Reddit Finally Prohibits Stolen Nude Photos and Revenge Pornography

In an announcement that will finally help people all over the world sleep easier, popular social news-sharing site Reddit has modified its privacy policy to prohibit the posting of any nudes or sexually explicit imagery if the subjects of the post have not consented to the post being made public.

This comes as a huge relief to victims of revenge pornography, who have traditionally received little or no support from Reddit when it came to protecting their privacy and ensuring that unauthorised nudes were taken off the site. The move follows another major policy change that saw Google effectively stop the publishing of sexually-explicit content on its Blogger platform.

The latest announcement shows that Reddit is now committed to protecting the victims of stolen porn. Reddit, in the post, showed remorse that it "missed a chance to be a leader in social media when it comes to protecting your privacy".

(Also see: Google Blogger to stop publishing of sexually explicit content) 

It also finally recognised that "violent personalized images are a form of harassment that we do not tolerate and we will remove them when notified", which although late, is a welcome change of heart to revenge porn victims nonetheless.

Previously, Reddit adopted a strategy where they essentially felt really bad that your private images were in plain public view for the perverts and sleazebags of the world, but they refused to actually remove such content without legal orders to do so. This change in policy shows that Reddit has adopted a proactive approach towards eliminating private content uploaded without consent, encouraging victims to simply approach the site's administrators to have such content removed and get the infringing user banned.

The changes in policy will come into effect on March 10, and Reddit and the Internet will become a (slightly) safer place.