We’ve always known Reddit to be one of the largest online communities where free speech is prized. But over the last week, the site has announced measures to censor content.

The social forum has long been a place for freedom of opinion, but this has also given rise to an uncontrollable amount of trolling, abuse, and led to the discussion of some highly controversial topics. After suffering at the hands of online abuse herself, Reddit’s CEO Ellen Pao has since stepped down, announcing after her resignation: “The trolls are winning.” Her successor, Steve Huffman, quickly established new rules, including a zero tolerance policy towards spam, illegal pirated content and content of a sexual nature involving minors, as well as the publishing of private details without the individual’s permission. In addition, threats, bullying and violent language used towards one person or groups of people will also not be tolerated.

The problem that Reddit faces with moderation though, is the fact that it has now lost and continues to lose followers, many of whom propped up the site’s notorious underbelly of threads with discussions focused on topics such as rape and white supremacy. Many also self-govern these threads, creating their own rules about what can and can’t be discussed, so censoring these members also has its challenges.  Luckily though, these types of forums are found within Reddit’s section of sub-communities, also known as subreddits, and therefore don’t tend to impact upon or feature on Reddit’s main homepage thread. Huffman has warned though, that any overspill of such content will call for “more aggressive approaches”.

Last month, it was reported that Reddit garnered 164 million unique impressions, and each month, receives in excess of 40 million new sign ups. But concern is in place over maintaining these figures, especially as users continue to leave due to the new rules. In fact, disillusioned users have already found a new social site in which they have free reign. The forum in question is called Voat, and was quietly established in 2014 to offer its users an uncensored outlet. The site’s user base is still too small to gauge, according to comScore, but what is clear is Reddit’s own declining figures- for instance, in the first week of July, the number of users dropped from 5.2 to 4.6 million, leading analysts to wonder if former Redditors are in fact heading to Voat instead. Although small, there’s echoes of history repeating itself, with the way in which MySpace users headed to Facebook for instance. And Voat is certainly very similar in look and feel to Reddit, with subreddits instead called “subverses”, and popular topics also labelled “Hot” and “New”. With such familiarities, we can certainly see that the site might pose a threat to Reddit, especially as it has fallen out of favour with its loyal followers in such a huge way.

What do you think about Reddit’s new stance? Do you think this type of censorship bars users from free speech, or are such measures necessary when it comes to protecting groups and individuals? And do you think Reddit faces extinction without its more controversial users? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.