Opposition towards the intolerance propagated by alt-right or extreme right movements seems to be growing on the internet. The news aggregating and discussion website, Reddit, has banned many members belonging to the white nationalist alt-right for violating the site's policies regarding harassment.
Subreddits like r/altright, r/alternativeright, and two more subreddits, r/alternativeright and r/rightyfriends have been banned on Wednesday. The pages now read: “This subreddit was banned due to violation of our content policy, specifically of personal and credential information.”
In a statement, Reddit spokesperson said they are very clear “in our site’s terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit.”
According to reports on The Verge, the ban was the result of doxing, an act of publishing personal details of people with which they are then exposed to online shaming. Verge indicates that the site's action was reflective of the attempt to dox a protestor who had punched white supremacist Richard Spencer at during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Alt-right groups began hogging the media spotlight after the right-wing extremist Richard Spencer was punched by a protestor. The act sparked a string of memes and online conversations and debate questioning the ethics behind it. Things escalated on Wednesday when rioters stormed the University of California, Berkeley, and burned safety flood lights and broke infrastructure, protesting against a speech by right-winger and Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. The young, gay conservative is criticised as a red herring hired by Stephen Bannon’s Breitbart news to propagate right-wing thought in a supposedly “cool” package.
Platforms like Reddit and Twitter have been facing severe criticism for the presence of extreme right memes, with Twitter banning many prominent alt-right users, including Milo Yiannopoulos for his racist, misogynistic and anti-Islam tweets.
On the other hand, alt-right users argue that both on social media and in instances of protest against them like at UC Berkeley, they are not being allowed the freedom of expression guaranteed in the First Amendment of the American Constitution.