RThis week, eddit took action to stop hate speech by banning the India-focused discussion forum r/Chodi and quarantining the China focused r/GenZedong. The social media platform’s crackdown follows a TIME report in January about Reddit’s struggle to control hate speech in some of its non-English subreddits around the world.
The R/Chodi community, which had over 90,000 members and saw hundreds of new posts a day, was “banned for violating Reddit’s rule against promoting hate,” according to a message posted by Reddit administrators. TIME discovered dozens of subreddits that featured demeaning Islam, depicting Muslims as incestuous, ignorant or violent. TIME was told by moderators for r/India (another subreddit that is focused on India) that they alerted Reddit staff several times about this behavior, but they were ignored.
R/GenZedong, a self-described “Deng-ist” community with over 57,000 members, was quarantined for containing “a high volume of information not supported by credible sources,” the company wrote. (Quarantined communities are stripped of all of their subscribers, generate no revenue, and don’t show up on general Reddit feeds.) R/GenZedong is a safe haven for people who doubt Uighur oppression by China. This week, a post on the subreddit r/AgainstHateSubreddits alleged that r/GenZedong subscribers were now spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine and downplaying the number of civilian deaths there.
Reddit spokeswoman declined to comment on any other information than what was published on their website.
Continue reading: Reddit Allows Hate speech to thrive in Its Global Forums. Moderators Say
After Reddit’s crackdown on the two subreddits, both groups directed their members elsewhere—including Telegram, another platform that has become an information battleground in the Ukraine-Russia war. One new outpost of R/Chodi is already posting transphobic memes and welcoming its members to “a better free speech experience.” It’s not unusual for controversial subreddits to try migrating toward less-mainstream platforms, such as communities.win, which have fewer regulatory policies.
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