- Date
- 2019-03-15
- Trigger
- Users sharing first-person footage of the Christchurch mosque shooting, in which 51 people were killed, to graphic-death and gore subreddits within hours of the livestreamed attack.
- Policy change
- Reddit enforced its rules against content that incites or glorifies violence, removing graphic-death communities that had previously been only quarantined.
- Communities removed
- 3 communities
What happened
On March 15, 2019, within roughly 24 hours of the Christchurch mosque shootings, Reddit banned r/watchpeopledie, r/gore, and the affiliated discussion sub r/wpdtalk after users circulated the attacker's livestreamed massacre footage. r/watchpeopledie had been quarantined since September 2018 but had remained directly accessible and became a focal point for people seeking the video. Reddit said communities failing to follow its rules against inciting or glorifying violence would be banned. Moderators had initially resisted removing the footage, accelerating the platform's decision to delete the communities outright. The wave reflected the post-Christchurch pressure on major platforms to purge graphic terror content and the gore communities that hosted it.