It’s inevitable that when you combine internet anonymity and community creation tools, some pretty shitty collective behaviour is going to emerge in the nooks and crannies of your website. Those users don’t necessarily reflect your image as a company, but how you respond to its existence definitely does.
Reddit has been a hub of that kind of free speech since Digg cracked down on user behaviour and saw its popularity go belly up a few years back and Reddit’s subsequent controversies over the years have finally culminated in actual action by the site’s administrators.

Yes, it seems shockingly popular subreddit FatPeopleHate has been shut down–it’s the largest community ban in the site’s history with an estimated 151,000 subscribers now forced to find somewhere else to make unnecessary remarks on people’s physiology. It’s one of five subreddits that have been banned under the website’s new community guidelines to prevent harassment. This doesn’t hinge on user opinion or a larger moralistic discussion, but more on a community’s penchant for distributing personal information and harassing specific people.

Strangely enough, one of the most hateful places on the site is still alive and well and actually mocking the latest measures on their sidebar.
We know you can’t get rid of hate on the internet, but you can move it away from places where it has the potential to do the most harm. Hopefully Reddit continues to develop and expand how it handles its most insidious elements.

[Via.]

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