There are few things that Redditors like complaining about more than Reddit itself, and the popular link aggregator just gave its user base a lot of new ammunition by handing out bans to five “harassing subreddits.”

The Reddit team wrote in an announcement:

Today we are announcing a change in community management on reddit. Our goal is to enable as many people as possible to have authentic conversations and share ideas and content on an open platform. We want as little involvement as possible in managing these interactions but will be involved when needed to protect privacy and free expression, and to prevent harassment.

Today we are removing five subreddits that break our reddit rules based on their harassment of individuals. If a subreddit has been banned for harassment, you will see that in the ban notice.

The largest subreddit that was banned was r/fatpeoplehate, a community with over 150,000 subscribers dedicated to ridiculing overweight people. The subreddit’s rules included things like “No dissent / No being fat” and “Absolutely NO FAT SYMPATHY.”

The other banned subreddits, according to Reddit admin ekjp, include: r/hamplanethatred (3071 subscribers), r/transfags (149), r/neofag (1239) and r/shitniggerssay (219).

What is harassment?

While many Redditors seemed to agree that some of the above mentioned subreddits could be extremely negative places, some also questioned how exactly Reddit defines harassing behavior.

“[FatPeopleHate] was supposedly banned for violating the reddit rule of ‘Keeping everyone safe,’ ” wrote Reddit user Rebootkid. “That rule says, ‘You agree to not intentionally jeopardize the health and safety of others or yourself.’ You’re going to need to explain exactly how they were violating that rule, because I saw none of it happening.”

Other users also questioned why these particular subreddits were banned when there are several more popular subreddits that engage in worse behavior, such as encouraging eating disorders or posting pictures of dead children.

Many Redditors place the blame for the new policies on interim CEO Ellen Pao, who has previously stated that she wants Reddit to be a “safe place” where users will never feel “attacked.”

These bans will probably not be the final straw that causes the sort of community-killing migration that occurred with Digg in 2010, but a popular Reddit alternative called Voat.co did see a dramatic spike in traffic today managed to crash the site.

Screenshot via Reddit.com