Reddit bans pro-Trump forum "The_Donald" in hate speech crackdown
Reddit has banned "The_Donald," a forum that united fans of President Donald Trump on the social media platform. While announcing policy changes, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said Monday that the popular subreddit was shut down because it continuously violated its hate speech rules.
Huffman said that he was making changes to the company's content policies and warned users promoting hate would be banned. He said 2,000 subreddits – the vast majority of which are inactive – were removed from the site as part of the new rules. The_Donald, which averaged about 7,800 daily active users, was among those taken down.
"All communities on Reddit must abide by our content policy in good faith," Huffman said."We banned r/The_Donald because it has not done so, despite every opportunity."
He said the subreddit "antagonized" the company and other communities, while its moderators "refused to meet" Reddit's basic expectations.
Last year, Reddit administrators "quarantined" the pro-Trump subreddit because users violated the content policy with threats of violence against police and public officials, CNET reported.
"Until now, we've worked in good faith to help them preserve the community as a space for its users—through warnings, mod changes, quarantining, and more," Huffman added on Monday.
Huffman said only 200 of the banned subreddits had more than 10 active users. That included the politically left-leaning r/ChapoTrapHouse, which "host rule-breaking content," according to Huffman.
Mr. Trump's controversial rhetoric has challenged the way some social media companies have navigated free speech. Twitter and Facebook are both labeling posts that break rules on their platforms, including the president's. According to Reuters, Amazon's live-streaming gaming platform Twitch temporarily banned Mr. Trump's official page, saying it violated its policy on hate speech.