Banned subreddits refer to subreddits that Reddit has shut down indefinitely.
Antisemitic subreddits frenworld , whose title is derived from the
alt-right meme "Clown World", attracted controversy over its use of
Pepe the Frog edits and
clown imagery to promote racist
dog whistles, notably
attacking Jews.
The Times of Israel and
The Daily Dot found numerous references in the subreddit to
Holocaust denial, the
USS Liberty incident, and alleged racial
crime statistics. A major aspect of the sub was users' use of
slang and childish diction, such as "nose-fren" and "
longnose" for Jews, "bop" for committing violence or genocide, and "Honk honk" as a
euphemism for "
Heil Hitler". On June 20, 2019, after it had accumulated around 60,346 subscribers, the sub was banned for glorifying violence. , which hosted similar content, was banned on July 2, 2019.
GasTheKikes was another antisemitic subreddit, the name of which alluded to the
gas chambers used in the
Holocaust.
New York magazine described it as a "massive online Jew-hating community" among "the worst of the worst" subreddits. The community was banned from Reddit, In 2015, was first quarantined, then banned.
Internet troll Joshua Ryne Goldberg, a Jewish man who created troll accounts for various ideologies including
Neo-Nazism, founded and moderated r/GasTheKikes along with other Neo-Nazi and
white supremacist subreddits.
Beatingwomen On June 9, 2014, Reddit closed a subreddit called . The community, which featured graphic depictions of
violence against women, was banned after its moderators were found to be sharing users' personal information online. These moderators were also collaborating to protect one another from site-wide bans. After r/beatingwomen was banned, the community's founder rebooted the subreddit under the name in an attempt to circumvent the ban; in response, Reddit banned his user account.
ChapoTrapHouse was a subreddit dedicated to the
leftist podcast Chapo Trap House. It is associated with the "
dirtbag left" style of
left-wing politics. The community had 160,000 regulars before being banned on June 29, 2020 because they "consistently host[ed] rule-breaking content and their mods ... demonstrated no intention of reining in their community." Previously, the community had been quarantined for content that promoted violence.
The "Chimpire" The term "Chimpire" refers to a collection of subreddits and affiliated websites that promoted
anti-black racism and frequently used
racial slurs. In June 2013, Reddit banned the subreddit for engaging in vote manipulation,
inciting violence, and disrupting other communities by posting racist content. Reddit general manager Erik Martin noted that the sub was given multiple chances to comply with site rules: "users can tell from the amount of warnings we extended to a subreddit as clearly awful as r/
niggers that we go into the decision to ban subreddits with a lot of scrutiny". Following the ban of , the subreddit grew to become the most popular "Chimpire" site, with over 15,000 members at its peak. Many of the posters on these subreddits were formerly involved with .
Chodi , the name of which is derived from a crude
Hindi sexual slang term, was a right-wing
Indian subreddit that claimed to be a "free speech sub for
memes, jokes,
satire, sarcasm and fun". By January 2022, the sub had over 90,000 subscribers, who openly called for
genocide against
Muslims and frequently propagated
Islamophobic,
anti-Christian,
homophobic, and
misogynistic content. According to a
Time article, subscribers used intentional misspellings and
slang to circumvent Reddit's anti-
hate speech software.
The Quint cited r/Chodi's popularity as an example when noting that Reddit is used as a haven for hate speech in India. The sub was banned on March 23, 2022 for promoting hate, causing its users to move to
Telegram.
ChongLangTV was a
Chinese-language subreddit that originated from Kanagawa Chonglang Hub on
Baidu Tieba, which was known for its frequent use of racial slurs and extreme anti-China views. On March 2, 2022, when it had over 53,000 subscribers, Reddit administrators banned the sub for doxing a user who claimed to be a bank employee in Shanghai who blocked donations to Ukraine. The community's founder rebooted the subreddit under the name in an attempt to circumvent the ban, In the wake of this media attention, the user u/violentacrez was added to as a moderator. This user moderated dozens of controversial subreddits as well as a few hundred general-interest communities. In late 2012, reports emerged that Adrian Chen of
Gawker was planning an exposé which would reveal u/violentacrez's real-life identity. In response to the impending article, the account u/violentacrez was deleted and several major subreddits banned links to
Gawker. Moderators defended this decision, arguing that the impending article would constitute "
doxxing", and that such exposure threatened the site's structural integrity.
