William Shatner Calls Out Reddit For 'Horrifically Racist, Sexist, Homophobic' Content

William Shatner is 81 years old. I want to get that on the record first, because it makes the rest of the events in this story much cooler. Eighty-one. Keep that in mind.

The former Star Trek did an AMA with Reddit last week, and dropped back in recently to inform people he was turning his private messages off because his inbox was getting flooded. In the replies to that post, he also called out Reddit for some of its more offensive content, and set off a bit of a “should Reddit be moderated” firestorm (a touchy subject around those parts):

I am apalled by some of the immature, horrifically racist, sexist, homophobic, ethnic… etc.. posts that are just ignored here. Why are these accounts still active? While Reddit has done well in getting interest from the mainstream I just wonder if by allowing these children to run rampant and post whatever they feel will cause the most collateral damage if Reddit is biting off it’s own nose in taking that step to become a mainstream community.

And when a Redditor replied that the site is “probably the second most liberal and least racist place on the internet after Tumblr,” Shatner shot back with the following:

Reddit has been the first ‘mainstream’ site that I have been to that actually appears to allow racists and other hate mongers to group, congregate, incite and spread their hatred…. Also Tumblr has a very comprehensive set of guidelines about hatred and racist posts: https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/community Also there are rules here which state: ‘Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life.’ Where is that rule being enforced?

Here is my favorite part of this story: William Shatner — who, again, is 81 years old — is out there on the Internet dropping bombs on people for racist, homophobic, and sexist content, and is pulling up community policy guidelines from Tumblr to back up his points. Meanwhile, most 81 year olds probably think a Tumblr is some sort of male gymnast, and would make some offensive comment about said gymnast’s presumed sexual orientation like five seconds after you bring it up.

Shatner don’t play, y’all.

(Via Daily Dot)

Photo credit: Aspen Photo/Shutterstock

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