Reddit is home to all sorts of content, whether good or bad. Honestly, nobody wants to be in the position of Instagram users who were shocked and traumatized after seeing their feed flooded with violent and disturbing content just over a week ago. That’s exactly what Reddit wants to avoid, which is why it recently announced that it will warn individuals who repeatedly upvote banned content on the platform.
Reddit will issue warnings to users who repeatedly upvote banned content
As highlighted by admin worstnerd in the r/RedditSafety subreddit, the company is making a major policy change to minimize the spread of harmful content. Until now, Reddit used to take action against the original poster of the banned content. Not to forget, downvotes and reports of potentially harmful content previously helped take action.
The method was effective in minimizing or removing the spread of violent content. However, the admin notes that upvoting such content “interferes with this system.” This is why Reddit will now issue warnings to users who repeatedly upvote banned content within a certain time frame.
The company previously took a similar measure for quarantined communities. Later, it was effective in reducing the spread of bad content. Now, Reddit is directly targeting individual user behavior. Although such users will only receive warnings for now, the social media company plans to take additional actions in the near future.
Many users are concerned about the new policy
While this is a welcome change, many Redditors worry that this policy will make them hesitant to upvote content that doesn’t even violate the rules. The platform is aware of users’ concerns and says that it will monitor the situation closely. This will ensure that the new rules don’t become a hurdle for genuine engagement.
All that said, Reddit expects the “ecosystem is healthy and that there is no tolerance for abuse on the site.” In a related company news, Reddit co-founder is reportedly among the big names who are planning to acquire TikTok.
