The behavior you're describing (not being able to submit from a certain user account from a certain IP) is a result of reddit's quite sketchy spam filtering mechanism. Unless you have been notified that you've been banned from a certain community, your posts are simply being absorbed by the spam filter.
You have also mistaken the views and actions of a specific community for the views and actions of the site owners. Anyone (yes, even you) can go start a subreddit whenever they want, and restrict content however they want, even if that includes suppressing information they don't agree with or banning users with whom they disagree. The idea behind reddit is that people show their support for a specific community by frequenting and contributing to it. If you don't agree with the way a community is being run, you are free to find a better one or even to start your own.
Reddit and r/politics are not the same thing. Subreddits are user-created forums moderated as those creators see fit. Each subreddit chooses what it wants to see, how it wants to be moderated, and who will moderate. A particular sub community not welcoming you or your ideas is completely different from site-wide moderation.
I think you're missing the point of the users who see this new rule as a negative mark against reddit. The admins have always been supportive of allowing any content that is legal, even up to a very specific definition, which is why these now removed subreddits were allowed to exist for so long. Lots of people are making the slippery slope argument, saying things along the lines of "how long before they ban /r/trees?", which is a marijuana-based subreddit. In response, the community organizer, hueypriest, said this:
>They'll ban /r/trees when they pry it out of our cold dead hands.
You can imagine why it might be frustrating to people who would expect them to approach all content with as much vigor as they do in the defense of /r/trees.
The way I understand it, and the way it has been explained by the admins, is that policing the kind of content that is now not allowed had taken up a significant amount of their resources, and it was becoming unsustainable. However, a lot of users clearly see this as a sign that the admins are backing down as a result of legal pressure and also for the purpose of preserving the image of the community.
For users of old, this is a rather new phenomenon, and it is somewhat offputting. If it was solely a question of sustainability (how much time are they wasting policing the content?), that would probably be acceptable, but it's difficult to believe that it is the sole reason for the rule.
"I think you're missing the point of the users who see this new rule as a negative mark against reddit"
We see the point, we're saying it doesn't matter. It's been pretty obvious over the last year that this train has been coming down the tracks and there's ultimately only one way it could play out.
The spam rule was already there and it's not rocket surgery to realize that any content more objectionable then spam is also eventually going to be excluded.
How was it obvious? r/jailbait was banned, yes, but that was only after there was a semi-revolution (a mod removed and banned all the other mods, then proceeded to give an ex-mod* his powers back, who then essentially tried to fuck it up (I heard actual preteen porn was posted)).
Assuming that that event necessarily means the removal of the other subreddits seems contrived.
* VA, the guy who also created & mods r/picsofdeadkids, r/PicsOfDeadJailbait, r/incest, etc.
How was it not? Reddit exploded and started making money hand over fist. Anderson Cooper shined a light on the seedy underbelly for like 5 sec and they gave up the game. The past week's events are just ripples from that and Reddit coming to terms with the only possible decision they could have made.
>Reddit exploded and started making money hand over fist.
Do you have a citation for this? I was under the impression they were still losing money and the Reddit, Inc stuff was there to allow Condi to distance itself from reddit.
That's when they deliberated for all of 30 seconds, decided they liked the million dollar checks and banned /r/jailbait.
Yesterday's announcement was merely a formalizing of that policy and application to a number of other subreddits in response to a second wave of negative publicity.
The problem is that I was confused. r/jailbait had already been banned in August[1], before the Cooper story. I had no idea it had been unbanned and then re-banned.
So yeah, following the second ban, you could see the writing on the wall.
Is this a joke?