The Reddit action comes as Facebook, a bigger rival, faces a tsunami of criticism from Democrats and civil rights advocates and praise from Republicans for refusing to take action against a Trump post that threatens violence against protesters who denounce police violence and racial injustice. Facebook’s decision sparked internal conflict in the social media giant and sparked a major advertising boycott that has seen brands like Verizon and Coca-Cola take messages off the platform.
The incident has created a turning point for Facebook and other social media giants, who are also under pressure to tackle racial inequalities amid the recent wave of protests against police violence in the wake of the murder of George Floyd while under police custody in Minnesota.
Reddit already hit the pro-Trump subreddit a big hit last year by severely restricting its visibility and functionality rather than “breaking repeated rules” through a process known as quarantine. The community has long been riddled with racist, xenophobic and other derogatory content, and Reddit has faced public pressure for years for not doing more to curb conduct on the channel.
As part of Monday’s move, Huffman said Reddit is also expanding its policies against hate behavior, which he says will now explicitly state that “communities and users who promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.” Reddit’s policies until now explicitly prohibited users and communities from inciting violence, but not hate behavior based on people’s identity.
Huffman said Monday that Reddit is also banning the r / ChapoTrapHouse subreddit, a popular left-wing community with more than 160,000 subscribers, for “consistently” hosting content that violates the rules and because its moderators “have shown no intention of reigning in its community”. Huffman said that of the 2,000 banned communities, a large majority were inactive, and only 200 of them currently have more than 10 daily active users.
“To be clear, opinions across the political spectrum are allowed on Reddit, but all communities must work within our policies and do so in good faith, without exception,” said Huffman.
While Democrats criticized Facebook for being pious initially in Trump posts, Twitter has received praise from liberal lawmakers and reprimands from Trump and his conservative allies for adding warning and fact-checking labels to a series of inflammatory tweets. from Trump.
After facing intense scrutiny, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday that the company is expanding its policies against calls to incite violence and voter repression and may add labels to some offensive messages from political leaders. , like Trump, who break their rules.
The r / The_Donald subreddit has been largely idle in recent times, and only one of its top posts came in the past three months.
