Access to a major forum for US President Donald Trump’s supporters on the social media site Reddit has been restricted due to alleged threats of violence against authorities.
“Recent behaviours including threats against the police and public figures is content that is prohibited by our violence policy. As a result, we have actioned individual users and quarantined the [‘The_Donald’] subreddit,” a Reddit spokesperson said in a statement.
This is what happens when you try to access Reddit’s r/The_Donald page pic.twitter.com/XtguRim27b
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) 26 июня 2019 г.
Reddit specifically responded to threats made by the subreddit’s users against Oregon police officers, who were ordered by the state’s Democratic governor Kate Brown to forcibly round up Republican Senators who fled Oregon to prevent contentious climate change legislation from being passed.
One of the subreddit’s several moderators nicknamed shadowman3001 challenged the decision by suggesting that the move was motivated by politics rather than content guidelines.
“It would seem they've set up an impossible standard as a reason to kill us before the 2020 election” he claimed.
Others affiliated with the subreddit as well as the Twitter user @CarpeDonktum pointed to the fact that Reddit’s move came hours ahead of the first Democratic presidential primary debate.
Two things to notice. This happened immediately after Media Matters called for T_D to be shut down, and it's the eve of the first Democratic Debates.
— /r/The_Donald (@thedonaldreddit) 26 июня 2019 г.
Put two and two together. 7/7
“Coincidence? Absolutely not. A community of over 700,000 Patriots ... suddenly silenced…,” he tweeted.
My home The_Donald on @reddit has been quarentined on the day of the first Democratic Debate... Coincidence?
— Carpe Donktum🔹 (@CarpeDonktum) 26 июня 2019 г.
Absolutely not.
A community of over 700,000 Patriots.. suddenly silenced...
The developments come after Trump accused social media platforms such as Twitter of being “totally biased toward Democrats”.
“What they did to me on Twitter is incredible, I have, you know, millions and millions of followers, but they make it very hard for people to join me on Twitter,” he told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday.