Reddit Updates Policy Again, Bans More Offensive Communities
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS13) - Weeks after announcing it would institute new efforts to keep its millions of users from posting offensive content, social media giant Reddit announced more changes Wednesday to its content policy.
Included in the changes will be the banning of some communities, known as "subreddits," that many users complained should have been banned during the last update. For example, while a subreddit known for making disparaging remarks against obese people was banned, another one called "Coontown" that featured racist content against African-Americans was instead simply "reclassified."
One of the "rules" of that subreddit states: "Stay on topic: N*****s." Many users were outraged that the hateful community was still available for users, or redditors, to read.
"One new concept is Quarantining a community, which entails applying a set of restrictions to a community so its content will only be viewable to those who explicitly opt in. We will Quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the average redditor," wrote Steve Huffman, the site's CEO and co-founder. "Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else."
Other subreddits that were banned, wrote Huffman, included ones that featured content showing animated child porn.
It's likely that additional bans will come down as redditors continue to report subreddits that have served as bulletin boards for hateful content.
Huffman hopes the new, stricter policy for a site that has prided itself on being open and democratic will send those who seek to spread hate elsewhere, while keeping around those users who come for its more uplifting content.
"Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations," he wrote.