Below that comment we receive:

Ellen Pao, the site's current CEO, has stated that "My feels, I can't even"

and then a:

Fuck you Ellen Pao you SJW piece of shit.

Ah yes, Ellen Pao is clearly a SJeW and this is not at all some fake boogeyman I made up from reading tumblr screenshots I saw on reddit! This woman - this...this.. feeeemale is an activist and not even the good kind! She's not a privacy activist (screw le NSA!!), or a pirating activist or even a pedo-activist! She tries to help black people and gays and she's ruining the status quo of college aged white STEM males! Of course, I have no evidence that she's affiliated with any social justice activism, or attends any rallies or anything, but being an asian woman who stands against harassing people, she clearly is.

I would also like to take a moment to point out that each of the 3 above comments were gilded 13 times in total. As was this delightful comment, which was gilded 14 times:

How about /r/shitredditsays ?

http://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/cs20oij

Yes!!! Why can't we just ban the SJeW's who complain about things? Then nobody would complain! A flawless plan, I if I may praise my STEM self. Even though the admins explained several times they banned FPH because it doxed, brigaded, and harassed people on & off-site, and that SRS and other 'undesirables' don't do that, people still ask like a child Why can't THEY be punished too???

Another user weighs in with his expert opinion:

As much as I dislike the content in FPH, I dislike censorship MUCH more. FPH was supposedly banned for violating the reddit rule of "Keeping everyone safe." That rule says, "You agree to not intentionally jeopardize the health and safety of others or yourself." You're going to need to explain exactly how they were violating that rule, because I saw none of it happening. The people who were discussed are jeopardizing their own health and safety. This is censorship plain and simple.

http://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/cs24527

"I think your clearly defined rules and the examples you listed of them breaking said rules are too vague. Also, I didn't see any of this happen so it clearly never happened - ever. Fat people started it by being fat and putting themselves at risk of dying from fatness! Ellen Pao is trying to censor our freeze peach!!!" This is the argument of a ^man child. Banning people from being harassed is not censorship. If Ellen Pao was actually censoring (and I'm 100% a CEO has more important things to do than delete reddit comments about her) there wouldn't be the thousands of anti-Pao threads comments that the front page has been littered with the past few days.

Moving on from the announcement thread...

The mods and users of FPH proceeded to try to make a new subreddit after the ban, much like jailbait made CandidFashionPolice or TheFappening Celebs. But the truly dastardly villain that is Ellen Pao wouldn't let them circumvent their ban, because she isn't some crazy libertarian who believes a website is also a government. Multiple subreddits were banned, including /r/fatepeoplehate2-9 (that is, it went on for 9 numbers), /r/fatpersonhate, /r/ObesityRules, /r/CandidHealthPolice, and a few other variations. I'll note here that /r/fatlogic went private was able to avoid the ban-hammer burn. FPH users also tried to take over a few subreddits, upvoting their own self-described "shit-posts" (read:brigading) which prompted the mods of r/pics to post this lovely thread banning FPH submissions: http://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/39e82d/official_rpics_announcement_regarding_the_recent/

They also took over /r/whalewatching. This sub was banned by the admins, though FPH users quickly tried to claim that the admins were being overzealous SJeW's and that whalewatching totally had actual whale submissions only two years ago!! So obviously it's not a shell subreddit for FPH! The sub was reinstated by the admins, though FPH posts were removed. Here is a full list of FPH subreddits removed, courtesy of /r/subredditdrama

https://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/39dca9/fat_hatred_subs_banned/

Here's a comment from r/Paomustresign that I thought truly displayed the delusions of power these people have:

I would love to hear their morning meeting today and how they plan to calm the riot. Once voat is stable I think reddit will be fucked.

http://np.reddit.com/r/PaoMustResign/comments/39fxl4/ellen_pao_greeting_her_staff_this_morning/cs30hhs

Yes, I'm sure the 150K subscribers to FPH in comparison to the 172 million redditors truly tips the scales of revolution. And that site known for allowing absolutely anything thats just barely legal for being run by 1 guy truly makes the FPH movement a force to be reckoned with. If that Ellen Pao doesn't kowtow in apologetic cries we'll totally leave this site! For good! Even though voat is basically abandoned except for conspiracy theorists and people KIA thought too extreme, voat will clearly surpass reddit in power. This is totally Digg all over again man! Just, like, once we get money for servers!!

Meanwhile, at /r/koans, a moderator resigned over this "censorship" and said this absolutely beautiful maxim:

This brought me to genuine tears. I sincerely hope "Saint Aaron" lives on, in all of us.

https://np.reddit.com/r/Koans/comments/39flst/i_respectfully_resign_from_rkoans/cs32j44

This is the most absolute reddit thing I've read all week (at least, the most that amused me). Truly, St. Aaron Schwartz lives in us all - the patron saint of internet freedom, privacy, and torrenting! May his blessings be forever bestowed upon us who follow the ideals of freeze peach and anonymous cyberbullying! Unfortunately, I'm sure St. Aaron would be rolling in his grave if he knew what his cofounders had done!! They will rue the day they made rules against harassment! I WILL NOT not minorly inconvenienced!!!

And that, fellow redditeurs, is mostly that. The rage is slowly blowing over and this will probably be forgotten about in a month. But during these three days of drama, thousands of comments worthy of submission here were posted - I invite you to post them and fill our sub with content, if not for me, then for St. Aaron at least.

Related Threads

1) https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/39bzdf/why_was_rfatpeoplehate_along_with_several_other/

2) https://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/39l35d/recap_the_fattening/

3) https://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/39tekx/recap_a_recap_of_the_fph_fallout_and_live_feed/

4)https://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/39c0n3/cmv_reddit_was_wrong_to_ban_rfatpeoplehate_but/cs27yt4 (This is a small compiled list of the various harassment FPH perpetrated, in case they feel like playing victim some more)