Reddit has shut down two popular far-right subreddits for breaking the website's rules.

If you try to visit either r/altright or r/alternativeright you are greeted with a message saying the community has been banned.

The closure seems to be in response to a "proliferation of personal and confidential information".

This suggests the thread was closed for "doxing" and not necessarily for hosting far right views.

Doxing is the term used for sharing an individual's personal information online, without their permission, so that others can harass them.

The Verge claims that details shared in this case were those of a man who punched a well-known far-right activist.

On Voat, an alternative Reddit style forum used by many of the same people, conversation threads back this theory.

Reddit said in a statement to Newsbeat it is "very clear in the site terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit and we ask our communities not to post content that harasses or invites harassment.

"We have banned r/altright due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy."

It's not clear if the ban is temporary or permanent.

Both 'alt-right' and 'alternative right' groups have thousands of subscribers

According to cached copies of their pages these threads are followed by 15,000 and 200,000 people respectively.

But there are more popular right wing subreddits such as r/The_Donald, which has over 350,000 members - known as Centipedes, which are still running.

These forums have become a place where Trump supporters share views, some of them extreme right wing views.

There have been other Reddit controversies - remember #PizzaGate?

The "Pizzagate" conspiracy was a fake story which alleged that Hillary Clinton's campaign was involved in a child abuse ring operating from a pizza restaurant.

This led to Reddit's chief executive editing posts made about him by Donald Trump fans on the site.

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