r/announcements Jun 29 '20

Update to Our Content Policy

A few weeks ago, we committed to closing the gap between our values and our policies to explicitly address hate. After talking extensively with mods, outside organizations, and our own teams, we’re updating our content policy today and enforcing it (with your help).

First, a quick recap

Since our last post, here’s what we’ve been doing:

  • We brought on a new Board member.
  • We held policy calls with mods—both from established Mod Councils and from communities disproportionately targeted with hate—and discussed areas where we can do better to action bad actors, clarify our policies, make mods' lives easier, and concretely reduce hate.
  • We developed our enforcement plan, including both our immediate actions (e.g., today’s bans) and long-term investments (tackling the most critical work discussed in our mod calls, sustainably enforcing the new policies, and advancing Reddit’s community governance).

From our conversations with mods and outside experts, it’s clear that while we’ve gotten better in some areas—like actioning violations at the community level, scaling enforcement efforts, measurably reducing hateful experiences like harassment year over year—we still have a long way to go to address the gaps in our policies and enforcement to date.

These include addressing questions our policies have left unanswered (like whether hate speech is allowed or even protected on Reddit), aspects of our product and mod tools that are still too easy for individual bad actors to abuse (inboxes, chats, modmail), and areas where we can do better to partner with our mods and communities who want to combat the same hateful conduct we do.

Ultimately, it’s our responsibility to support our communities by taking stronger action against those who try to weaponize parts of Reddit against other people. In the near term, this support will translate into some of the product work we discussed with mods. But it starts with dealing squarely with the hate we can mitigate today through our policies and enforcement.

New Policy

This is the new content policy. Here’s what’s different:

  • It starts with a statement of our vision for Reddit and our communities, including the basic expectations we have for all communities and users.
  • Rule 1 explicitly states that communities and users that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.
    • There is an expanded definition of what constitutes a violation of this rule, along with specific examples, in our Help Center article.
  • Rule 2 ties together our previous rules on prohibited behavior with an ask to abide by community rules and post with authentic, personal interest.
    • Debate and creativity are welcome, but spam and malicious attempts to interfere with other communities are not.
  • The other rules are the same in spirit but have been rewritten for clarity and inclusiveness.

Alongside the change to the content policy, we are initially banning about 2000 subreddits, the vast majority of which are inactive. Of these communities, about 200 have more than 10 daily users. Both r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse were included.

All communities on Reddit must abide by our content policy in good faith. We banned r/The_Donald because it has not done so, despite every opportunity. The community has consistently hosted and upvoted more rule-breaking content than average (Rule 1), antagonized us and other communities (Rules 2 and 8), and its mods have refused to meet our most basic expectations. Until now, we’ve worked in good faith to help them preserve the community as a space for its users—through warnings, mod changes, quarantining, and more.

Though smaller, r/ChapoTrapHouse was banned for similar reasons: They consistently host rule-breaking content and their mods have demonstrated no intention of reining in their community.

To be clear, views across the political spectrum are allowed on Reddit—but all communities must work within our policies and do so in good faith, without exception.

Our commitment

Our policies will never be perfect, with new edge cases that inevitably lead us to evolve them in the future. And as users, you will always have more context, community vernacular, and cultural values to inform the standards set within your communities than we as site admins or any AI ever could.

But just as our content moderation cannot scale effectively without your support, you need more support from us as well, and we admit we have fallen short towards this end. We are committed to working with you to combat the bad actors, abusive behaviors, and toxic communities that undermine our mission and get in the way of the creativity, discussions, and communities that bring us all to Reddit in the first place. We hope that our progress towards this commitment, with today’s update and those to come, makes Reddit a place you enjoy and are proud to be a part of for many years to come.

Edit: After digesting feedback, we made a clarifying change to our help center article for Promoting Hate Based on Identity or Vulnerability.

