© Getty
My two most recent columns for
spiked dealt with
cancel culture and
hate-crime hoaxes. Thanks to the internet being what it is, events during the past month have provided me with a perfect real-life combination of these two trends.
On 29 July, Reddit, the self-proclaimed front page of the internet, deleted a popular 'subreddit' (a type of forum specific to the platform) dealing with hate-crime hoaxes. (Those so inclined can check out what is now simply a blank page
here.) That same day, Reddit also deleted a number of other popular subreddits, including the r/GenderCritical and r/TrueLesbians/ - forums known for hosting debates by female feminists about the role of
trans women in the feminist movement - and a subreddit devoted to female reproductive-health issues. It also deleted r/HBD - short for human biodiversity - a page which focuses on questions of
race and human genetic variation. For good measure, the site also kicked off what may have been its most popular right- and left-wing political forums respectively: r/TheDonald/ and r/ChapoTrapHouse.
The explanation Reddit gave for banning all of these communities was that they 'promoted hate'. Having been on Reddit, this is probably not a wholly baseless claim. It is hard not to notice a small but noisy contingent of alt-righters on the HBD forum, alongside biology grad students and Charles Murray fan-boys, who seek an (elusive) wholly genetic explanation for small differences in traits like tested IQ and running speed. r/GenderCritical was attacked fairly often for criticising both straight males and trans women - often for the same reasons. And, certainly, both r/TheDonald and r/ChapoTrapHouse/ were known for crude, if often funny, memes mocking everything under the sun.
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