Reddit became the major hub, specifically through the subreddit The Fappening, to find nude celebrity photos leaked by the website 4chan over the Labor Day weekend. The social network has banned The Fappening based on violations of the site's policies.
Numerous Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests filed into Reddit, requesting the pictures of celebs like Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Ariana Grande and hundreds more be taken down. The community website could only delete photos uploaded by its users, not those shared from links to other servers hosting the pics, according to Reddit CEO Yishan Wong.
"While current US law does not prohibit linking to stolen materials, we deplore the theft of these images and we do not condone their widespread distribution," Wong wrote in a blog post.
"Nevertheless, reddit's platform is structurally based on the ability for people to distribute, promote, and highlight textual materials as well as links to images and other media. We understand the harm that misusing our site does to the victims of this theft, and we deeply sympathize."
The decision to ban the subreddit may have come to a head when Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney reported the photos of her were taken while she was underage. Reddit does not allow child pornography, images sexualizing children or sites that link to these items, according to a systems administrator for the site.
"We were alerted that some of these photos depicted minors, which is where we have drawn a clear line in the sand," the administrator, who goes by the handle "alienth," wrote in another blog post.
The ban of The Fappening will not lead to a change in Reddit's content policy, according to Wong. Users hold the responsibility to make their own moral choice when it comes to engaging in this type of content.
"You choose what to post. You choose what to read. You choose what kind of subreddit to create and what kind of rules you will enforce. We will try not to interfere - not because we don't care, but because we care that you make your choices between right and wrong," the Reddit CEO wrote.
"Virtuous behavior is only virtuous if it is not arrived at by compulsion. This is a central idea of the community we are trying to create."
