18h ago

Reddit is purging NSFW subs as well as trans-related subreddits (edit: bans are being undone)

Reddit gives you the best of the internet in one place. Get a constantly updating feed of breaking news, fun stories, pics, memes, and videos just for you. Passionate about something niche? Reddit has thousands of vibrant communities with people that share your interests. Alternatively, find out wha...

This includes some porn subreddits as well as subreddits like /r/Drugs. Apparently due to being "unmoderated", but some were not. What are your thoughts?

Edit: apparently also subreddits like /r/transgender_surgeries are banned too. Definitely feels politically motivated. Edit 2: seems like at least some (?) bans are being undone, like the above mentioned ones.

Technology @lemmy.world

cyrano @lemmy.dbzer0.com

16h ago

Reddit is purging NSFW subs as well as trans-related subreddits

old.reddit.com /r/SubredditDrama/comments/1ii6qa1/rporn_rrule34_are_banned_tissue_paper_sales/

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185 comments

People are forgetting this all springs from the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025.
THEY are the ones pulling the strings behind Trump. The corporations and billionaires funding that (not Musk) that are shelling out the cash and have been since the Reagan era.
Folks who think that the Pornhub ban in a few states and the ID request in others is the new norm are going to be in for a surprise when a nationwide ban gets passed shortly. That has always been on the agenda for them.
It’s a Christian Extremist agenda (think Handmaids Tale) and all you fuckers who voted for him or didn’t vote in retaliation allowed this shit to happen.
I cannot believe the amount shocked people I’ve ran across at work recently, who are Republicans who are still in denial and still think things are going to get better - or have some sort of bizarre belief that Trump is going to start suddenly making everything cheaper for everyone. Idiots!
- Step 1: Ban porn.
  Step 2: ???
  Step 3: Profit
  
  I think banning porn is in part about getting birthrates back up. They're scared of replacement. There's the morality crap they're tossing but the driving force is replacement theory and lost profit. They don't want to be like Japan.
- When Trump won they realized they could use him. They spent the last 4 years pecking at his brain and writing up their dream bills for him to sign. There's no way Trump is the instigator of the vast majority of what he's signing.
- They killed Roe v Wade already.

Reddit sadly houses a lot of information and is found anywhere else on the internet. Even here on lemmy, we have hardly added a fraction of the information still house on Reddit.
- Lemmy.World or Lemmy.Ml or
  <insert instance name>
  ....? The user based is divided into fiefdoms and thats a problem and why Lemmy will never replace reddit.
  
  That's a strength, not a weakness. This means no one group controls all information. No one person can decide "x thing" is bad and purge it from Lemmy.
  
  The app I use just amalgamates them all into the same feeds

Isn't NSFW stuff a big part of all reddit OC content and the reason many still have an account there?
- during the reddit blackout i tried tracking the general activity on reddit and the posts per day dropped by ~10% during that time while the comments per day dropped by ~20%.
  When i looked where most posts and comments came from most of it was on porn and hookup communities. Lots of it was also obiously botted.
  Always knew that porn on reddit was a big thing but i never realized the scope.
- They can't run ads on the subs though so they can't use it to monetize. Big reason they got so pissed off at mods changing subs to nsfw
  And reddit these days only cares about PR so can also be a time bomb. Only surprised they haven't nuked everything NSFW
  
  Hard to believe but still true: Some time ago even Onlyfans, which was originally intended as a platform for fitness videos and the like, tried to ban NSFW content for exactly the same reason - to the surprise of absolutely noone it wasn't a very successful endeavor and was quickly withdrawn.
- I know it's the only reason I ever end up there these days.
- There are niche subs that don’t exist here. The popular, million+ subs are all trashed, like a NYC sized garbage truck and a couple whales exploded, together. That’s just Reddit post going public.
  Even so, there are no well populated hobby or career sites here, for example. And sometimes Reddit still has the only spoiler gaming guide on obscure things.
  
  Even so, there are no well populated hobby or career sites here, for example
  Well, there's progress being made on some at least. I'm trying to breathe some life into !musicproduction@sh.itjust.works
  
  I have no idea what is going on in sports anymore now that i don't have Reddit. The fediverse is absolutely terrible for sports news
  
  Even so, there are no well populated hobby or career sites here, for example.
  Unless your hobby is !selfhosted@lemmy.world or you're a programmer or sysadmin.
  
