New Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has announced a crackdown on harassment, threats and posts that break the law. But while /r/rapingwomen will be banned, the racist /r/coontown subreddit will only be reclassified as offensive.
Huffman, who goes by /u/spez on the site, said "nothing is changing in Reddit's policy". What was necessary, he claimed was for Reddit to establish a "very clear line" of what is acceptable and what isn't.
Huffman was answering questions during an Ask Me Anything session titled "Let's talk content" following his appointment as CEO earlier this month. Having co-founded Reddit in 2005, Huffman said the site now struggled to balance its popularity with its approach to "unfettered free speech". "As Reddit has grown, we've seen additional examples of how unfettered free speech can make Reddit a less enjoyable place to visit," Huffman wrote. With that in mind he proposed several changes to Reddit's content policy.
Users could soon be required to opt-in for Reddit's more controversial communities, while anything that "harasses, bullies or abuses" would be banned. But exactly how different Huffman's approach is from that of recently departed interim CEO Ellen Pao remains unclear. "There are many subreddits whose contents I and many others find offensive but that alone is not justification for banning," Huffman explained.
Huffman said Reddit would ban /r/rapingwomen as it was "encouraging people to rape". The racist subreddit /r/coontown would be reclassified as offensive. "The content there is offensive to many, but does not violate our current rules for banning," Huffman wrote.
He explained that reclassifying a subreddit would hide it from most users and ensure Reddit didn't profit from them.
But it isn't clear how Reddit intends to do this. Huffman suggested that would somehow be "separate" from the rest of the site, with warnings and "an explicit opt-in" for anyone wanting to access offensive subreddits.
Yet the overall changes to Reddit's content policy won't change under Huffman, suggesting that he will have a similar approach to moderation as Pao. Huffman said the rules spelled out during his AMA weren't different from what is already in place, but that Reddit needed to enforce them better.
He added that before Reddit releases an official update to its policy it would spell out what it was doing "as precisely as possible". New tools for moderators and paid community mangers were also required, he explained. "Spirited debates are in important part of what makes Reddit special. Our goal is to spell out clear rules that everyone can understand. Any banning of content will be carefully considered against our public rules," Huffman wrote during his AMA.
Users complained that the line Reddit had drawn between what was offensive and what wasn't was "incredibly vague". To date Huffman's AMA has attracted more than 20,000 comments.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
