Despite recent news that the social media platform Reddit would allow President Donald Trump’s campaign to run ads on the platform, the company still squashes free speech on the platform.
Reddit has banned nearly 7,000 subreddits since enacting its new policies on “hate” June 29, according to the company’s quarterly report released on Thursday.
Reddit divided these subreddits into three main categories: “Subreddits with names and descriptions that are inherently hateful, Subreddits with a large fraction of hateful content, [and] Subreddits that positively engage with hateful content.”
The report noted that nearly half (48%) of what the platform deems hateful content on the site was directed at users’ “ethnicity/nationality.” The rest was directed at“class/political affiliation (16%), sexuality (12%), gender (10%), religion (6%), ability (1%), and seven percent was “unclear.”
The platform’s rules state: “Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.”
But even Reddit admitted it is not always able to identify what exactly “hate” means.
”Defining hate at scale is fraught with challenges,” stated the report. “Sometimes hate can be very overt, other times it can be more subtle. … Additionally, people are weirdly creative about how to be mean to each other.”
In June, in response to Black Lives Matter protests, Reddit began to crack down on what it deemed “hateful” content, and banned several subreddits, including: “r/The_Donald,” a pro-Trump forum, r/ChapoTrapHouse and about 2,000 other communities.
Conservatives are under attack: Contact the Reddit admin and demand that the platform mirror the First Amendment: Tech giants should afford their users nothing less than the free speech and free exercise of religion embodied in the First Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
