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The Reddit Files
Confirmed

Reddit Bans r/The_Donald and About 2,000 Subreddits Under New Hate Rule

On June 29, 2020, Reddit banned r/The_Donald, a pro-Trump forum of nearly 800,000 users, along with about 2,000 other communities, as it added an explicit rule against promoting hate. The left-leaning r/ChapoTrapHouse was banned in the same action.

Jun 29, 2020
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Whose side it served: Democrats

Removing the largest pro-Trump forum during an election year served Trump's opponents, even though a left-wing forum was also banned.

What the record shows

Reddit's updated content policy stated that 'communities and users that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.' Reddit said The_Donald was banned because it had not followed the policy in good faith 'despite every opportunity' and that its moderators 'refused to meet our most basic expectations' after the 2019 quarantine. CEO Steve Huffman wrote that the forum's members 'antagonized us and other communities.' Of the roughly 2,000 communities banned, only about 200 had more than 10 daily users. Much of The_Donald's activity had already moved to an off-site forum.

In their words

“We banned r/The_Donald because it has not done so, despite every opportunity”— Reddit company statement · source
“antagonized us and other communities”— Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO · source
The other side

Reddit banned the left-wing r/ChapoTrapHouse 'for similar reasons' in the same sweep, and the hate rule is written to be viewpoint-neutral. Critics on the right counter that enforcement of 'hate' is subjective and fell hardest on the largest conservative community.

Sources

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