Reddit Bans r/fatpeoplehate and Four Other Subreddits Under New Anti-Harassment Policy
June 2015
On June 10, 2015, Reddit banned r/fatpeoplehate and four other subreddits under an anti-harassment policy first announced in May 2015, triggering a site-wide revolt that flooded r/all and targeted interim CEO Ellen Pao with abuse.
What happened
On May 19, 2015, under interim CEO Ellen Pao, Reddit announced a new anti-harassment policy that defined harassment as "systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person conclude that Reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas, or fear for their safety or the safety of those around them." Pao framed the shift as a deliberate move away from absolutism, stating it was not the site's goal to be a completely free-speech platform.
On June 10, 2015, Reddit enforced that policy with its first round of bans, removing five subreddits: r/fatpeoplehate, r/hamplanethatred, r/neofag, r/transfags, and r/shitniggerssay. r/fatpeoplehate was by far the largest, with roughly 150,000 subscribers. Reddit administrators justified the action on behavioral, not ideological, grounds, explaining the company would ban subreddits that allow their communities to harass individuals when moderators do not take action.
The response was immediate and hostile. A vocal segment of the user base denounced the bans as censorship and flooded the site with content harassing leadership — most notably interim CEO Ellen Pao, whose image was posted across the front page alongside fat-shaming pictures and demands that she resign. Some banned communities migrated to alternative platforms such as Voat.
The episode became a landmark test of platform moderation, later examined in academic research on deplatforming that found many accounts remaining on Reddit sharply reduced their hate-speech usage.
Impact
The June 2015 bans marked one of the first high-profile instances of a major US social platform deplatforming entire communities for harassment, establishing a precedent invoked for years afterward. The intense backlash, concentrated on Ellen Pao, fed a broader campaign against her leadership; she resigned weeks later. The action also drew criticism from multiple directions — harassment-policy advocates argued it was inconsistent (leaving openly racist forums untouched until August 2015), while free-speech proponents framed it as arbitrary, opaque moderation power.