Reddit Bans Forum Accused of Spreading COVID-19 Misinformation

A week after its CEO rejected a call to crack down on COVID-19 disinformation, Reddit has decided to shut down a forum blamed for spreading vaccine falsehoods. 

On Wednesday, the social media platform banned the subreddit r/NoNewNormal. The online community was home to over 120,000 members and focused on discussing societal changes brought on by the pandemic. However, it also faced accusations of circulating COVID-19 denialism and vaccine conspiracy theories.

Reddit pulled the plug after dozens of other subreddits devoted to topics such as Pokemon Go and Star Trek urged the company to shut down r/NoNewNormal for allegedly spreading medical misinformation, saying it risked endangering the public.

(Reddit)

The ban may seem like Reddit flip-flopping on its policy after CEO Steve Huffman defended the need to protect “dissent” and unpopular opinions on the social media platform. “Reddit is a place for open and authentic discussion and debate,” he wrote in his post. “This includes conversations that question or disagree with popular consensus.”

However, Reddit banned r/NoNewNormal not because of the protest or any controversial content. Instead, its members were found to be engaged in harassment, which is against the rules. Users from r/NoNewNormal were allegedly “brigading” or invading other forums with the goal of content manipulation, which can involve downvoting or upvoting comments and posts. 

“We found very clear signals indicating that r/NoNewNormal was the source of around 80 brigades in the last 30 days (largely directed at communities with more mainstream views on COVID or location-based communities that have been discussing COVID restrictions,” a Reddit security staff member wrote in a post. “This behavior continued even after a warning was issued from our team to the Mods.”

Reddit took the action after the platform’s security staff began investigating the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on the site. While Huffman himself has been pro-free speech, he also said last week that Reddit would take action against any forums found “manipulating or cheating Reddit to amplify any particular viewpoint.”

“While we want people to be able to explore ideas, they still have to function as a healthy community,” a Reddit security staffer wrote on Wednesday. “That means that community members act in good faith when they see “bad” content (downvote, and report), mods act as partners with admins by removing violating content, and the whole group doesn’t actively undermine the safety and trust of other communities.”

In addition, Reddit is also “quarantining” 54 other subreddits involved in COVID-19 denialism for breaking the platform’s rule against “attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people.” Which subreddits are getting quarantined was left unsaid, but new visitors to those forums will have to first click through a warning page, alerting them to the controversial content they contain, before they can enter. 

As expected, the ban of r/NoNewNormal is receiving some reserved praise from the pro-vaccine crowd and condemnation from free speech advocates. “I’ve been using Reddit for 10 years, but it’s finally time to give it up. I’m clearly not welcome here anymore and I cannot be part of a community that has such heavy censorship,” wrote one user in r/Conspiracy, a forum devoted to conspiracy theories.

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