Reddit bans pro-Trump forum, Twitch suspends US president’s channel for ‘hateful content’
The community or ‘subreddit’, called ‘The_Donald’, has over 7,90,000 users who post memes, videos and supportive messages for Trump.
Social networking website Reddit on Monday banned a forum dedicated to United States President Donald Trump’s fans for violating the website’s hate speech rules. The community or “subreddit”, called “The_Donald”, has over 7,90,000 users who post memes, videos and supportive messages for Trump.
“Reddit is a place for community and belonging, not for attacking people,” Steve Huffman, the company’s chief executive officer, said, according to The New York Times. “The_Donald has been in violation of that.”
In a post detailing changes to the company’s content policies, Huffman said communities and users promoting hate speech will be barred from the website. Reddit will also ban around 2,000 other communities from across the political spectrum, the majority of which are inactive.
“All communities on Reddit must abide by our content policy in good faith,” Huffman added. “We banned “The_Donald” because it has not done so, despite every opportunity.”
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Meanwhile, Twitch, the live streaming platform owned by Amazon, on Monday temporarily suspended Trump’s channel for “hateful conduct,” AFP reported. “Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been removed.”
The site said that two recent streams on Trump’s channel violated its rules. One stream was a broadcast of a 2015 campaign event in which Trump made comments about Mexico sending “drugs, crime and rapists” over the border. The other was of his recent rally in Tulsa, Okla, where he talked about a “very tough hombre” breaking into a woman’s house.
Social media websites have lately become more vigilant about the type of content they host and of their handling of hate speech by Trump and his supporters. Earlier this month, Twitter began placing some of Trump’s messages behind warning labels, while Snap said it would no longer promote Trump’s account in its “Discover” section. YouTube on Monday announced that it was terminating six accounts known to propagate far-right views online over hate speech violations.