Summary
- Users who repeatedly upvote content that violates Reddit’s policies, starting with violent content, will now receive warnings. This marks a shift from solely penalizing the original poster.
- Reddit emphasizes that occasional upvotes won’t trigger warnings; the system aims to address users who consistently engage with violative content, indicating a pattern of support.
- Users have raised questions about how Reddit defines “violent content” and expressed concerns about potential false warnings, as well as arguing that focus should be placed on removing the posts, not the upvoters.
Exactly a week ago, Instagram’s content moderation tools encountered an error that caused user feeds to be flooded with sensitive content. We’re not talking vanilla school cafeteria fights; we’re talking more along the lines of graphic violence, gore, nudity, and akin. The tech giant was quick to roll out a fix, and user feeds have turned back to normal since.
While looking into user statements on platforms like X (Twitter) and Reddit for my article about the shocking incident, I came across several user comments suggesting that they were (rightfully) traumatized, with many echoing the same “I hope I don’t see this all the time on Instagram” sentiment. Unfortunately, amid the countless ‘traumatized‘ users were the one-off oddballs who appeared to revel in chaos. Directly intended to warn such users, Reddit has announced a shift in its moderation policy.
Related
Reddit admins are stepping in to cool the political hate
Temporary bans issued for several subreddits
Hate isn’t all the uncommon on Reddit. Early in February, the platform had to step in to cool down hate speech and death threats against Elon Musk and employees of the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and now it’s putting in measures to warn users that support “content banned for violating [Reddit’s] policies.”
Previously, a Reddit post and/or comment’s original poster (OP) would be scrutinized and penalized for sharing content that might violate Reddit’s policies. Now, as highlighted by admin worstnerd in the r/RedditSafety subreddit, you can get a chilling warning for simply upvoting such content (via The Verge).
Warnings for now, additional action down the road
It’s worth noting that an upvote here or there won’t put you under scrutiny, but if you’re found to be consistently upvoting several pieces of content that violate Reddit’s policies, you will receive a warning. “Once is a fluke, many times is a behavior. It’s the behavior we want to address,” is Reddit’s reasoning, indicating that it wants to target recurring behavior rather than isolated incidents.
The change is rolling out immediately, with those upvoting violent content to be scrutinized first. Also worth noting is that while users will only be warned for consecutively upvoting violative content for now, Reddit said that it will consider taking additional actions down the road. The social forum giant also confirmed that it will take edits into consideration to avoid false warnings in cases where someone edited in violent content after it was upvoted.
What’s currently unclear, however, is what Reddit defines as violent content. “Will I get warned for upvoting an anime fight scene clip just because it portrays violence? What about upvoting war footages? There are several subreddits dedicated to sharing combat/war footages,” wrote one user. Others argue that the platform should prioritize removing content that violates its policies, rather than penalizing those who interact with it.
