WASHINGTON — Reddit on Monday banned its largest forum dedicated to President Trump, accusing it of consistently breaking its ‘hate speech’ rules, while streaming service Twitch banned the president for what it called ‘hateful conduct.’
The moves by the media giants are the latest in a string of recent steps by social media companies such as Twitter to censor the president and his campaign by removing tweets or flagging them as misinformation.
On Monday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced that a community board, or subreddit, named “The_Donald” where 790,000 members posted viral videos, memes and other supportive content about the president would be banned from the website.
“Reddit is a place for community and belonging, not for attacking people,” said Huffman in a call with reporters first made public by the New York Times.
Huffman said the group had broken Reddit’s rules by allowing its members to target other people with ‘hate speech.’
Later Monday, streaming service Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, followed suit and announced it was temporarily banning the president from its platform after his account rebroadcast an old rally where Trump claimed Mexico was sending rapists to the United States.
Twitch removed the video which it dubbed “hateful content” and also flagged comments made by Trump at his recent rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to a report by The Verge.
“Like anyone else, politicians on Twitch must adhere to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines,” a Twitch spokesperson told The Verge. “We do not make exceptions for political or newsworthy content, and will take action on content reported to us that violates our rules.”
The recent, highly-politicized move by social media companies to begin censoring the president has infuriated the Trump campaign and conservatives who have accused platforms of acting beyond their remit.
In retaliation, the president last month signed an executive order reducing liability protections for social media websites, the move coming just days after Twitter slapped fact check labels on his tweets about mail-in voter fraud.