"We will not ban questionable subreddits," Reddit's then-CEO, Yishan Wong, wrote mere months ago. "You choose what to post. You choose what to read. You choose what kind of subreddit to create."
But in an apparent reversal of that policy, and in an unprecedented effort to clean up its long-suffering image, Reddit has just banned five "questionable subreddits."
The site permanently removed the forums Wednesday afternoon for harassing specific, named individuals, a spokesperson said. Of the five, two were dedicated to fat-shaming, one to transphobia, one to racism and one to harassing members of a progressive video game site.
Unsurprisingly, a vocal contingent of Redditors aren't taking the changes well: "Reddit increases censorship," read one post on r/freespeech, while forums like r/mensrights and r/opieandanthony theorized they would be next.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @10:42AM
No it doesn't. FoS means the freedom to speak without fear of prosecution or retaliation over the expressed ideas.
If a business (or person) want to stop you from espousing your views on their website they are free to do so.
That doesn't mean they aren't violating FoS, merely that they aren't committing a crime.