Gawker exposé Chen published his exposé on October 12, 2012, revealing that u/violentacrez was a middle-aged
programmer from
Arlington, Texas named Michael Brutsch. By the next day, Brutsch had been fired by his employer, and Reddit briefly banned the link to the exposé. Brutsch wrote on Reddit that he received numerous death threats after the article was published. Reddit CEO
Yishan Wong defended the content Brutsch contributed to the site, arguing that it constituted
free speech, while criticizing efforts to ban the
Gawker link on the same basis. Wong stated that Reddit staff had considered a site-wide ban on the link, but rejected the idea for fear that it would be ineffective while also creating a negative impression of the site. Later, Brutsch briefly returned to Reddit on a different account, criticizing what he stated were numerous factual inaccuracies in the
Gawker exposé. A week after the exposé, Brutsch did an interview with
CNN journalist
Drew Griffin. In the interview, which aired on
Anderson Cooper 360°, Brutsch was apologetic about his activity on Reddit. He explained that he enjoyed the appreciation he got from other Redditors, and that Reddit helped him relieve stress. Brutsch also described the support he had from administrators, stating that he had received an award for his contributions. Reddit responded that they regretted sending this award (for being named "Worst Subreddit" via a community vote); they also claimed that u/violentacrez had been banned on several occasions. Brutsch subsequently noted on Reddit that he regretted doing the interview, and he criticized the accuracy of Reddit's statement to CNN.
Chris Slowe, who was a lead Reddit programmer until 2010, said of the relationship between Brutsch and the Reddit staff: "We just stayed out of there and let him do his thing and we knew at least he was getting rid of a lot of stuff that wasn't particularly legal." Some argued that outing, or "doxing", was necessary to draw attention to objectionable content so it could be removed. Others claimed that fear of doxing and public retribution impeded people from exercising their right to legal
free speech online. Writing for
The Guardian,
Jude Doyle argued that certain doxings may be justified, comparing ''Gawker's'' article to the outing of
Amanda Todd's alleged
blackmailer. On the other hand, he argued that by engaging in "
sensationalism" at the expense of cultural reform, doxing may unduly focus attention on individuals without confronting the underlying problems. In
PC Magazine, Damon Poeter stated that while he had defended protecting anonymity on the Internet, he supported Brutsch being outed and felt the doxing was justifiable, as he thought the various subreddits that u/violentacrez contributed to were serious
invasions of privacy regardless of legality. Several commentators expressed concern that the
public shaming of Brutsch to serve as an example to others legitimizes
Internet vigilantism and exposes individuals such as Brutsch to mass retribution.
CringeAnarchy was a subreddit themed around "
cringe", "
edgy",
politically incorrect content. Originally an
uncensored (hence "anarchy") spinoff of , its content later shifted to the
far right, with
transphobic and "anti-
SJW" content taking prominence. The subreddit was quarantined in September of 2018, at which point it had over 400,000 subscribers. The sub was banned on April 25, 2019, for violating Reddit's content policy regarding violent content.
DarkNetMarkets In 2015, federal agents from the Baltimore Department of
Homeland Security requested Reddit employees to turn over the personal information of several users active in , a
darknet market discussion forum. The federal investigation's focus was illegal sales of drugs, weapons, and stolen financial details.
Deepfakes r/Deepfakes was a controversial subreddit where subscribers used FakeApp to
superimpose the faces of famous actresses onto
pornographic videos without their consent. These actresses included
Emma Watson and
Daisy Ridley. After the subreddit received notoriety from the press,
Gfycat and
Discord banned its videos.
Pornhub followed suit on February 6, 2018, and a day later the subreddit was banned.
European was a
far-right white nationalist subreddit focused on news relating to
Europe. It was founded in 2013 after banned
hate speech. Its users often promoted antisemitic, Islamophobic, and racist content, and an informal survey showed that 17% of the sub's users openly identified as
Nazis. The sub was set to private by its moderators, and in 2016 it was quarantined by the sitewide administrative staff in response to a post where a user bragged about
assaulting a Muslim
refugee. The users subsequently migrated to r/The_Donald, and then to following a dispute with r/The_Donald's moderators.
Efilism r/Efilism was a subreddit centered around the philosophy of
EFILism (life spelled backwards), a radical extension of
antinatalism that views all life as inherently harmful due to the suffering embedded in biological existence. Members discussed topics such as the ethics of reproduction, ecological extinction, and pessimistic takes on consciousness, often citing the ideas of controversial online figures such as Inmendham. The subreddit was ultimately banned on May 18, 2025 after being found in violation of Reddit's self-harm policies. The ban took place a day after the
2025 Palm Springs fertility clinic bombing; the perpetrator of the bombing had directly mentioned several Reddit communities, including r/efilism, in his writings.
FatPeopleHate On June 10, 2015, citing an anti-harassment policy, Reddit banned five subreddits: , , , , and . The largest of the five, , had an estimated 151,000 subscribers at the time. Some users moved to
Voat, a social aggregation website similar to Reddit, although other
fat-shaming forums continued to exist on Reddit.
