By Robert McMillan and Deepa Seetharaman
The online platforms Reddit Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.-owned
Twitch suspended channels used by President Trump and his
supporters, saying content there violated the companies' policies,
widening a clampdown by social media sites that has fueled a
backlash from the White House and its defenders.
Reddit, which hosts discussion forums, said it has permanently
banned a community on its platform called "The_Donald" that has
been an unofficial but influential gathering place for Trump
supporters to post memes and other messages backing the president
and bashing his opponents. Many of the messages and memes that
President Trump shares on his Twitter account can be traced back to
The_Donald.
But the community had also been home to racist content and -- on
occasion -- calls for violent action that violated Reddit's
policies, said Adrienne Massanari, an associate professor at
University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied the site. "The
virality and what it was producing was incredibly powerful in terms
of shaping the online conversation in a conservative sphere," she
said.
Twitch, a popular video-streaming platform that Amazon acquired
in 2014, said its suspension of Mr. Trump's streaming account was
temporary, and stemmed from comments made by Mr. Trump during
broadcasts of his campaign events that violated Twitch's
policies.
Internet platforms are grappling with intensifying and competing
pressures in recent months over the norms and limits of political
speech. Twitter Inc. recently incurred the ire of Mr. Trump for
labeling his tweets for various violations of its policies. And
Facebook Inc., amid pressure from employees, outside groups and
advertisers, said last week it would tighten rules over political
speech as it faced an advertiser rebellion over hate speech.
The White House, angered by the companies' moves, earlier this
month proposed to roll back legal protections that online platforms
have enjoyed since the 1990s.
The_Donald, a Reddit community known as a subreddit, had been
put on notice a year ago for violating the platform's antiviolence
rules. In June 2019, Reddit put the community under "quarantine,"
making it more difficult for casual readers to view. In recent
months Reddit had removed moderators from "The_Donald" because of
their reluctance to eliminate content that Reddit considered a
violation of its policies. [
"All communities on Reddit must abide by our content policy in
good faith," Reddit said Monday. The_Donald "has not done so,
despite every opportunity."
Reddit is known for its "ask me anything" online town halls with
celebrities and politicians, but also its freewheeling message
boards that are strewn with provocative posts from anonymous
users.
Like other technology platforms, the company has struggled to
rein in political content. In 2017, Reddit banned a number of
alt-right communities from the site, but allowed The_Donald to
remain because of its political nature, the company said.
Earlier this month, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian resigned
from his board seat with the company, urging that it be filled by a
Black candidate. Reddit then named Michael Seibel, a partner at
startup accelerator Y Combinator, to the board.
On Monday, Reddit outlined a new content policy that banned
communities that "promote hate based on identity or vulnerability"
as well as groups that try to interfere with other communities.
Reddit said it was banning about 2,000 subreddits, or groups
focused on narrow topics, most of which were inactive. About 200 of
those groups had more than 10 daily users, including The_Donald,
which had just under 800,000 users before it was banned, according
to Reddit. Activity in the community had dropped off recently as
participants had moved their discussions to other sites, Reddit
said.
Mr. Trump had been using Twitch since October as a way to
broadcast rallies and rebroadcast video footage from past
events.
"Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch," a spokeswoman for
Twitch said in an email. "In line with our policies, President
Trump's channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch
for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been
removed."
The spokeswoman pointed to two recent examples, one from a live
broadcast of Mr. Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20 and a
rebroadcast of a 2015 campaign event.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign said, "To hear directly from
the President, people should download the Trump app and text
'Trump' to 88022."
Twitch has an average of more than 1.5 million people tuning in
to broadcasts at any given moment and more than 17.5 million daily
average visitors. Though most people come to Twitch to watch other
people play videogames and compete at esports, in recent years
politicians, including former Democratic presidential candidate
Bernie Sanders, have also used it to reach prospective voters.
--Sarah E. Needleman contributed to this article.
Write to Robert McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com and Deepa
Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 29, 2020 18:37 ET (22:37 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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