Reddit banned the fat-shaming subforum /r/fatpeoplehate from its network on Wednesday, citing their updated rules restricting the harassment of individuals on its site.
The news and social media network’s moderators made the announcement in a post on Wednesday, saying it banned five subreddits for violating their updated anti-harassment policies. The post names only /r/fatpeoplehate, saying that it was the only subreddit with more than 5,000 subscribers.
A Reddit metrics page lists /r/fatpeoplehate with more than 151,000 subscribers.
“We want to be open about our involvement: We will ban subreddits that allow their communities to use the subreddit as a platform to harass individuals when moderators don’t take action. We’re banning behaviour, not ideas,” the post reads.
A comment in the ensuing discussion thread lists the other four subreddits, including another fat-shaming forum called Ham Planet Hatred.
Clicking on links to any of these subreddits now brings you to a message reading “This subreddit has been banned for violating the Reddit rules to keep everyone safe.”
Reddit updated its anti-harassment policy in May, citing a desire to protect individuals from targeted harassment by other users, while still maintaining its relatively laissez-faire environment for discussion, under the mantra of “promote ideas, protect people.”
