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Reddit has banned a fat-shaming section as part of a move to combat harassment and part of the community is furious, arguing that it's tantamount to censorship.

The massively popular website's new anti-harassment policy has meant an end to a number of subreddits (subsections on the site), one of which is called "r/FatPeopleHate" and was dedicated to being super-mean about overweight people.

At the same time a number of other offensive subreddits were culled, including ones that attacked transgender people and black people. However none of those were anywhere near as big as r/FatPeopeHate, which had almost 150,000 subscribers.

“We will ban subreddits that allow their communities to use the subreddit as a platform to harass individuals when moderators don’t take action. We’re banning behaviour, not ideas,” said Reddit of the decision.

A vocal and influential minority on the site has reacted very badly to the so-called “censorship”, believing that Reddit should let people say what they want - despite the fact that it’s a private company with its own commercial imperatives.

(Image: Getty)

Many are blaming current CEO Ellen Pao, who's been at the helm while a number of changes have been made - referring to her as 'Chairman Pao'.

Some furious members are creating clones of the banned sections on Reddit while others are taking their content to competing websites in what can only be described as a internet huff.

Others are pointing out that it's going to be impossible to deal with the harassment evenhandedly and that Reddit should be dealing with other more offensive subreddits out there first, such as the incredibly racist one called "CoonTown".

But Reddit is standing firm.

"These subreddits were banned after repeated complaints about extensive harassment of users both on and off Reddit,” a spokeswoman told Motherboard.

It’s not the first unpalatable section to be banned from Reddit. The site has already banned revenge porn and so called "jailbait" subreddits showing sexually provocative young women of questionable age.

The vocal minority was outraged then as well, but the site still attracts 179 million visitors per month.