Reddit cracks down on "toxic users" of pro-Trump forum
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has announced a plan to crack down on the “most toxic users” of a forum on the site used to discuss President-elect Donald Trump.
Huffman said in a post on the link-sharing and discussion platform that the actions being taken against some users of a forum titled “The_Donald” range from “warnings to timeouts to permanent bans.”
Some commenters in the forum have repeatedly harassed Huffman. The forum has also featured racist comments and fake news.
“Historically, we have relied on our relationship with moderators to curb bad behaviors,” the executive wrote. “While some of the moderators have been helpful, this has not been wholly effective, and we are now taking a more proactive approach to policing behavior that is detrimental to Reddit....”
Huffman said many people have asked the company to ban the forum outright, but he has resisted doing so in the “spirit of healing” the country.
“The United States is more divided than ever, and we see that tension within Reddit itself. The community that was formed in support of President-elect Donald Trump organized and grew rapidly, but within it were users that devoted themselves to antagoni[z]ing the broader Reddit community,” he wrote.
Reddit’s actions follow Huffman’s admission last week that he had edited posts on a forum called “the_donald,” a highly active “subreddit” for supporters of the president-elect. Reddit users discovered the edits and shared before-and-after screenshots of the altered posts.
