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Reddit outlines policy to stop harassment on site

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By Minda Smiley, Reporter

May 14, 2015 | 2 min read

Reddit has announced its plans to better curb harassment on the site.

In a post on its blog called ‘Promote ideas, protect people’ by interim CEO Ellen Pao and other Reddit executives, the company said it is changing its practices “to prohibit attacks and harassment of individuals through reddit with the goal of preventing them.”

The website defines harassment as: “Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.”

Users are told to report private messages, posts or comments along with user if they feel they are being harassed to contact@reddit.com or though modmailing.

According to the post, a survey of 15,000 users conducted by the site last month has shown that negative responses to comments have made people uncomfortable contributing to or recommending Reddit.

Earlier this year, Pao lost a sexual discrimination case against her former employer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture-capital firm. The case drew widespread media attention as it raised many questions around the treatment of women in the male-dominated tech industry.

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