CULTURE

Reddit Quarantines r/The_Donald Over Threats of Violence Against Police

Reddit admins accuse the r/The_Donald community of vocally promoting violence against political opponents.

Donald Trump

Photo By Evan El-Amin/ Shutterstock

The internet's largest community of Trump supporters, Reddit's r/The_Donald, has finally been quarantined by the site's admins over threats of violence against police.

Reddit policy prohibits communities from outwardly calling for violence against others. Users on r/The_Donald have consistently engaged in such behavior, and Redditors have called on the admins time and time again to do something about it. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, who posts under the username "spez," has consistently defended the community on the grounds of protecting free speech.

But recently, r/The_Donald users have been calling for violence against police, specifically in regards to the Republican Senators in Oregon who are currently hiding out to avoid a climate change vote. This has led Reddit leadership to finally put their foot down and "quarantine" the community, essentially barring them from appearing to anyone who doesn't directly subscribe to the subreddit.

"...We have observed repeated rule-breaking behavior in your community and an over-reliance on Reddit admins to manage users and remove posts that violate our content policy, including content that encourages or incites violence," said a Reddit admin to the moderators of r/The_Donald. "...This is not only in violation of our site-wide policies, but also your own community rules (rule #9)."

The full content of the quarantine notice can be found here, alongside the r/The_Donald mod's angry conspiracy theory that he's being unfairly targeted.


To clarify, free speech is very important, but r/The_Donald users practice hate speech and frequently call for violence against Trump's political opponents, immigrants, and Jews. Killing people you disagree with is not a valid political ideology, regardless of whether or not it is being promoted on the most popular hub for American Republicans.