Reddit Shuts Down Two Popular “Alt-Right” Subreddits
One of the popular online communities Reddit has removed its two popular "alt-right" subreddit, /r/alright communities after the members were found posting personal information in an attempt to harass the users. According to Mirror, the communities or "subreddits" which is known as /altright and r/alternativeright have become notorious for hosting controversial and hateful comments about minority groups.
For those who are not familiar with Reddit, it is a social platform which is built on users sharing and discussing content which is categorized into hundreds of smaller communities known as subreddits. Each subreddit has its own unique and different area of interest.
The banning to the subreddits was imposed after citing a violation of Reddit's content policy. Subreddit, r/alternativeright was also banned with no specific reasons. Some users said that the banning of the said communities was triggered by people who are posting personal details about a protester who punched the alt-right figurehead Richard Spencer during a TV interview at Donald Trump's inauguration.
"We are very clear in our site terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit and we ask our communities not to post content that harasses or invites harassment," Reddit said.
According to Telegraph, the ban sparked reactions to almost 4,000 members of the r/altright community saying that the action taken was a "political suppression" and "censorship." Reddit's executives, on the other hand, has expressed their liberal political leanings and promised to minimize hate speech and abuse.
Reddit blocks users for some violations. However, it is quite uncommon for them to shut down a whole thread. The company also explained that users were already warned several times that revealing people's identities was not allowed in the community which could result in a ban.
The company's co-founder, Alexis Ohania was known as knOthing in Reddit posted an open letter to the community stating Trump administration's immigration ban as unconstitutional and profoundly un-American. The comments about the open letter called the site to task for doing about the increasing alt-right presence.
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