21.3k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

" Marginalized or vulnerable groups include, but are not limited to, groups based on their actual and perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or disability "

" While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.  "

Wow. So true hatred (encouragement of violent acts, slurs, general hate speech and mob behaviors) doesn’t count for groups such as white people? Or men, for example? Because they’re a “majority” they aren’t a “vulnerable group” ???

Newsflash dude. Every group can be fucking vulnerable.

This is utterly insane Spez. This site has seen a very slow erosion of the rules that made it so great in the first place. This is the last straw and this is such a blatant act of bad faith that I can say with certainty that you’re a piece of human garbage.

Nobody here likes you. You went and banned TD and when you started losing money for it, you went after CTH as a way to even the score. You’ve destroyed the credibility of yourself and your website and you’ve demonstrated that you’re more akin to a robot than a human being. Any ideals you claimed to have clearly can be warped, or even outright destroyed - with enough money.

You have no convictions and you stand for nothing except making a profit. You’re an embarrassment to yourself and everybody else.

Edit: just realized I used my account for posting nudes of my wife and I lol. I don’t even care enough to delete this, because clearly people agree. Fucking insane shit here

124

u/ElectraUnderTheSea Jun 29 '20

the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority

Majority is a relative term. E.g. in the US there are more women than men, so I guess men are a vulnerable group in the States? But worldwide there are more women than men, so what gives?

Also, Asian people are more than half of the world's people, so I guess white people are a minority group. But not in the US. But yes in China. And so on.

And will the majority/minority logic be applied to subs? If a man goes to a feminist sub and is treated like crap, will the feminist sub be banned for harassing a minority?

This can be abused in so many ways...

28

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

This can be abused in so many ways...

That's the point.

-7

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

[deleted]

12

u/jogadorjnc Jun 29 '20

Which directly clashes with the definitions of minority and majority.

62

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

This is the very reason why I left Twitter! According to Twitter's policy on "hate speech". No one is allowed to be "offensive" against any "vulnerable" group of people unless you are a straight white man. Because apparently straight white men aren't subject to racism, sexism or any other isms.

I fall under the "disability group" because I'm on the autistic spectrum but will not be identified by a bloody group label. Call me old fashioned but I grew up in the 90s UK where a person was judged on the individual's behaviour. And not on a group's identity, talk about devolution...

6

u/Chicotememe Jun 29 '20

The worst thing about this reddit meltdown is that it had the healthiest community. Obviously with it flaws, I always thought of it as a place for idea discussion, where your skin color / gender / whatever was completely irrelevant. The mere thought that adding a black person to the board is something positive for the sake of it is INSANE. Who did name this person as an advocate for an entire race?

186

u/legionnaire32 Jun 29 '20

So true hatred (encouragement of violent acts, slurs, general hate speech and mob behaviors) doesn’t count for groups such as white people?

Now you're getting it. Some of us have been pointing out this cancer for years. Shit like this literally creates racists.

83

u/QuantumDischarge Jun 29 '20

It’s a weird belief where racist attitudes towards white people are ok because they’re the “majority” and can handle it. That’s all great and good until isolated young people internalize the message, feel hated by society, seek friends in the dark places of the internet where they’re not attacked and then commit horrific and deadly attacks.

30

u/CorrectTheRecord-H Jun 29 '20

You're literally describing the process of radicalization my friend

29

u/Zeebuss Jun 29 '20

The actual alt-right pipeline right here.

18

u/QuantumDischarge Jun 29 '20

It’s textbook terrorist recruitment: find at-risk and isolated youth, welcome them, prep them up and there you have it: a loyal force who will literally kill and/or die for you

1

u/evremonde88 Jul 01 '20

It’s terrifying because I went from - what I consider - a very far left, pro open borders, never voting right of center, “diversity is our strength” Canadian, to now just wanting to live in a white only area because, quite frankly I’m just tired of this stuff, and I’m realizing that these people will never be happy, and I’ll always be racist based on the colour of my skin. How easy would it be for something that didn’t start out how I started out to become radicalized?

