Reddit is banning its worst communities. The most resounding removal, according to the website's group administrator is the "fatpeoplehate" subreddit group, composed of more than 5, 000 members. They are all devoted to posting images of overweight individuals all for the purpose of ridicule.
"Our goal is to enable as many people as possible to have authentic conversations and share ideas and content on an open platform," a Reddit group administrator posted. "We want as little involvement as possible in managing these interactions, but will be involved when needed to protect privacy and free expression, and to prevent harassment," the post continued.
Four other banned subreddits were r/neofag, r/hamplanethatred, r/shitniggerssay, and r/transfags. The admin has mentioned that all of these groups have violated the Reddit rule that says everyone should be safe. The last four subreddits mentioned ranged from 150 to 3000 subscribers. Though Reddit says r/fatpeoplehate group had more than 5, 000 members, the figures have appeared as an understatement. Through a Google cached page, the accurate number of subscribers says 151, 000.
There are approximately 650, 000 subreddits, so putting down five might seem negligible. However, this has formed part of a long ongoing debate on how broad the site's content restrictions must be.
In the past years, Reddit slowly shifted their "anything-goes" ideas to a more limited sexually suggestive behavior, forums dedicated to distributing images of sexualized women, and subreddits that were instrumental in distributing nude celebrity photos, The Verge reported.
The site has a long-standing set of regulations against vote manipulation, span, and personal information distribution like employment and address information.