William Shatner slams social website Reddit for 'allowing racism, homophobia and sexism'

Star Trek legend Shatner joined social news network in January



Request to turn off private messages turned into discussion on site policies

The 81-year-old actor said he was 'appalled' that hateful posts were ignored

Actor William Shatner has attacked social news network Reddit, accusing it of allowing racism, bigotry and sexism, in a post on the site itself.

The Star Trek legend, who joined the online community after a Q&A session in January, posted a request to turn off private messages from users which turned into a full-blown hit on the site's hands-off approach to moderating its content.

The 81-year-old Canadian said he was appalled that 'horrifically racist, sexist, homophobic, ethnic' posts were ignored.

Appalled: William Shatner, pictured with his wife, Elizabeth in 2005, has hit out at social news network Reddit for not moderating its content, leaving it open to racism, sexism and homophobia

Reddit is an online community where users are free to share links and post commentary on any subject.

William Shatner has been a member since he took part in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session in the Star Trek subreddit in January.

He posted a post entitled 'turning off private messages' on Saturday asking for a way to avoid receiving private messages from users, having been swamped with emails from fans asking for autographs and favours.

His attack came in the comment field below after a fellow Reddit user pointed out some of the 'unsavoury aspects' of the site.

Mr Shatner wrote: 'I am apalled (sic) by some of the immature, horrifically racist, sexist, homophobic, ethnic... etc.. posts that are just ignored here. Why are these accounts still active?'

Trekkie fans: William Shatner, famous for his role as Captain Kirk in Star Trek, became a Reddit user for a Q&A session last month and, unlike many celebrities who part-take in such, has remained an active member 'While Reddit has done well in getting interest from the mainstream I just wonder if by allowing these children to run rampant and post whatever they feel will cause the most collateral damage if Reddit is biting off it's own nose in taking that step to become a mainstream community.' Reddit users were quick to hit back at Shatner, saying censorship through moderation goes against the sites policies and that internet hate is a downside of freedom of speech. User 'froggymorning' said the hateful posts would not be tolerated offline and ‘would earn you swift action from your parents’ if said in public, but added that ‘the internet has no parents and is a relatively free speech zone.’

READ IT ON REDDIT?

Reddit is a social news website which uses the slogan Front Page of the Internet. It functions like a mass blog which you can browse both as a user and as a non-user. Contributors' posts can be a news story, a link, a picture, a written piece etc, and is then given up- or down-votes by others regulating which posts become a 'hot topic' and move up on the site.

The comments on a post are organised in best, top, new, hot, controversial and old.

There are also forum-like categories for posts on a specific subject which are called subreddits. These can be created by a user and come in a wide variety of topics such as Star Wars, world news, gif-images and gaming. There are currently over 67,000 different subreddits on the site.

Others took a more hardline stand in defending Reddit.

‘Nothing on Reddit is a “free speech zone”,’ replied user NOT_ACTUALLYRELEVANT, explaining that it is up to the creator of a subreddit to ban re-posts from the forum to Facebook or Gawker, giving users and moderators the opportunity to censor racial hatred, homophobia and sexism.

'This idea of freedom of speech on Reddit, a privately-owned website, is bulls***.’

Mr Shatner replied that Reddit was the first ‘mainstream site’ to allow ‘racists and other hate mongers to group, congregate, incite and spread their hatred.

‘What mainstream sites do you think are more racist?'

‘The fact that someone could come here, debase and degrade people based on race, religion, ethnicity or sexual preference because they “have a right” to do so without worry of any kind of moderation is sending the wrong message, in my humble opinion.’

‘I don’t pretend to know where the managers of Reddit wish to go with this site but embracing that kind of culture I feel is counterproductive to where this world is heading and I think that is probably hurting this site.’



Others sympathised wholeheartedly with Mr Shatner saying freedom of speech is being used as an excuse to get away with anything from sexism to inciting hatred and using slurs against users who dare criticise.

‘I love Reddit, but it's wearing me thin,’ wrote raegunXD.



’R/WTF is one of the worst. I once saw a picture of a person's 14 year old cousin's still born baby posted there.'

Free speech: Reddit has over 67,0000 categorised forums for specific interests, known as subreddits, the topic and moderation of which were questioned by Mr Shatner

Reddit calls itself ‘a pretty open platform and free speech place’ and uses a handful of rules and a reddiquette which it asks its users to abide by.

Don't spam.

Don't engage in vote cheating or manipulation.

Don't post personal information.

No child pornography or sexually suggestive content featuring minors.

Don't break the site or do anything that interferes with normal use of the site.

It’s reddiquette section asks members to ‘remember the human’ and consider the person behind the online moniker they are addressing and ask themselves ‘Would I say it to the person's face?’ or ‘Would I get jumped if I said this to a buddy?’

Reddit has previously found its moderation policies scrutinized, in particular the case of the exposure of one of its moderators Michael Brutsch who posted on the site under the moniker 'violentacrez'.

Mr Brutsch, a 49-year-old computer programmer, contributed anonymously as 'violentacrez' to a number of controversial subreddits devoted to explicit materials and was the creator of subreddit r/jailbait which was dedicated to posting provocative pictures of teenagers.

The thread was shut down after journalist Anderson Cooper condemned it on his CNN show Anderson Cooper 360 in late 2011, after which 'sexually suggestive content featuring minors' was officially banned from the site.