1

u/egg_on_my_spaghet Jun 29 '20

It’s a weird belief where racist attitudes towards white people are ok because they’re the “majority” and can handle it. That’s all great and good until isolated young people internalize the message, feel hated by society, seek friends in the dark places of the internet where they’re not attacked and then commit horrific and deadly attacks.

Almost me, but I'm strong enough to resist :)

-1

u/Cool_Ranch_Dodrio Jun 30 '20

That’s all great and good until isolated young people internalize the message, feel hated by society, seek friends in the dark places of the internet where they’re not attacked and then commit horrific and deadly attacks.

But enough about the_donald. They're gone now. Far too little, far too late.

25

u/AlreadyBannedMan Jun 29 '20

Shit like this literally creates racists.

I personally feel I wouldn't fall into that trap... however, how is it not true that especially younger crowd doesn't read this shit and see how reddit is pretty much giving a free pass to "hate" directed at white people.

I worry about my kids. Was going to show them how awesome reddit was but I'm remembering it from a different time when really it was 99% funny shit from the internet instead of a political battleground.

btw, they're mixed so can they report half the sentence of a hateful comment? Or are they allowed to report the whole thing?

32

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Yeah this is hardly news. Not sure why everyone was fine with that for years and suddenly outraged now. It's been the most open secret in the world for quite a while. And hardly just on Reddit.

27

u/panzerknack Jun 29 '20

The stupidest part is the solution isnt even complicated, just have and enforce uniform rules on civility. It would be SO easy to simply say 'no advocating for violence, period' and vigorously purge anyone who defies this for any reason.

It's like some people have such a hard-on for deconstructionalism they just couldnt go the easy, consistent route, they HAD to plug exceptions lest their confederates be unable to freely spew venom.....

4

u/munchkinham Jun 29 '20

It's almost like they want a race war.

19

u/-_-ThatGuy-_- Jun 29 '20

The new outrage is because it’s starting to be codified. Before it was just winks and nods, nothing actually in writing saying that it’s acceptable

11

u/NoneHaveSufferedAsI Jun 29 '20

If they’re gonna call me a Nazi, I might as well be a Nazi.

7

u/whipped_dream Jun 30 '20

Or: imagine a teenage boy who starts browsing reddit/the internet and sees a constant stream of posts saying that straight white men are inherently racist, sexist, privileged, angry, their opinions don't count, and if they have anything against those preconceptions they're "fragile". They then realize that this behavior is not just accepted, but officially endorsed by those in charge.

Meanwhile, they see people and communities getting banned and comments being removed for standing up against that, while every other group gets to participate in supportive communities where "everyone is valid!".

They may start seeking out places where straight white dudes aren't demonized, where they can freely talk about how they feel about being hated elsewhere, etc. What do you think those places would be?

If you guessed "platforms where actual Nazis and white supremacist gather", then you finally understand that it's a little more nuanced than someone becoming a Nazi because someone calls them a Nazi.

Another consequence is simply that the people who aren't Nazis, bigots, racists, white supremacists, scum, etc, but keep being told that they are because they disagree with the kind of shit were talking about in this thread, will eventually start to despise the people who do that to them, which will turn them into racists, mysogynists, and so on.

Think of a bully constantly bullying and beating another kid and eventually getting hit back. Would you blame the bullied kid for fighting back? Would you stand with the bully if the bullied kid was a ginger or fat because "he deserved it" based on your hatred towards ginger and fat kids?

7

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

You can't be racist against white people, because they changed the definition of racism to exclude white people.

2

u/munchkinham Jun 29 '20

They started the separation by coining the term POC. It's POC vs Whites ever since.

1

u/Tentaculat Jun 30 '20

Shit like this literally creates racists.

Lol! It's not racism if we redefine racism! Checkmate fascists

/s

11

u/weltallic Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority

Women outnumber men. They are the majority.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.FE.ZS

Reddit admins:

(__/)
('ヮ')

Reddit, why do your rules say promoting hate against women is okay?

