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Reddit

Reddit begins banning groups following content policy update

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By Tony Connelly, Sports Marketing Reporter

August 6, 2015 | 2 min read

Reddit has banned a handful of communities known for sexist and racist content following a policy update.

The online discussion site made the changes to its terms of service in an attempt to be a more welcoming place for everyone and consolidate the various rules and policies that have accumulated over the years into a single set of clear guidelines.

Newly-returned Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman, made the announcement on the site and promised to “quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the average redditor”.

Huffman said that this includes “banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else”.

He added that the decision was taken because these communities were “becoming what Reddit was known for, and making it hard to recruit people.”

The site is renowned as a platform for truly open conversations that are unregulated so Huffman will be cautious not to damage this image with the changes. He said that he believed the new policies struck the right balance and were introduced because “we spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with a handful of communities, which prevents us from working on things for the other 99.98% (literally).”

The recent turmoil surround the site, including the departure of former CEO Ellen Pao, hasn’t hurt traffic, in fact Reddit saw 195 million visitors last month, up from about 164 million visitors in June.

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