  In mosta cases, the subs DO exist but there is lottle activity in them. The situation would probably be a lot better if some of the lurkers on here would post more regularly to their special-interest niche subs.
- I only still go to reddit for that on one account (in incognito). My main account has only recently logged back in for regular browsing (but I try not to comment and I only use old.reddit + res) because Reddit is where a huge amount of the information I'm trying to find online is still housed, game information, niche hobbies, etc... It may be rotting from the inside, but its corpse is still walking and talking, and until the situation gets bad enough people are going to continue using it. I only interact here, but with the nature of how small the communities are, and the fact that I use [All - Top -Past 6 hours] my front page is still basically just the same articles about every fucked up thing going on around me posted onto every instance so I see the same headlines and pictures of Trump almost a dozen times, interspersed with various fetish porn communities.
  
  I see the same headlines and pictures of Trump almost a dozen times
  Feel free to block mentions of him name, either on your app or using a uBlock filter: https://lemmy.world/post/24545370
- Isn't NSFW stuff a big part of all reddit OC content and the reason many still have an account there?
  If old.reddit.com ever stopped working, NSFW content would be my primary reason for downloading the app...lmao

Kinda feels like a warning tbh. Or they're trying to be another tumblr.

My thoughts? Stupid that they had not left yet.
- you're not wrong but Lemmy just doesn't have the pop to get over the early adopters curve yet. This could very well do it though with how much people love their porn.
  
  I think the main barrier to entry for Lemmy is having to pick an instance. For a lot of people that is confusing and they've never had to do it before. There are definitely people who would give up because they don't understand what to do.
  
  There is at least one NSFW instance people could join if they wanted that content.
- Right? Too late to organize after the entire sub gets nuked. The time to plan a migration or at least for backups is now! They don't get it smh
- THIS ^^^

On the data hoarder subreddit
https://rdx.overdevs.com/comments.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FDataHoarder%2Fcomments%2F1iiah18%2Fnsfw_subreddit_purge_many_subs_have_been_banned%2F
- direct link that works on firefox unlike that one https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1iiah18/nsfw_subreddit_purge_many_subs_have_been_banned/

I have absolutely no idea what these companies are doing.
Are they afraid of Trump? Are they afraid of Musk? Are they afraid of the combination of both?
Idk, I thought two incompetent idiots like them would be no threat to the corpos of America, even in the oval office. But maybe I overestimated the corpos.
Or are they jumping on the band wagon voluntarily? It's so weird to me...
- Looks like new corporate virtue signalling to me.
  
  That’s exactly what it is.
  They see more dollar signs from fascism than they do from pretending to care about, well, anything.
- My wife works in medical research for a company you've probably heard of. Talking about diversity is a big part of her job, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it's scientifically necessary. If they don't have a diverse population on a study, the data will be skewed.
  She's no longer allowed to talk about diversity. She's not even allowed to say the word. She had to remove slides from a presentation she was giving.
  
  Why does she comply so willingly?
  Not to pick on her, I get it, sort of, but maybe just "forget" to remove the slides?
  Small acts of resistance pile up & those of us with even a crumb of privilege must speak & act now to protect those who don't even have that.
  
  Replace with the term “heterogeneous sample”. The prefix hetero- should comfort those snowflakes.
  
  What about euphemisms?
  "We have to cast a wide net during the study to prevent the data from being skewed"
  There will always be a way to maliciously comply, it's just a question of how much shit you'll get for doing so.
  
  Fuck, I don't remember the last time I wished an internet comment was fake this much.
- In fascism, the state and business essentially become one entity. These corporations just see the writing on the wall, and I'm sure many of them are doing it purely out of self-preservation.
  Others probably have some romantic view of industry in Nazi Germany, and think they can glom onto the fascists and become the next Hugo Boss or Volkswagon.
  
  These corporations just see the writing on the wall, and I'm sure many of them are doing it purely out of self-preservation.
  I guess, but as I said, I did not expect the corpos of America that have basically bought the government through lobbyists to be afraid of that. Especially the tech giants, who could probably reshape public opinion with a turn of a dial on their algorithms.
  Others probably have some romantic view of industry in Nazi Germany, and think they can glom onto the fascists and become the next Hugo Boss or Volkswagon.
  Musk and his companies certainly expect that, but I am skeptical of the others to join in this late.
  Both explanations are possible but they seem unlikely to me. I feel like I am missing a piece of the puzzle.
  
