That's the problem with articles like these. They're written by people who, at best, only have a vague understanding of how reddit works. This article in particular isn't too bad, but the previous ones I've seen were laughably ignorant about reddit and it's infrastructure.
Making things worse are the commentors who see "censorship" and get all worked up and start frothing at the mouth. This submission is only an hour old yet there are already comments here by people who honestly believe that the mods were infiltrated by the NSA and they're the ones who pulled the submission. The tin-foil hat crowd completely ignore the fact that the submission was only pulled in a single subreddit and that it wasn't pulled in dozen other subreddits, including /r/worldnews which is a larger subreddit with more subscribers.
There are hundreds of thousands of subreddits on reddit and only one pulled the submission because it broke their rules. The other subreddits had no problem with the submission. But why report that? Because it doesn't generate as many hits.
“As it stands, the Firstlook story is almost entirely comprised of analysis and a lack of objectivity. Not to say that’s necessarily a bad thing—in fact, the Firstlook story by Greenwald is, at least in my opinion, a great piece of investigative journalism.”
This, honestly, seems like a perfectly reasonable response.
It does sound like a perfectly reasonable response. But any competent censor would be able to justify his actions with a reasonable sounding response.
We want to hear a response like this, since it sets our minds at ease. But we should resist that urge and be objective ourselves. We can ask:
* Is the article in question, in fact, composed entirely of analysis and does it lack objectivity?
* Does the article lack objectivity to the same degree as other articles banned from r/new?
As to the first question, my opinion is that the article in fact contains significant objective reporting. A major component of the article consists of the slide themselves, which are inherently objective. There are additionally quotes, responses, and factual contextual information presented on the parties involved.
But the article also contains some analysis. Though the content analysis itself doesn't seem particularly bold or controversial, it does present a viewpoint.
So if r/news only allows articles that present a litany of facts and provide no analysis, I suppose this article wouldn't fit the bill. But I'm not familiar enough with r/news to know whether if that's the case.
How are these wild accusations? The story in question is about how GCHQ infiltrates and disrupts online communities to discredit and bury unfavorable stories.
