Updated on December 10, 2021
Recent events with Reddit have made much of how vocally bigoted some of its subreddits are, and how half-heartedly they’ve handled such, often behind the (flawed) “free speech!” “reason.”
It looks like Reddit’s finally showing a bit of backbone, or at least some concern over not being able to attract advertising dollars. On Wednesday, Reddit announced it’s banning some of its more bigoted subreddits. Reddit’s CEO states that such forums “exist solely to annoy other redditors.” That’s putting it quite mildly, of course.
While it’s a positive first step, Reddit has much more to do to make it a friendly, welcoming service, as well as attract the aforementioned advertising dollars. As Engadget notes, while the social network has deleted some of its nastier subreddits, it’s allowed a few others to remain behind its glorified curtain (as “quarantined”). So far, however, I don’t see any reports of a high profile backlash from their racist patrons, or people screaming “free speech!” about it all.
