It is a guillotine with a reddit head in it and the name spez written on it. Just depicting a guillotine is not a death threats but depicting a person in it that exist in the real world is absolutely a death threats against that person. If that is not a death threat there is no such thing as a death threats on the internet and moderation is dead.
A death threat is something like saying "I'm gonna murder spez". It expresses an intention. An illustration suggesting that someone could be killed does not express any intention to actually kill someone. Furthermore the image could be interpreted in other ways, like saying the user account "spez" should be eliminated, or that that spez is the kind of person who would have been killed had he been around in the French revolutionary period. No reasonable person could believe the people posting those pixels are actually making plans to cut off Steve Huffman's head with a guillotine.
I'm much more concerned about rhetoric that, for example, equates LGBT+ people with groomers, because that shit demonstrably does get people killed, and I've been told numerous times that rhetoric like that doesn't violate any rules. If moderation is dead, that's what killed it.
So many folks taking that too literally as if it means something IRL. It doesn't, it means people want Reddit to cut Spez out as CEO. If they meant physical harm to the man, they might have said his real name.
If this was done against you or someone you liked, you would not make those arguments. If they replaced spez with a rainbow flag you would immediately identify it as a hate crime and a call to violence, because it fucking is. You can argue that spez isnt harmed by these kinds death threats and should just allow them on r/place but at least be honest with your fucking opinions.
It's pixels on a screen. It's a username on a mascot, not a photo with a real human name.
Can you tell the difference between a social media identity vs. an actual human?
Yes we all know who it actually refers to in real life, but the fact that it represents cutting the head off of Snoo is a metaphor meaning people would like to cut Steve out of being Reddit CEO.
Like I said to start with though, in the long run it's just pixels on a screen. Don't let it get you upset.
Words are just letters arranged in order but if I start writing racial slurs or telling people to kill themselves then I would get banned from pretty much any functional social platform.
It's Snoo. Snoo isn't even real, it's a mascot. It means about as much as popping the head off of a Barbie doll.
The pixels as drawn also represent neither thing you just stated, unless there's some weird incident in history I'm unaware of where someone somehow cut their own head off..
Smarter target as in the protestors needs to be smarter when picking a symbol. Any action that targets spez as an individual will get removed as personal harassment.
I mean, fuck that place, but this particular instance of censorship seems acceptable and even good. Some schizo dude on the interweebs could think this is God speaking to him or something. Don't promote violence online.
I hear you, but all these rich rat bastards need to be reminded that they only have what they have because the masses allow it. I hope I don't see it in my lifetime, but we are rapidly approaching a point where heads are going to roll.
I do believe heads need to roll at this point, but not specifically Spez. Like what he's doing is minimal and not deserving of death or incitement of violence against him.
The same people who drew that probably use Reddit every day. If you really want to make a point don't do shit like that, just stop using Reddit.
Look at the masses of Germans coordinated to say "fuck Spez"... What percentage of them do you think still use Reddit?
Well, they are all interacting with Reddit. I guess it depends on whether the message outweighs the increased engagement. I don't really care about Spez as all this is a symptom of a much bigger problem.
I'm a german and made an account with a throaway email so i could help the german artworks because i really like the community around the german r/place engagement. I'm not planning on using that account after place is done so I also used a randomly generated password which i didn't save. I just want the fun and community of last years e/place again.
I actually went back to Reddit. Even as a left-wing follower, I couldn't take the heavy bias of the community. The echo chamber is just too loud. They are convinced communism is flawless, and whenever it becomes flawed, it is the right's fault. I can't deal with absolutes, I'd rather be dead than radicalized by an ideology.
For some reason Lemmy won't let me remove my account so I just login once a day to see if it is already gone.
In the only two examples I'm somewhat familiar with (John Lennon and Ronald Reagan), when someone's mental illness led them to attack a public figure, the trigger wasn't anything nearly as obvious as an incitement to violence, or even criticism of the public figure. Unpredictable people are unpredictable; trying to foresee what might set them off is pointless.