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Study Reveals Extent of Hate Speech on Reddit in Right-Leaning Forums
A new study found three times as much hate speech containing racist, sexist, religious, and homophobic attacks and six times as much hate speech containing white supremacist extremism on right-leaning Reddit forums compared to left-leaning Reddit groups.
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A study by Sentropy, a startup that makes content moderation tools, found that more comment moderation is necessary to curtail racist and white supremacist content on Reddit.
The company analyzed more than 3 million comments across political subreddits, both right- and left-leaning.
Sentropy found three times as much hate speech containing racist, sexist, religious, and homophobic attacks and six times as much hate speech containing white supremacist extremism on right-leaning forums compared to left-leaning groups.
In response, Reddit has "quarantined" two message boards in the study, including the pro-Trump group "r/The_Donald," removing key features, blocking them from appearing in searches or recommendations, and hiding them behind a warning.
The left-leaning forum, r/WayOfTheBern, had greater rates of physical violence and sexual aggression than the other subreddits analyzed, but it has not been quarantined.
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Reddit relies on community content moderators to prevent the spread of harmful content.
From The Washington Post
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