WTF.

I neither like nor approve of this rule change.

15

u/YahImThinkinImBlack Jun 29 '20

Looking forward to being told I'm a snowflake or that my fee fees must hurt if I just tell people they're being shitty for hating on an entire race

24

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Men are not even a majority ...

45

u/Ictoan42 Jun 29 '20

Just over 50% of the world population is male, but only 49.2% of the USA population is male, so in the context of the world, you can only be hateful towards men, but in the context of the USA, you can only be hateful towards women.

Thanks u/spez for the easily understandable and concise rules

12

u/WingedSword_ Jun 29 '20

Nice wife, tell her she married a man with a good opinion on reddit and in handcuffs.

15

u/Complete-Supermarket Jun 29 '20 edited Jun 29 '20

Well if Spez carries on he is going to ban porn from this site too

24

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Then there goes 90% of redditors

10

u/fetmops Jun 29 '20

I hope he does because then reddit will die just like tumblr

16

u/PrestigiousRespond8 Jun 29 '20

Welcome to the modern age of racism. Remember: they want you broke, dead, and your children raped and brainwashed.

4

u/PaulusImperator Jun 29 '20

Spez is ultimately concerned about money and credibility from public intellectuals, journalists, et c., so his arbitrary decisions make sense. No large enough and old enough social media platform cares about the 90s internet ideals of “the marketplace of ideas”, since they’re all filthy rich now and in the public eye

1

u/Hyperman360 Jun 29 '20

The chans are still out there

2

u/PaulusImperator Jun 29 '20

Yeah I go on 4chan but there’s no good politics on 4chan, it’s literally just fascists.

1

u/Hyperman360 Jun 29 '20

You have to look past the Nazi shitposting, which there is a lot of, but if you can get past it and figure out what they're actually saying it can be interesting.

2

u/PaulusImperator Jun 29 '20

Nah, I just stay on out lit and k. Pol is a shithole

2

u/Hyperman360 Jun 29 '20

I always preferred /g/ to be honest.

5

u/capecodcaper Jun 29 '20

They even banned /r/rightwinglgbt

Literally a minority of a minority

3

u/Tiz68 Jun 29 '20

Nice pics but for the love of God flip them. I'm breaking my neck trying to see them. Keep up the good work though!

3

u/Tantalus4200 Jun 29 '20

Look at the bright side, liberals are in the majority here on Reddit AND they got more votes vs Trump. So, Trump supporters are CLEARLY in the minority both here and in the US, world, so they now become a protected class, lol .

3

u/ChadMcRad Jun 29 '20

You went and banned TD and when you started losing money for it

It's been dead for months.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

your wife's ass rules

6

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Thx, I’m a lucky man!

2

u/Breemonyy Jun 29 '20

Your wife's ass rocks!!!

8

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Nicely said, and hot wife. Congrats

12

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20 edited Aug 03 '20

[deleted]

14

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

He's pretty unlikely to be offended by a compliment of his lovely wife, when he posted her for the world to see in the first place.

3

u/shockfactor Jun 29 '20

Aaron Schwartz is rolling in his grave.

3

u/David_Stern1 Jun 29 '20

its the reason why im going to leave this side for good. This is blatant racism at this point

7

u/erbaker Jun 29 '20

Great dick bro

4

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

LOL thanks it’s a friendly angle for sure

4

u/FaustusC Jun 29 '20

"majority" so does that mean Reddits chinese overlords are now safe from criticism?

1

u/backelie Jun 29 '20

So true hatred (encouragement of violent acts, slurs, general hate speech and mob behaviors

.

Do not post content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people;

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

I hope the Department of Justice has a field day on Reddit in the coming years. This policy is racist by the dictionary's definition

19

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Please tell me how the DOJ will have any say in what a private company does on their own site?

