Racism Is Officially Allowed On Reddit As Part Of Free Speech

Reddit Chief Says Racist Posts are allowed!

Reddit has in recent months fallen in for criticism. The website which initially professed to allow anything and everything has been seeing somewhat of a crackdown on the more extreme content. The latest revelation is, however, one which will surprise many. It’s certainly one that seems a little contradictory of recent trends.

In a report via the BBC, Reddit chairman Steve Huffman has said that racist comments are allowed on the website as in his opinion, it falls within the remit of free speech.

Freedom of Speech

It was a matter which had been under some scrutiny in recent months and the decision will surprise many. Likely many on both sides of the argument. In the report, Steve Huffman has said: “Is obvious open racism, including slurs, against Reddit’s rules or not?”. In his opinion: “It’s not.”

He went on to clarify the point by saying: “On Reddit, the way in which we think about speech is to separate behaviour from beliefs. This means on Reddit there will be people with beliefs different from your own, sometimes extremely so. When users’ actions conflict with our content policies, we take action.Our approach to governance is that communities can set appropriate standards around language for themselves. Many communities have rules around speech that are more restrictive than our own, and we fully support those rules.”

What do we think?

It’s not our place to say whether Reddit should ban or allow a subject. The decision to seemingly allow racist comments, however, is surprising. Particularly since we have regularly reported on how the comment posting site has recently clamped down on many groups.

There will likely be a backlash to this decision. As far as we are concerned though, we will again say that it’s not our place to say whether its the right or wrong decision, we’re frankly just surprised that they have allowed it.

What do you think about this? – Let us know in the comments!