Reddit Bans r/altright Over Doxxing (February 2017)

r/altright was a white-nationalist community that grew rapidly around the 2016 U.S. election and Trump's inauguration, reaching roughly 16,000 subscribers. On February 1, 2017 Reddit banned it together with the related r/alternativeright, telling press the action was taken 'due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy' — specifically the prohibition on 'the proliferation of personal and confidential information.'

The proximate trigger was concrete and conduct-based. After white-nationalist Richard Spencer was punched on camera during Inauguration Day on January 20, 2017, members of the subreddit tried to identify the assailant, publish his personal information, and reportedly place a 'bounty' on him. Reddit treated this as a clear breach of its anti-doxxing and anti-harassment rules.

Reddit and outside observers framed the ban as a notable enforcement step for a platform historically reluctant to remove communities, and Reddit emphasized that the action targeted behavior rather than ideology. That framing fueled an ongoing debate over whether Reddit applies its conduct rules consistently, since other extremist communities remained online at the time.