Some users say they are being ‘censored’ (Picture: Reddit)

While Reddit talked a young man out of suicide, photoshopped the wires from a baby girl at the request of her grieving father and helped build a wall for a Kenyan orphanage, it also defended a man who ran forums on beating women and allowed dangerous speculation on the identity of the Boston bombers.

This non-interventionist policy, which allows users to ‘choose what to post, choose what to read’ has been praised by many but deemed reckless by others.

But Redditors are apparently leaving the site, saying that ‘censorship’ of their comments as part of the site’s corporate policy is putting them off.



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According to the Washington Post, a lengthy post by a user called redditiscorrupto about a secret ‘cabal’ of moderators censoring free speech ‘along radical feminist lines’ led to the creation of a Reddit forum called r/subredditcancer. Within hours, Voat, a Reddit imitation site based in Switzerland, went up – and users followed.

‘So essentially I can be offensive to anybody, as offensive as I want, as long as no death threats, etc., and you guys will not ban me?’ wrote one Voater during a Q&A with the site’s founders.

‘We are not SJW [social justice warriors] and don’t plan on becoming it,’ was the reply.

It remains to be seen how successful Voat will be, but both 4chan and 8chan have had to rethink their commitment to absolute free speech due to scandals concerning prodigious amounts of child porn and other unsavoury images.