Reddit shut down one of its leading alt-right pages on Wednesday. The subreddit, r/altright, was banned from the site for “a violation of our content policy, specifically, the proliferation of personal and confidential information,” according to a message left in the place of the subreddit’s domain.
“We are very clear in our site terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit and we ask our communities not to post content that harasses or invites harassment,” Reddit said in a statement provided to TheWrap. “We have banned r/altright due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy. There is no single solution to these issues and we are actively engaging with the Reddit community to improve everyone’s experience.”
Reddit did not indicate whether this shutdown is an isolated move or if it is part of a larger planned crackdown on subreddits that promote hate speech and racism.
r/altright made headlines back in November when it was featured on Reddit’s Subreddit of the Day page just five days after Trump’s victory in the election. On that page, r/altright and the movement it represents were described as “a community dedicated to an alternative form of right wing ideology” that “takes pride in fairly analyzing all aspects of modern society.”
But in a post addressed to newcomers who learned of the sub from Trump’s subreddit, r/The_Donald, a r/altright moderator described its community as “”full of white nationalists, racial realists, and fascists. That is what we are and we really do not give a s**t about tax cuts or other policy issues.” On the sub’s posting rules, moderators strongly insisted that newcomers read the anti-Semitic book “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem” before posting about Jews on the site. As of Jan. 15, the sub had over 13,000 subscribers.
The alt-right movement has risen in prominence alongside Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency, with Hillary Clinton famously denouncing them in a speech during the 2016 campaign. The label was coined by white supremacist Richard B. Spencer and has been adopted by like-minded individuals as a rebranding of their ideology.
Spencer was seen in a viral video in November giving a speech to fellow alt-right members who responded by giving Nazi salutes and yelling “Sieg Heil!” and “Hail Trump!” Spencer went viral again on the day of Trump’s inauguration, when he was punched during an interview.
Following the ban, r/altright subscribers have migrated to Voat, a Reddit alternative that its creator, Atif Colo, described to MarketWatch as a site “where users would not be censored and still say whatever they want.” Alt-right posters disgruntled with Reddit have gathered there on a page called v/Identitarian, which is another euphemism used by white supremacists.
9 Movies to Remind You How Bad US Health Care Used to Be - And Might Be Again (Photos)
The Republicans are continuing their attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with the Senate voting to push a repeal bill to floor debate. The bill looks to roll back a number of the protections put in place by the ACA to protect Americans from issues like being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions or hitting lifetime limits on care. But people hated American health care so much before 2010, Hollywood made plenty of movies, TV shows and documentaries about it. Here's a list of films that are a helpful reminder of how American health care used to be in the pre-2010 world.
"As Good As It Gets" (1997) Everyone remembers Jack Nicholson’s obsessive-compulsive jerk of a writer, Melvin. What's easy to forget is he uses his substantial wealth to bail out a waitress (Helen Hunt) from her son’s high medical bills for his asthma. She notes how she gets screwed by — guess who — her HMO when a doctor hired by Melvin shows up to give her son actual, competent medical care.
"Last Holiday" (2006) Greed bad, kindness good. That’s the moral of “Last Holiday,” in which Queen Latifah goes on an expensive vacation after learning she has a brain tumor that will kill her. Of course, her insurance won’t cover risky life-saving surgery. Latifah makes friends with almost everyone she meets at the hotel and they learn from her example. And then it turns out the tumor diagnosis was a mistake, so everyone wins.
"Dallas Buyers Club" (2013) Taking on the Food and Drug Administration rather than insurance companies, “Dallas Buyers Club” focuses on how federal foot-dragging kept life-saving drugs out of the hands of AIDS patients in the 1980s. Matthew McConaughey fights for the right to take an unapproved drug and wins, and learns to be less of a terrible person along the way.
"Critical Care" (1997) Getting the flipside of the healthcare debate, “Critical Care” is all about the level of care you receive when you have good insurance. Focusing on a man in a vegetative state, James Spader finds himself playing a doctor who wonders if it’s ethically cool to just keep people alive (and maybe suffering) because it’s profitable.
"Breaking Bad" (2008) Everyone knows Walter White (Bryan Cranston) becomes Heisenberg, a meth-making Albuquerque kingpin, but they might not remember why: medical bills. Walt receives a cancer diagnosis that he fears will bankrupt his family, and meth is a way for him to leave them enough money to survive before he goes. With issues like pre-existing conditions on their way back, it seems likely lots of people will be searching for extracurricular ways to pay their medical bills, and gofundme campaigns can only go so far.
"Sicko" (2007) Documentarian Michael Moore picks apart the healthcare system and highlights the people it leaves behind. That includes 9/11 first responders in New York. The film digs into the history and issues of the U.S. employer-based insurance system -- a lot of which will come back under the Republican bill -- and compares it to alternatives like those in Cuba, Canada and the United Kingdom.
"The Rainmaker" (1997) A John Grisham David v. Goliath legal story, “The Rainmaker” sees Matt Damon and Danny DeVito take an extremely evil insurance company to court. The extremely evil insurer denies coverage to a couple whose son is dying of leukemia, but Damon and DeVito eventually wallop it in court. The reality of fighting insurance companies in court in the future will likely be less uplifting.
"Saw VI" (2009) The infamous Jigsaw killer targets the guy who denied him insurance coverage for an experimental cancer treatment. Jigsaw’s revenge: Make the guy who decides who lives and who dies for a living do it in a much more hands-on, gory way. At the end of the movie, another family he decided not to cover gets to choose whether to melt the insurance guy with acid. Guess which option they pick.
"John Q" (2002) Denzel Washington plays a man whose son needs a heart transplant, but a technicality means his insurance won't cover it. He takes an emergency room hostage, but, since everyone knows how evil insurance companies are, he manages to befriend everyone there. And then his son gets his operation, and John saves the healthcare system.
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As Trump-threatened repeal vote looms, here’s a look back at how Hollywood covered the problems of the pre-Obamacare healthcare industry
The Republicans are continuing their attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with the Senate voting to push a repeal bill to floor debate. The bill looks to roll back a number of the protections put in place by the ACA to protect Americans from issues like being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions or hitting lifetime limits on care. But people hated American health care so much before 2010, Hollywood made plenty of movies, TV shows and documentaries about it. Here's a list of films that are a helpful reminder of how American health care used to be in the pre-2010 world.
