Reddit cracks down on the haters under new CEO

Reddit may have given some Internet trolls the impression that it was a bastion of free speech, but Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says Reddit is now going to crack down on the haters.

Huffman took to Reddit Thursday afternoon to clarify the site’s existing guidelines while announcing that the company is considering a set of additional restrictions on what people can say.

When the site first launched 10 years ago, “occasionally, someone would start spewing hate, and I would ban them,” Huffman said in a post on the site. “The community rarely questioned me. When they did, they accepted my reasoning: “because I don’t want that content on our site.”

But throughout the past 10 years, Reddit has evolved into an online community of unfettered free speech, resulting in outrage when one of the site’s forums, “fatpeoplehate” was banned.

Today, Reddit is going back toward its roots, banning spam, anything illegal (such as copyright material), publication of private information, anything that incites harm or violence, and sexually suggestive content featuring minors. Huffman also said the site would ban “anything that harasses, bullies, or abuses an individual or group of people. These behaviors intimidate others into silence.”

The site will also classify content “that violates a common sense of decency” by requiring a login and “opt-in.” That content will not appear in search results and will generate no revenue for Reddit.

That means groups like “rapingwomen” will be banned. “They are encouraging people to rape,” Huffman said.

But Huffman said other groups such as a white supremacy group would be reclassified. “The content there is offensive to many, but does not violate our current rules for banning.”

Huffman’s comments come in the wake of a post from former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong, who on Wednesday called former CEO Ellen Pao “Silicon Valley’s #1 Feminist Hero,” defending her stance on free speech. Last week, Reddit board member Sam Altman hosted his own Q&A.

“Free speech is great and terrible,” Altman said on the site’s “IAMA” page Friday. “We need freedom of expression; we need compassion.”

“This is what we will try, and if the hateful users continue to spill out into mainstream Reddit, we will try more aggressive approaches,” Huffman said. “Freedom of expression is important to us, but it’s more important to us that we at Reddit be true to our mission.”