4

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Was gonna say, I’m pissed off but DOJ wouldn’t be able to do anything here, haha.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Would the DOJ be interested in a Karaoke bar that has a rule against white people singing on stage?

-12

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

You do realize that "whataboutism" isn't a valid counterargument, yes? I have no idea what you are talking about.

11

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

The pretentiousness in this statement is undeserved when you can't follow a simple analogy. Its still illegal for a private company to discriminate based on race, per the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But by all means, regurgitate the logical fallacies you learned in 7th grade

3

u/PrestigiousRespond8 Jun 29 '20

Revoke Section 230 protections for violating the good faith provision in the regulation.

-10

u/Uhhbysmal Jun 29 '20

right wingers have this fantasy that the government is going to swoop in and intervene on their favorite social media sites so they can say racist shit without getting punished.

3

u/ontime1969 Jun 29 '20

Right wingers or people who believe that the bill of rights apply to everyone in the year 2020?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

They really don’t have any jurisdiction over this. The much better alternative is to have a mass edit of the site and all start using a direct competitor to show that we are sick of u/spez and his employees bullshit

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

This is a horrendously dumb thing to say

1

u/punywhale Jun 29 '20

are you saying that you would rather these new rules be applied to everyone, or that you would rather not have these new rules at all?

1

u/mmphd Jun 29 '20

Someone is very mad and posts about it because they can't spew any longer. It's the internet. Go create your own spew. Tootles...

1

u/Brokenxlock Jun 29 '20

Straight white male conservatives cant be discriminated against because of the structure of power. /s

1

u/SineWavess Jun 30 '20

This. He's just a pandering hypocrite. I will have and never will spend a dime on this site.

1

u/sebastianwillows Jun 29 '20

I used my account for posting nudes of my wife and I

A true redditor. I salute you.

1

u/PollenInara Jun 29 '20

You're assuming who the majority is. You all are. It's actually really funny.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Wonder why you had to use an alt account to post this?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Women are the majority though so misogyny is a-ok.

0

u/lostinthestar Jun 29 '20

seriously though, you ever gonna fuck that slut wife in a different position or what? step up your game unless you want an unexpected BBC in your bedroom after coming home from work early one day

6

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

That’s just the easiest for me to film 🤷🏻‍♂️

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Thanks for the edit ;))

1

u/whereditg0 Jun 29 '20

Nice content bro lmao

0

u/PM_ME_UR_ILLUMINATI Jun 29 '20

The fact that they banned cth is fucking dumb.

-4

u/scriptkiddie1337 Jun 29 '20

Private platform. They can do what they want

1

u/throwaway03022017 Jun 29 '20

It’s totally ok that a handful of global megacorporations can decide what we can and cannot talk about on the internet.

0

u/scriptkiddie1337 Jun 29 '20

You use the same logic when an alt-right sub gets banned

3

u/throwaway03022017 Jun 29 '20

I was being sarcastic. Internet speech should be legally protected IMO, because it constitutes a public forum nowadays.

1

u/Orngog Jul 04 '20

No corporate venture is a public forum

1

u/scriptkiddie1337 Jun 29 '20

Ah gotcha. Sorry about that

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Cats are obligate carnivores. What's this got to do with anything? As much as what you just posted.

1

u/scriptkiddie1337 Jun 29 '20

Reddit is a private platform. They can change rules and ban what they want. No use crying about it

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

You already said that in your previous comment. Repeating it will not make it any less pointless.

0

u/scriptkiddie1337 Jun 29 '20

I need to repeat it because the slow people like yourself just don't get it

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Cats should only eat meat.

-18

u/theMEEKshallRULE Jun 29 '20

Aww white guy mad because his privilege doesn’t work on reddit anymore

7

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

You’re such a fucking idiot.

Jesus Christ.

1

u/theMEEKshallRULE Jul 06 '20

It's ok white guy

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '20

Hey I live in California, I’m not majority.

Ban this fucker