- Date
- 2015-06-10
- Trigger
- Sustained, off-platform harassment campaigns run out of a handful of large 'hate' subreddits, most prominently r/fatpeoplehate, which had grown to roughly 150,000 subscribers.
- Policy change
- Reddit announced its first anti-harassment policy, stating it would ban subreddits used as a platform to harass individuals when their moderators failed to act.
- Communities removed
- 5 communities
What happened
On June 10, 2015, Reddit carried out its first coordinated content ban, removing five subreddits under a newly announced anti-harassment policy. The largest, r/fatpeoplehate, had roughly 150,000 subscribers and existed to mock and harass overweight people, often by targeting specific individuals off-site. Reddit framed the action as targeting behavior rather than viewpoints, saying it would remove communities that harassed people when moderators would not intervene. The bans triggered an immediate backlash, with users flooding the site with the banned content and images attacking then-interim CEO Ellen Pao. The episode became a template for Reddit's later, larger enforcement waves and an early test of its willingness to police hate-driven communities.