  When corporations are legally bound to maximize shareholder value then facism is a natural development.
  
  You’re saying they’re going along to get along.
  It’s bizarre that anyone would care about a subreddit, unless it’s spite. Basically, oh, you banned incels and nazis? You will be dismantled as a monopoly (or some other ludicrous threat) if you don’t now ban trans. That’s what you get.
  As I type that last paragraph I’m thinking of the 1A speech in November that everyone, minus ~300k people on YT, ignored. He promised to search out and go after the moderators, the banners, the shadow banners (who told him about shadow banning?), of all of social media, and punish them. This is likely the “polished” rollout of that directive, per his admin.
  Remember, when trump told staff to do things during the first 4 people did a lot of nodding and then did nothing, talked him out of things, talked him into waiting on that, as well as having gaping holes where staff should have been. Now, he gives a directive, and the Project 2025 people and corporate can say “yes sir” and twist that trump directive into whatever shape they like.
- Pencil-pushers live in a bubble, remember

- People thought this was a slow ban rollout. Looks like now they are ripping off the bandaid.
  
  it looks like wherever they could find any reason, even made up, they did and banned subs for that. where they couldn't, they banned or removed mods and then banned sub for being unmoderated
- They banned Wordington?? What's next, Clamworks? Losercity?
  
  but you see, wordington was gay and black so probably got caught in these anti-dei filters (removal of old mods after they tried to scam users out there probably didn't help either)
  
  Wordington is the sub I miss most after leaving Reddit D:
- It seems like only straight porn allowed what the fuck they banned /r/gayporn
  Like if they wanted to ban ALL NSFW subs that would be shitty but I can get why corpos don't like that. But this seems designed to generate controversy.
  
  No, as there are clearly many non lgbtq subs banned
- Holy shit

First they came for porn - I didn't care, because I had a couch, then they came for trans stuff - I didn't care, because I had a couch, then they came for drugs - I didn't care, because I had a couch, then my couch broke from active couchfucking and there were nobody to help me fix it.
- Jd is that you shouldn't you be at the white house?
  
  I'm the people's politician
  
  I thought Musk was the vice president. I mean president.

Looks like reddit is using the momentum of starting sub bans as an opportunity to ban things that might land them in hot water legally or politically
Rule34, and anime porn is banned because r34 is based on existing copyrighted material (and so are the anime subs probably)
Drugs because of the "war of drugs".
transgender_surgeries because the current US administration is profoundly transphobic.
- its not just anime porn. Multiple body part specific subs have been banned despite being actively moderated. I think it's a poem ban plus any thing that might be a bad look to the New Admin
  
  Yeah thousands of niche porn subs got banned gor being “unmoderated” over the past few years. I think reddit is slowly trying to reduce the amount of porn on the website to appear better as a company.
- Damn removing the r34 subreddit really is the end of an era.
- It's almost like the free speech absolutists only really cared about allowing one specific type of speech.
- Reddit's board has been fighting over whether to house porn subs for years now. Spez has been very vocal about how difficult that has been for reddit.
  
  I cry a five gallon bucket of tears for Spez and his difficulties every night before I sleep.

I assume they will most likely not come over here because there are users like this mod:

I got banned for 7 days for posting a Luigi cap
- no cap
  
  on god fr fr

spez wants a cabinet position.
- Or musk to buy it and make him super rich

Drugs prob saved my friends and I, we never had a bad situation because of reddit I knew dosages, I knew not to do what old top posts had done, just lowered anxiety and got me not to be stupid.
- Erowid when I was younger. Then pill reports to make sure what I was getting was what I expected.
  
  I would be dead (and/or in prison) several times over if not for Erowid. This is not an exaggeration.
  I recently revisited the site, and even made a donation (now that I can actually afford it).
- Basic harm prevention, we were always hydrated, not reading horror stories and seeing all that advice would've made me not even think of it

. Edit 2: seems like at least some (?) bans are being undone, like the above mentioned ones.
Is it cover for a targeted purge?
Let's see what subs stay banned.

