If you thought Reddit shutting down “Jailbait” last year would put an end to it being an online hangout where child molesters could swap kiddie porn, you were, apparently, wrong. As Gawker notes, other pervy subsections of the site popped up soon after Jailbait was shut down, subsections with blatantly obvious names like “preteen_girls” which “featured images of 11 year-old girls in bikinis and captions like ‘waiting for the load.'” Yes, Reddit might as well just change its mascot to Voyeur Bear at that rate.
But alas a new day is upon us, and, after a campaign was launched on a Something Awful message board to have Reddit labeled a hub for child pornography — wherein users were urged to contact local police, churches, schools etc. — Reddit today announced that it will reluctantly ban any and all child pornography on the site (FYI, pics of dead children are still okay though).
At reddit we care deeply about not imposing ours or anyone elses’ opinions on how people use the reddit platform. We are adamant about not limiting the ability to use the reddit platform even when we do not ourselves agree with or condone a specific use. We have very few rules here on reddit; no spamming, no cheating, no personal info, nothing illegal, and no interfering the site’s functions. Today we are adding another rule: No suggestive or sexual content featuring minors.
In the past, we have always dealt with content that might be child pornography along strict legal lines. We follow legal guidelines and reporting procedures outlined by NCMEC. We have taken all reports of illegal content seriously, and when warranted we made reports directly to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who works directly with the FBI. When a situation is reported to us where a child might be abused or in danger, we make that report. Beyond these clear cut cases, there is a huge area of legally grey content, and our previous policy to deal with it on a case by case basis has become unsustainable. We have changed our policy because interpreting the vague and debated legal guidelines on a case by case basis has become a massive distraction and risks reddit being pulled in to legal quagmire.
As of today, we have banned all subreddits that focus on sexualization of children. Our goal is to be fair and consistent, so if you find a subreddit we may have missed, please message the admins. If you find specific content that meets this definition please message the moderators of the subreddit, and the admins.
We understand that this might make some of you worried about the slippery slope from banning one specific type of content to banning other types of content. We’re concerned about that too, and do not make this policy change lightly or without careful deliberation. We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal. However, child pornography is a toxic and unique case for Internet communities, and we’re protecting reddit’s ability to operate by removing this threat. We remain committed to protecting reddit as an open platform.
Hey, well, it only took them six years, so I guess we should give them credit for that.
(Sad Pedo Bear pic via Extreme Tech)