- Reddit has banned the subreddit r/donaldtrump after pro-Trump extremists stormed the US Capitol on Thursday.
- A spokesperson said the firm’s site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate or “encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence.” The company said it has been contacting moderators to remind them of the guidelines.
- Reddit’s ban of r/donaldtrump comes as internet platforms continue to react to Wednesday’s attack, during which President Trump used his online accounts to continue to spread baseless claims of election fraud.
- Reports show that violence had been escalating beforehand on far-right internet groups, including on Parler, Twitter, Facebook, and TheDonald, a website that was banned from Reddit last summer over hate speech violations.
- Twitter kept his account locked until he removed three tweets that were in violation and Facebook has banned him from posting until at least January 20, when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
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Reddit has banned the subreddit r/donaldtrump after pro-Trump supporters were found to have organized online before storming and vandalizing the US Capitol on Wednesday. Axios first reported the news.
In a statement to Insider, a Reddit spokesperson said the firm’s site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate or “encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence” and the company has been contacting moderators to remind them of the guidelines.
“We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated policy violations in recent days regarding the violence at the US Capitol,” the spokesperson said. The website to the subreddit is now blank with a disclaimer that “r/donaldtrump has been banned from Reddit. This community was banned due to a violation of Reddit’s rules against inciting violence.”
The subreddit isn’t an official social account of the president, but Reddit’s ban comes as internet platforms at large continue to react to Wednesday’s siege on the US Capitol. As NBC News reported the day before the insurrection, violence had been escalating on far-right internet groups on Twitter, TikTok, and Parler, with many referring to Wednesday as “Independence Day.”
Violence was also filling TheDonald, the far-right website formed after the subreddit of the same name was banned from Reddit in June 2020 over hate speech violations.
Buzzfeed published a report detailing how far-right extremists had been publicly voicing their plans online for weeks leading up to January 6.
During the siege, Trump took to his online mouthpiece to spout more unfounded claims of election fraud, a move that prompted big tech companies to crack down on his official social media accounts.
Twitter removed three of his tweets in which he made the baseless claims and locked his account until he deleted them. He did on Thursday, and now he's back to posting regularly on the site.
Facebook has banned Trump until at least January 20, when President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn into office.
"The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday.
Snapchat has also locked his account, and YouTube has introduced a new "strike" policy to crack down on videos that spread misinformation.