Reddit has banned several hate groups in the past couple of weeks, including r/Nazi, r/EuropeanNationalism, and r/pol. Also gone: r/NationalSocialism, r/whitesarecriminals, r/Far_Right, and r/DylannRoofInnocent. The new policy explanation says,
Going forward, we will take action against any content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people; likewise, we will also take action against content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. This applies to ALL content on Reddit, including memes, CSS/community styling, flair, subreddit names, and usernames.
The full list of banned groups doesn't seem to be available, but many were tiny and some were not political; r/SexWithHorses and r/SexWithDogs are gone. Ahh… good?
Still up in the air: whether r/The_Donald is facing the axe. Seems unlikely, but if the banned communities' regulars pour into their remaining racist stronghold and start talking the same way, it may also vanish. The unhappy targets have tried to insist that groups that advocate punching Nazis should also be removed; so far, the mods remain able to tell the difference between "single meme" and "entire focus of community." However, it seems likely that Nazi-punching memes will no longer be allowed.
This follows years of community activism, where users watched for racist communities whose moderators have vanished, took ownership, repurposed the subreddit name, and changed the policies:
- r/WhitePolitics is now about paint and appliances: "I just made the subreddit one less haven for spam and racism, and instead a place to post dank memes about the color white."
- r/race_realism has been flooded with "politically incorrect" posts about cycling, NASCAR, and other aspects of racing: "Polite society doesn't like to talk about it, but the blue shell is completely fair and adds to the balance of Mario Kart."
- r/Stormfront has been rededicated to “firsthand reports of severe weather” for the past five years.
- r/PUA was taken over and switched to posts about weightlifting and related physical challenges.
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[–] [deleted] ago (edited ago)
[–] Kannibal [S] ago
So how to you feel about the Hobby Lobby decision?