Reddit Censorship Debate

The cluster discusses Reddit's subreddit bans, moderation policies, and accusations of arbitrary censorship, often highlighting political bias and comparisons to free speech issues.

📉 Falling 0.2x Politics & Society
5,260
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#4219
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
4
2008
5
2009
5
2010
21
2011
18
2012
237
2013
149
2014
138
2015
615
2016
395
2017
254
2018
253
2019
316
2020
661
2021
612
2022
482
2023
684
2024
127
2025
261
2026
23

Keywords

theverge.com HN NZ ycombinator.com NoNewNormal AND NOT redditstatic.com GamerGate E.g reddit subreddits subreddit banned subs censorship mods ban moderators admins

Sample Comments

minimaxir Jul 2, 2015 View on HN

Given that Reddit just nearly imploded due to "censorship," this is probably a fair policy.

madeofpalk Sep 7, 2014 View on HN

It's not Reddit's place to police their own site?

HariPavan Jun 17, 2023 View on HN

What reddit is doing is crazy and it will face consequences for it.

grapist420 Aug 26, 2021 View on HN

Reddit has already implemented mass arbitrary censorship of subreddits for no good reasons. Stuff like gun subs, r/shoplifting (which I mention not because I like shoplifting, but because it was legitimately informative to learn what they do and why they do it), all sorts of politics subs, plenty of satire subs, and even r/wateriniggas just for the soft nword. They’re ridiculously strict and while it’s good to not ban one, let’s not act like they’re good faith actors here.

awqrre Apr 24, 2016 View on HN

Some Reddits are worst then HN when talking about censure.

iso-8859-1 Nov 24, 2016 View on HN

Reddit has the infrastructure for censorship, they have had to remove content before.

graphitezepp Apr 12, 2018 View on HN

They only ban subreddits as a reaction to them pulling negative publicity. Has to be offensive AND making noise for them to do anything.

rightbyte Jan 8, 2021 View on HN

It was a big mistake banning it from Reddit. Their own platform is way more radical and informally and in practice allows incitement to violence.

p_ing Sep 19, 2025 View on HN

"Reddit" is doing no such thing. The mods have placed a rule on the subreddit.

dragontamer Nov 1, 2013 View on HN

I thought Reddit was full of Libertarians who were against censorship?