It also took down forums dedicated to openly buying and selling drugs.īut the company’s executives have struggled in particular with how to handle “The_Donald” and its noxious content. In 2016, it rolled out additional anti-harassment measures and tools. Later that year, it banned several subreddits that targeted black or obese people.
In 2015, Reddit introduced anti-harassment policies.
#Sites like reddit stating with a free
In the past, the company hosted forums that promoted racism against black people and openly sexualized underage children, all in the name of free speech. Yet that freewheeling position led to many issues of toxic speech and objectionable content across the site, for which Reddit has consistently faced criticism. People could simply sign up, browse the site anonymously and participate in any of the 130,000 active subreddits. No subject - whether it was video games or makeup or power-washing driveways - was too small to discuss. Reddit, which was founded 15 years ago and has more than 430 million regular users, has long been one corner of the internet that was willing to host all kinds of communities. “There is a lot of popular rhetoric about ‘the media’s’ negative impact on civil discourse, but now social media companies are acknowledging that some of its own users are the problem,” she said. Over the past few weeks, many large advertisers, including Coca-Cola, Verizon, Levi Strauss and Unilever, have said they plan to pause advertising on the social network because they were unhappy with its handling of hate speech and misinformation.Īndrea Hickerson, associate dean of the College of Information and Communications at the University of South Carolina, said the growing actions by social media companies would help cut down “on the noise and unwarranted confusion around the truth.” The company said it would allow all speech from political leaders to remain on its platform, even if the posts were untruthful or problematic, because such content was newsworthy and in the public’s interest to read.įacebook has since come under increasing fire for its stance. Twitch removed the videos from the president’s account.įacebook, the world’s largest social network, has said it refuses to be an arbiter of content. Trump’s channel had rebroadcast one of his campaign rallies from 2015, in which he denigrated Mexicans and immigrants, among other streams. Trump’s account for violating its policies against hateful conduct. On Monday, the streaming website Twitch suspended Mr. Trump’s Snapchat account after determining that his public comments off the site could incite violence. Snap also said it would stop promoting Mr.
Trump’s tweets to refute their accuracy or call them out for glorifying violence. Twitter started adding labels last month to some of Mr. Some of the sites have recently become more proactive in dealing with these issues. While Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and others originally positioned themselves as neutral sites that simply hosted people’s posts and videos, users are now pushing them to take steps against hateful, abusive and false speech on their platforms. Social media sites are facing a reckoning over the types of content they host and their responsibilities to moderate and police that content. Trump, who tweeted it to his 83 million followers. For years, many of the most viral Trump memes that broke through to Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere could be traced back to “The_Donald.” One video, “The Trump Effect,” originated on “The_Donald” in mid-2016 before bubbling up to Mr. Trump’s supporters, is by far the most active and prominent community that Reddit decided to act against. “The_Donald,” which has been a digital foundation for Mr. The vast majority of the forums that are being banned are inactive. Reddit said it was also banning roughly 2,000 other communities from across the political spectrum, including one devoted to the leftist podcasting group “ Chapo Trap House,” which has about 160,000 regular users. “‘The_Donald’ has been in violation of that.” “Reddit is a place for community and belonging, not for attacking people,” Steve Huffman, the company’s chief executive, said in a call with reporters. Trump’s online base, had consistently broken its rules by allowing people to target and harass others with hate speech. Reddit executives said the group, which has been highly influential in cultivating and stoking Mr. The community or “subreddit,” called “The_Donald,” is home to more than 790,000 users who post memes, viral videos and supportive messages about Mr. SAN FRANCISCO - Reddit, one of the largest social networking and message board websites, on Monday banned its biggest community devoted to President Trump as part of an overhaul of its hate speech policies.