Insisting Free-Speech, Reddit Kills Explicit Celeb Pic Forums

Reddit has finally taken down the much-criticized forums which shared and re-circulated stolen explicit celebrity photos, including Jennifer Lawrence and others, though the site's management are at pains to portray it as a copyright issue, not one of free speech. The continued availability of the leaked images, believed to have been extracted from iCloud backups using hacked and stolen credentials, had prompted demands by some that reddit change its stance on what could and could not be published.

However, according to CEO Yishan Wong, the well-used forum site has no intention of doing so. In a blog post this weekend, Wong pointed out that it is a cornerstone of reddit policy that each individual poster take responsibility for the content they share.

"We uphold the ideal of free speech on reddit as much as possible not because we are legally bound to," Wong wrote, "but because we believe that you – the user – has the right to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, and that it is your responsibility to do so." [emphasis original]

While saying that the site would continually evolve its rules based on feedback and shifts in internet use, the chief exec also made clear that the celebrity photos would not be prompting such a change.

Confusing things, however, was a near-simultaneous decision by site moderators to take down the now-notorious "The Fappening" forums, among others, where the photos had continued to be shared.

That, reddit says, was an implementation of its existing rules, however. Several of the photos were subject to DMCA takedown requests on a copyright basis, but while admins moved to delete them, members quickly re-uploaded them.

Meanwhile, the discovery that at least one of the celebrities, Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney, was underage when the photographs were taken, had also contributed to the "whack-a-mole" of picture removal. Some links were also being made to malware and phishing sites, as scams arose to take advantage of users seeking out the salacious content.

The decision to delete the forum and the related subreddits has, unsurprisingly, prompted an outcry from some members, fiercely protective of the site's liberal approach to content sharing.

Arguments around other types of copyrighted or morally-questionable material have also arisen, as redditors debate what role administrators – and laws – should play on the site.

SOURCE reddit