Reddit Bans Popular Alt-Right Subreddits Over Doxing

Popular discussion website Reddit has banned two subreddits - meaning topics of interest - that violated the site’s content policy. The two popular subreddits taken down were r/altright and r/alternativeright, which as the names suggest are related to alt-right - a group of people believing in the far-right political ideology.

The Verge reports that the reason for the take down of these subreddits was due to doxing - a practice of researching and broadcasting private and identifiable information about a person or organisation.

The report states that the person being doxed may have been someone who punched Richard Spencer, a noted American white supremacist. The alt-right mainly consists of people including white nationalists, Donald Trump supporters and other conservative groups. Reddit issued the following statement - “We are very clear in our site terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit and we ask our communities not to post content that harasses or invites harassment. We have banned r/altright due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy. There is no single solution to these issues and we are actively engaging with the Reddit community to improve everyone's experience."

Although it was interesting to see Reddit take a stance on the matter, the group appears to have moved the conversation to a Reddit-like alternative called Voat.