Twitch, Reddit ban pro-Trump content amid hate speech crackdown

Amazon's game streaming platformTwitch temporarily suspended President Donald Trump's channel and social media site Redditon Monday shut down r/The_Donald, a forum which long served as a popular online home base for fans of President Donald Trump, saying it violated the site's hate speech rules.

RedditChief Executive Steve Huffman said in a post detailing changes to the company's content policies that communities and users promoting hate would be barred.Redditwas banning about 2,000 subreddits, the majority of which were inactive, he said.

"r/The_Donald" was among some 2,000 forums or "subreddits" banned as tightening of rules at the news-focused social website, Reddit said.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

"Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch," a spokesperson said.

"We do not make exceptions for political or newsworthy content, and will take action on content reported to us that violates our rules."

Twitch said the offending comments aired on the channel included Trump's remarks from 2015 saying that Mexicans coming into the United States were "bringing drugs," "bringing crime" and were "rapists."

Also cited were his statements from a recent Tulsa rally that "a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away."

In response to the actions byRedditand Twitch, a Trump campaign spokesman directed people to Trump's campaign app "to hear directly from the president." He did not directly address the sites' actions.

The move comes with online platforms facing pressure to crack down on hateful content, including from the president, amid a broad movement to address racial equity in the wake of police killings of African-Americans.

Trump has complained that Silicon Valley platforms are biased against conservatives, despite his own large social media following.

Huffman said earlier this month thatRedditwould strengthen its content policy, afterRedditco-founder Alexis Ohanian resigned from the firm's board and former CEO Ellen Pao criticized its handling of r/The_Donald.

Reddit last year "quarantined" the pro-Trump forum for promoting violence and on Monday removed it.

The new list of banned subreddits also included the left-wing r/ChapoTrapHouse, which Huffman said consistently hosted rule-breaking content. It had an average of 42,949 daily active users, according toReddit.

Reddit's list showed r/The_Donald had an average of 7,780 daily active users, down from its heyday around the 2016 presidential election when it regularly drew hundreds of thousands of visitors each day.

Only about 200 of the banned forums listed byReddithad more than 10 daily users.