After enormous pressure from competing sites as well as the media, Reddit has instituted what administrators of the 800-lb gorilla of link aggregation call “A necessary change in policy” regarding sexual images of children:

As of today, we have banned all subreddits that focus on sexualization of children. Our goal is to be fair and consistent, so if you find a subreddit we may have missed, please message the admins. If you find specific content that meets this definition please message the moderators of the subreddit, and the admins.

The statement goes on to acknowledge that many Redditors might see the new policy as a “slippery slope” which might lead to “banning other types of content,” but concludes that “child pornography is a toxic and unique case for Internet communities, and we’re protecting reddit’s ability to operate by removing this threat.”

This comes after comedy website and forum SomethingAwful.com published a popular message thread urging the site’s large and devoted user base to inform as many media outlets and civic bodies as possible that “children are using a website that exploits and sexualizes children, requesting that children submit their own nude photos.” The SomethingAwful user who began the thread dubbed the effort a “Redditbomb.” A 2-year-old article on a science site suggesting that legalizing child pornography might “lower rates of child abuse” was on the front page of Reddit today as well.

Sites that arguably compete with Reddit for eyeballs on the Web are not alone in criticizing the prevalence of “subreddits” that promote links to sexualized images of minors. Gawker has frequently taken note of the problem and in September of last year Anderson Cooper aired an extended segment on the issue. (See video.)

Reddit’s new policy–as stated–appears to be the site administrators’ most aggressive effort to address the issue so far.

Anderson Cooper Accuses Reddit Of Spreading Child Pornography – YouTube.

[Reddit]