- Date
- 2018-03-21
- Trigger
- Long-running internal debate over a 'direct dealing' rule, accelerated after the February 2018 Stoneman Douglas (Parkland) school shooting renewed pressure to stop firearms trading on the platform.
- Policy change
- Reddit added a new content-policy clause prohibiting transactions for prohibited goods and services, including firearms, ammunition and explosives, controlled substances, paid sexual services, stolen goods, personal information, and falsified documents.
- Communities removed
- ~12 communities
What happened
On March 21, 2018, Reddit updated its content policy to forbid transactions involving prohibited goods and services and immediately banned the communities built around them. The flagship casualty was r/DarkNetMarkets, then the largest dark-web drug-market discussion hub on the site with roughly 160,000 readers. The purge also swept up firearms-sales and other trade subreddits as well as darknet-adjacent and prescription-drug-sourcing communities. The 'direct dealing' rule had been debated internally for some time, but the Parkland shooting reenergized admins to approve and enforce it, particularly to curb gun trading. The wave broadened Reddit's enforcement beyond hate and violence into commerce and illicit-market facilitation.