The social media platform Reddit banned the largest pro-Trump forum on its site.
Steve Huffman, the company’s chief executive, told reporters in a call on Monday that action was taken against “The_Donald” because its users consistently violated Reddit’s rules against harassment in targeting others with hate speech.
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“Reddit is a place for community and belonging, not for attacking people,” Huffman said, according to the New York Times. “The_Donald’ has been in violation of that.” The move came after Reddit updated its content policy to crack down on hate speech.
The subreddit had more than 790,000 users, who frequently posted memes, viral videos, and messages that cheered on the president and derided his political enemies. Huffman said that “The_Donald” was not the only group to get banned for not complying with the site’s hate speech guidelines. About 2,000 other forums were also banned, including one dedicated to the leftist podcasting group “Chapo Trap House.”
A former moderator for “The_Donald,” who left his position years ago, told the Washington Examiner that “this environment where everyone gets canceled’… finally [gave them] the cover to do what they want.”
“When I was in charge of /r/the_donald we were strictly against anti-Semitism and racism,” he added. “That stuff would get you banned. I made sure of it. Being against the transgender agenda, against conservative and radical Islam, against illegal immigration, and so forth were the mainstream from the get-go there. I can’t speak about how it’s been done since I was forced to step down during the Nimble America debacle. The Nimble America thing led to another curious chapter in Silicon Valley political intolerance.”
[Also read: ‘Close them down’: Trump threatens to regulate or shutter social media platforms after Twitter fact-check]
Reddit’s decision to ban a large pro-Trump subgroup will likely stir further animosity among the president’s supporters against social media platforms they feel are unfairly censoring them, including Twitter.
President Trump signed an executive order last month requiring a review of the federal law that protects social media companies from content posted by their users days after Twitter labeled two of his tweets “potentially misleading.”
A wave of conservatives who are frustrated with Twitter over high-profile suspensions and believe it is censoring their voices on the platform have flocked to a similar app called Parler.
