Reddit has just shut down one of its active groups, but not because it was an alternative right community.
Alt-right movement has been coined back in 2010 by Richard Spencer. The term represents a new white supremacy ideology promoted by a loose community of people. The movement backed away from defining itself as a form of antisemitism, while their ideology shows a different situation. One of their major gathering places in the online world was within a Reddit thread. However, the website decided to shut down this so-called alternative right community for a good reason.
The alternative right or alt-right movement drew more attention during the 2016 American presidential election. Their presence became more prominent the moment Donald Trump named Steve Bannon the CEO of his campaign. The public figure is the chairman of Breitbart News which is a publication that supports the alt-right movement. Media captured Steve Bannon starting a coined Nazi chanting during a conference that celebrated the victory of Donald Trump.
The sub-Reddit thread called r/altright was widely known among the social media users from here as a source of racist conversations. The company has recently closed the thread down the moment the members violated one of their terms namely the proliferation of private information. While there is no official statement that explains this decision in details, other active users are giving their input on the matter.
Another Reddit thread might have found the explanation for the ban of the alternative right community. It seems that Reddit administrators notified the r/altright community to stop posting links to a domain that was previously banned by them. The particular website hosts crowdfunding efforts for malicious purposes, namely doxxing. Even though the Reddit leadership placed an interdiction on this website, the alternative right group continued to share some of their links.
Reddit is another social media platform that struggles to keep its community safe while preserving the freedom of speech. Even though the banned thread was actively promoting racist arguments, this community was shut down only after they clearly infringed on one of the official terms of the website. Moreover, the leadership did not implement the decision right away, but only after a series of warnings.
This is not the first time Reddit closed down some of its threads. Back in 2015, the new CEO Ellen Pao who has been previously a lawyer introduced a new policy regarding online harassment. That day the platform shut down five communities that broke this new set of rules. Among them, there was a community that encouraged a hateful mindset against fat people. After this recent event, other subreddits that discuss racist topics are concerned for a possible ban for themselves.
Image source: 1
Share this:
