Reddit Bans Gory Subreddits After New Zealand Shooting

Reddit took down two of its most notorious subreddits on Friday, apparently because their users were sharing footage of the New Zealand mosque shootings. Visitors to two subreddits known for sharing video and pictures of people being killed or injured—R/WatchPeopleDie and R/Gore—were met with a message saying the forums had been “banned from Reddit.” Reddit didn’t respond to a request for comment. Reddit and other social media sites scrambled to deal with copies of the New Zealand mosque shooting, which was livestreamed to Facebook by the alleged shooter via a camera. At one point, a moderator at R/WatchPeopleDie said the subreddit’s operators wouldn’t take down footage of the killings. “Hopefully Reddit believes in letting you decide for yourself whether or not you want to see unfiltered reality,” the moderator wrote. The bans appear to represent Reddit’s latest attempt to grapple with its most infamous corners. In September, the site “quarantined” the subreddits and a number of others, making it harder for users to find their content.