I will love seeing them try to ban noncredibledefense for having LGBTQIA+ flag on it's profile, having a lot of r34 with planes (if you don't know the sub, just don't try to imagine, it will hurt your brain XD), having some gory content (like the meat cube and once again don't try to imagine XD).
And they are pro-NATO which is something the current administration is not really fond of (including Musk who has been mocked for multiple weeks after his speech about drones vs planes...).
If it really happens, all 400k NCD readers, there is a big NCD community on lemmy so Welcome!
- Can you briefly summarise NCD? I’ve been living under a small rock
  
  War shitposting.

Go ask Tumblr how removing the porn went.
- Went away alongside with Tumblr users. Muppet who made this decision is probably well off though.

If their goal was banning porn and trans sub's, they are either slow rolling it or doing a terrible job. There is plenty of porn unbanned, and r/transgonewild is still up. I guess we'll have to wait and see though.
- Trans porn is fine, it's just trans people that they have a problem with.
  
  r/trans is also still up, which is not porn.
  Edit: seems the banwave was reversed, so when I checked may have no relevance. Still, remains to be seen what the actual end result will be, I suspect it'll happen again

Reddit has slowly banned everything that drove ppl to it

Seems like some of the bans are being undone? Testing the waters? Banning everything until a mod steps forward and says they were actively modding?
- Yep, updated the title. Hard to not get conspiratorial though when it affects subs like /r/transgender_surgeries... might be testing the waters.

My thoughts? I hope they feel welcome here.

RIP Reddit

I think it's time for me to block posts from this community. Most of us came here as reddit refugees. No one on Lemmy should be suprised about the rapid enshitification of that platform. The best thing anyone can do is walk away completely and don't look back.

I tried twice to recover one of my favorite NSFW subs that was deleted due to being "unmoderated" but was denied both times. The sub was fairly active and I was on it daily and didn't notice any real spam problems. There is a channel for it here on Lemmy NSFW but it's not really active yet since it was a niche interest.
- Clowns putting midgets with cocks bigger than their arms in bondage and tickling their feet.
  Did I get it right?
  
  Ew, feet?
  
  Don't kink shame

This morning I just casually checked "ask reddit after dark" sort of a fun sex community like Lemmy "ask lemmy nsfw". Was surprised that reddit banned that community. I understand the issues they are having with free speech and even trans stuff based on the new Executive Orders of the Trump administration - but I don't get it with porn. How is narrative, pics, or videos of porn related stuff an issue?
- Go study history. Look up something called "McCarthyism".
  Don't like your neighbors house color? He's a communist and should be banned!
  But......red houses don't mean he's a....
  I SAID BANNED!!! YOU'RE BANNED TOO, YOU DISAGREEING COMMUNIST!!!
  And as long as the controling crowd is mindlessly agreeing with you, it doesn't need to make sense, or be logical. That's McCarthyism in a nutshell.
  And the best part is, Americans are dumb, don't learn from history, and don't see the inevitable happening right now before them. So you can ban anything. Books. Tv shows. Foods. News. Clouds. Yes, clouds. As in the puffy white things in the sky. Banned. I said it doesn't need to make sense, didn't I?
- All them red states have made it illegal to visit pornhub etc.. without providing I.d. you know just how meth isn't a thing now that you have to show i.d. to get cold medicine. Shit gonna be real weird round here if this course stays.
  
  Good point that those NOT in an affected state DON'T realize. For example if you are in Florida there is no more Pornhub, Xhamster, etc. Unless of course you are dumb enough to submit a picture ID to those sites for verification. If you add to that social media purges of porn then those affected are basically in a no porn environment. Of course some would make the argument that it's a good thing. But these are people not hurting anyone. They want to see some porn. What's the big deal?

Given that they started unbanning some of these, $20 says these dumbasses plugged in a new “AI mod” without testing it first.

Olympus has fallen folks, r/rule34 has been banned!
I never thought I'd see the day.

Is it time to train some Hunyuan Video/Flux loras or Spez pleasing Trump?
I think it may be. They can’t ban them all by signature if they’re unique.

Is it? The first two nsfw subs I tried, both of them were up.
Is there some theme perhaps to what has been banned? removed pointless insult
- I updated the title to reflect that they were being unbanned as of this moment. But if you look at the thread I linked, this was all true a couple hours ago.

Even took out AskRedditnsfw.
https://old.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/1ii7kn2/dozen_of_big_nsfw_subreddits_like_rboobs_25_mill/
It's okay though admins may reverse it...

185 comments