Whenever a subreddit like /r/pizzagate or /r/altright crossed the TOS line and was shut down, the members of each group would simply disperse to cloned or tangential subreddits and spew their hatred anew. By now, Reddit had undeniably become a breeding ground for extremism.Īfter the election, the company found itself mired in a game of subreddit ban whack-a-mole that treated symptoms but never touched the disease. As Election Day drew nearer and fear-mongering efforts were redoubled, the more volatile enclaves of certain subreddits-particularly /r/The_Donald, a massive subreddit dedicated to Donald Trump-began engaging in real world doxxing and harassment. The more internet-savvy elements of Trump's base ( and potentially some Russian bots) used the controlled forum format to game the site's popularity algorithms and amplify the bigoted subtext of Trump's platform. This tactical shift dovetailed with the website's pivotal role in the 2016 US presidential election. Having learned from the imbroglio that followed-and with the site's policy on what constitutes harassment now explicitly defined-Redditors seeking to engage in hate speech began forming or infiltrating less flagrantly antagonistic niche subbreddits, tiptoeing right up to the line of Terms of Service (TOS)-breaking activity. ![]() It wouldn't be until the 2015 introduction of an explicit anti-harassment policy, and the subsequent ban of several of the site's most toxic communities, that Reddit would take a more active role in policing its rampant harassment and hate speech. ![]() But the ban was a tacit acknowledgement by Reddit management that overseeing a website of this magnitude brings innate ethical responsibilities. Until that point, /r/jailbait and other controversial subreddits had been allowed to exist under the site's lassiez faire approach to free speech (even then, it was only removed largely after seeing widespread media attention). In 2011, the site made one of its first major moves to ban a subreddit: /r/jailbait, a community dedicated to exactly what it sounds like. ![]() As Reddit's profile and popularity has risen, its management has historically shown a touch-and-go approach to policing certain of its subreddits (member-founded-and-moderated communities, where users gather to discuss anything under the sun)-especially, until recent years, the most toxic among them.
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