FindBostonBombers Following the
Boston Marathon bombing in April of 2013, members of the subreddit wrongly identified several people as suspects, including a 17-year-old
track athlete and a 22-year-old
Brown University student
who had been missing since March. The missing student's body was found in the
Providence River in
Rhode Island on April 25, 2013, as reported by the
Rhode Island Health Department. The cause of death was found to be
suicide. The subreddit was later made private. Reddit
general manager Erik Martin later issued an apology for this behavior, criticizing the "online
witch hunts and dangerous speculation" that took place in these investigation-oriented communities. In September 2013, Reddit admins banned a similar subreddit dedicated to finding the
Navy Yard shooter(s). These events were dramatized in TV shows
The Newsroom and
The Good Wife.
GenderCritical The subreddit , which had 64,400 users, described itself as "Reddit's most active
feminist community" for "women-centred,
radical feminists" to discuss "gender from a
gender-critical perspective". Described by
Jillian York of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation as "a subreddit where
transphobic commentary has thrived", the subreddit frequently hosted posts asserting that
transgender women are not women. On June 29, 2020, the subreddit was "banned for violating Reddit's rule against promoting hate". After was banned, several of its users migrated to Ovarit, a
trans-exclusionary radical feminism-centered website similar to Reddit. The similar subreddit was banned at the same time, as was , a subreddit for discussion on what went on in . The sub had previously been quarantined for over half a year, but less than a day after the Christchurch shootings, Reddit banned it completely for violating Reddit's policy against "glorifying or encouraging violence". Moderators of the subreddit had initially allowed the video to be shared. WatchPeopleDie subsequently relaunched as a standalone website.
GunsForSale In January 2014,
Mother Jones published a story about
gun sales on Reddit, suggesting that sellers were using the platform to exploit a
loophole in
U.S. federal law. Nearly 100
AR-15s were engraved with the Reddit
logo as part of a licensing deal made with the sub in 2011. It was banned on March 21, 2018, after Reddit updated its content policies to forbid subreddits that facilitate transactions involving certain
goods and services.
Incel subreddits A subreddit founded for "
involuntary celibates", was a forum wherein members discussed their lack of romantic success. The sub defined an "incel" as a person over age 20 who has unintentionally gone at least six months without a romantic partner. Many members of r/incels adhered to the "
black pill" ideology, which espouses despondency often coupled with misogynistic views that
condone, downplay, or advocate
rape. Posts often referred to women as "femoids," "foids", (both short for "female humanoid") "
cunts", "
cum dumpsters", and "
sluts". In the summer of 2017, a
petition on
Change.org called for to be banned for inciting
violence against women. Following the October implementation of a new Reddit policy that prohibited the
incitement of violence, the subreddit was banned on November 7, 2017. At that time, had around 40,000 subscribers. r/Braincels was banned in September 2019 for violating Reddit's content policy with respect to
bullying and
harassment.
Jailbait Reddit's staff was initially opposed to the addition of obscene material to the site, but they eventually became more lenient when prolific moderators, such as a user named u/violentacrez, proved capable of identifying and removing illegal content at a time when Reddit had insufficient paid staff to do so. Initially, this caused a spike in
Internet traffic to the subreddit, causing the page to peak at 1.73 million views on the day of the report. In the wake of these news reports, a Reddit user posted an image of an underage girl to and subsequently claimed to have nude images of her. In response, dozens of Reddit users posted requests for the nude photos to be shared with them via private message. Other Reddit users drew attention to this discussion, and Reddit administrators closed the forum on October 11, 2011. Following the closure of ,
The Daily Dot declared the community's creator, u/violentacrez, "The Most Important Person on Reddit in 2011", calling the controversy "the first major challenge to the site's voluntary doctrine of absolute free speech".
Jakolandia In January 2019, a
Philippine-based subreddit, , was accused of "distributing" posts with photos of women (including celebrities) that were apparently taken without their consent. "A number" of secret
Facebook groups had been taking similar actions, engaging in illegal activity by
sharing "obscene" photos of women and possibly
child pornography. was later banned as a result.
MGTOW was a subreddit for
Men Going Their Own Way, an
anti-feminist,
misogynistic, mostly
online community advocating for men to
separate themselves from women. It also advocates separation from society, which they believe feminism has corrupted. In January 2020, a group of researchers published a
preprint of an analysis of the
manosphere, which listed among a group of growing online communities involved in "online harassment and real-world violence". Reddit quarantined the subreddit shortly afterward. In August 2021, Reddit banned the subreddit for violating its policies prohibiting content that "incites violence or promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability".
