Goodbye r/Nazi: Reddit Cleans House on Hate Speech Subs
A lot of subreddits disappeared Wednesday.
On Wednesday some of Reddit’s more nefarious subreddits like r/Nazi, r/EuropeanNationalism and r/far_right had disappeared, following a policy update that saw a large swath of hate speech-strewn subreddits banned.
In a thread within r/modnews, site admin landoflobsters detailed how Reddit felt it needed to be more specific when it came to its policy regarding content that incites violence, which is prohibited.
“We did this to alleviate user and moderator confusion about allowable content on the site,” they said. “We also are making this update so that Reddit’s content policy better reflects our values as a company.”
The admin went on to detail exactly what kind of content might now end up banned on the site:
Going forward, we will take action against any content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people; likewise, we will also take action against content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. This applies to ALL content on Reddit, including memes, CSS/community styling, flair, subreddit names, and usernames.
Users responded by asking if subs like r/watchpeopledie would find themselves canned. Landofthelobsters responded: “r/watchpeopledie has been reviewed, no plans to remove it for now. However, there are posts within the sub that are borderline so we’ll be reaching out to the mod team to clarify the policy with them.”
As the conversation went on, the overarching theme appeared to be that Reddit will be taking a closer look at the content in its subs, and admins can make decisions on a case by case basis.
An admin dryly responds to a user asking for context about"inciting violence," on Wednesday.
Still, the online community hub wasted no time in beginning to ban subreddits Wednesday. Here is a list of the communities that have been banned, at time of writing:
/r/Nazi
/r/Nationalsocialism
/r/pol
r/europeannationalism
/r/far_right
r/actualjournalism
r/whitesarecriminals
r/ReallyWackyTicTacs
r/DylannRoofInnocent
r/racoonsareni**ers
/r/SexWithDogs
/r/SexWithHorses
However, groups like r/WhiteRights were still up as of time of writing, and it appeared that posters from banned groups like r/Nationalsocialism had moved in to complain about the ban.
People within the r/modnews conversation also began repeatedly asking the next obvious question: why hasn’t r/the_Donald been banned yet? The Donald Trump fan sub is known to be a haven for white supremacist and white nationalist discourse, not to mention a thorn in the side of Reddit since its inception. This rapid-fire crackdown on hate speech will surely sway angry posters towards r/the_Donald’s gates of Hell … so if it wasn’t already in the sights of Admins, its days might be numbered either way.
Landofthelobsters said that Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman will be doing an AMA next week in r/announcements and will discuss the update in greater detail.
Here is Reddit’s official statement on the policy update:
Reddit is the home to some of the most authentic conversations online. We strive to be a welcoming, open platform for all by trusting our users to maintain an environment that cultivates genuine conversation. As of October 25, 2017, we have have made the following update to our site-wide policy: content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people is not allowed on Reddit; neither is content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. Communities focused on this content and users who post such content will be banned from the site.
