For more than a decade, Reddit, the hugely successful social content aggregation site, has been known for its freewheeling slant on letting its users govern themselves. It has resulted in a spate of user-generated content, of all kinds, attracting nearly 160 million regular users to the site.
Now, Reddit is upping its privacy game in a bid to crack down on sexual content following the posting of private-nude photos of many celebrities on the site last year. The company announced that it is changing its privacy policy that bans users from posting sexually charged photos or videos of people engaged in sex acts without their prior permission to have it posted.
The announcement came in an official post from Reddit CEOs.
‘No matter who you are, if a photograph, video, or digital image of you in a state of nudity, sexual excitement, or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, is posted or linked to on Reddit without your permission, it is prohibited on Reddit.’
Ellen Pao, interim CEO of Reddit
The policy change is likely to upset members of a few Reddit communities, some of which even trade illicit photos taken of others without getting their consent first. Following the announcement, users have been banned from posting nudes without content, in additional to the removal of several creepy sub-communities like Creepshots, where users post up-skirt pics of random woman in public spaces. In the past, Michael Brutsch create a sub-community called Jailbait, dedicated entirely to posting and trading of photos of underage girls.
Reddit Tightens Security on Nude Photos
Following the widely disseminated leaked nude pictures of Hollywood celebrities in September last year, many criticized Reddit for its slaphappy attitude. Since the episode,Reddit has removed the images but argued that the removal was on account of some of the images having violated copyright or depicting underage girls, and not because it was an invasion of someone else’s privacy. It has also dedicated itself towards the removal of all sub-communities trading the photos in response to an outbreak of takedown requests, which as per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, can be made by those who own the rights to the images.
For anybody wanting to get a photo removed can contact Reddit at contact@reddit.com and alert the image link.
The new rules are clearly giving an indication that Reddit is shifting its opposition to any and all forms of censorship now.
Alexis Ohanian, Reddit co-founder wrote in the announcement that the opportunity was to set a standard for respecting users’ privacy.
Since 2013, Reddit has undergone a series of changes, including the departure of its CEO. The company has since dedicated itself towards creating a long-lasting, sustainable businesses in addition to the massive traffic that it regularly attracts on its site, which as a matter of fact has caused a little bit of self-scrutiny. It also plans to launch moderation tutorials to help users with leadership positions where they can better govern the activities on its communities.
