Reddit's 2018 Quarantine Policy Revamp and Backlash
September 2018
On September 27-28, 2018, Reddit formalized and expanded its 'quarantine' mechanism — gating offensive subreddits behind an opt-in warning page, stripping ad revenue, and hiding them from search — then applied it to more than 20 communities including r/CringeAnarchy, r/WatchPeopleDie, r/TheRedPill, and r/Braincels, triggering accusations of censorship and inconsistent enforcement.
What happened
In late September 2018 Reddit announced a revamp of its quarantine function via a post on r/announcements by the admin account u/landoflobsters. The reworked policy codified a middle tier between leaving a community untouched and banning it: a quarantined subreddit still existed, but visitors were forced through an interstitial warning and had to opt in. Quarantined communities were removed from the front page and r/all, excluded from search and recommendations, generated no ad revenue, and had subscriber counts hidden. Reddit framed the tier as targeting communities dedicated to racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, hoaxes, or extreme gore that had ignored repeated warnings.
The rollout's scale was controversial. On the day of the announcement Reddit quarantined r/TheRedPill and r/Braincels, and within days the action swept up more than 20 controversial subreddits — among them r/CringeAnarchy (over 400,000 subscribers), r/WatchPeopleDie, r/911truth, and r/FULLCOMMUNISM.
The response was sharp. Moderators of r/TheRedPill argued that quarantining them meant 'Reddit has tacitly endorsed male abuse,' and several quarantined communities organized migration to external forums. A recurring objection was why comparably controversial communities — most prominently r/The_Donald — were spared in this wave, with many speculating Reddit feared the backlash of touching them.
Impact
The 2018 revamp established the quarantine as Reddit's standard intermediate moderation tool and the template for later high-profile actions, including the June 2019 quarantine of r/The_Donald. Academic study found mixed results: activity in communities such as r/TheRedPill and r/Braincels fell by roughly half, but researchers found no reduction in the density of hateful language among remaining users — they simply posted less. The rollout intensified the debate over the consistency and transparency of Reddit's moderation, with the perceived sparing of r/The_Donald a frequently cited example of selective enforcement.