MillionDollarExtreme was dedicated to the
comedy group
Million Dollar Extreme, who were accused of having connections with the
alt-right. Its users propagated various
anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and heavily promoted racist, homophobic, and
transphobic content. On September 10, 2018, when the sub had around 43,000 subscribers, it was banned for violating Reddit's content policy regarding violent content. Million Dollar Extreme's YouTube channel and
Instagram account had already been terminated earlier that year. Associated subreddits , , , and several others were subsequently banned.
NoNewNormal was a subreddit critical of the responses to the
COVID-19 pandemic. It propagated
various conspiracies about the pandemic and measures to control it, including lockdowns, masking,
vaccines, and the implementation of a "
new normal". It was quarantined for misinformation on August 12, 2021, when it had accumulated over 112,000 subscribers. Subreddits and were subsequently banned for trying to circumvent the quarantine, and and , which hosted similar content, set themselves to private. In a thread on , a community opposing
vaccine misinformation, a Redditor called upon administrators to ban subreddits that primarily spread medical misinformation. Admins responded that Reddit is a platform for free speech and discussion, and would continue to allow subreddits that challenge the consensus views on the pandemic. In protest of Reddit's response, the moderators of 135 subreddits (including , , , , and ) made their subreddits private. On September 1, 2021, Reddit banned r/NoNewNormal for brigading subreddits that criticized it, and quarantined 54 other subreddits associated with COVID-19 denial.
Physical_Removal Members of advocated for the forced
deportation or physical removal of
political leftists from the United States. Its name references a quote by
right-wing libertarian philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who wrote: "There can be no
tolerance toward
democrats and
communists in a
libertarian social order. They will have to be physically
separated and removed from society". The sub was controversial for its promotion of violence against leftists and other groups. For instance, users would refer to
throwing people from helicopters, an
extrajudicial execution method used by
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. After the 2017
Unite the Right rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia, r/Physical_Removal drew criticism after mocking the
death of Heather Heyer, who was struck and killed by a car driven by a far-right
terrorist at the rally. The subreddit was banned on August 15th, 2017 for violating its policy against the incitement of violence. Because users would post the personal details of people allegedly connected to Pizzagate, Reddit banned the sub on November 23, 2016 for violating its anti-doxing policy.
QAnon-related subreddits Reddit attracted attention from mainstream publications in 2018 for the role it played in spreading the
QAnon conspiracy theory from
4chan and
8chan to the wider internet. At QAnon's peak, tens of thousands of users were subscribed to various subreddits promoting the conspiracy theory. In response, Reddit began to ban these subreddits for breaking sitewide rules. By 2020, these bans had significantly decreased QAnon-related discussions on Reddit, and the remaining discussions focused on criticisms of the conspiracy theory. Reddit banned the subreddit on March 14, 2018, for violating its guidelines; this prompted the creation of its own website,
Sanctioned Suicide, where many of the subreddit's users migrated to thereafter.
SonyGOP On December 15, 2014, Reddit took the unusual step of banning a subreddit, , which was being used to distribute hacked Sony files.
Shoplifting The subreddit was devoted to stories, tips, and questions for the purpose of
shoplifting at large commercial
retail chain stores. It dissuaded people from shoplifting from smaller stores, which were presumed to suffer greater losses from theft. Users often posted pictures of items they had supposedly "lifted". Near the end of its existence, over 77,000 people were subscribed to the subreddit. It was banned on March 21, 2018, because it violated an amendment to the Reddit User Agreement—added that same day—which states: "Users may not use Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services, including: ... Stolen goods".
The_Donald r/The_Donald was a community created for supporters of
Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. In November 2016 Reddit banned many of the sub's "toxic" users, alleging that they harassed Reddit administrators and manipulated the site's
algorithms in order to push content to Reddit's front page. Reddit's CEO
Steve Huffman (known as
u/spez on Reddit) had recently admitted to silently editing comments in r/The_Donald which attacked him. Subsequently, the term "spez" entered The_Donald's terminology as a
synonym for "edit". In response, Reddit modified the site's algorithms to specifically prevent the sub's moderators from gaming them. Huffman referred to 's users' complaints of harassment "
hypocritical" because they had harassed others. After the
Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, many posts filled with anti-Muslim hate appeared in the subreddit arguing that the shootings were justified. The subreddit was quarantined by
Reddit admins in June 2019 for "threats of violence against police and public officials". On June 29, 2020, Reddit banned the subreddit for frequent rule-breaking, for antagonizing the company and other communities, and for failing to "meet our most basic expectations".
TheFappening In August 2014, Reddit users began
sharing a large number of naked pictures of celebrities stolen via
phishing from their private Apple
iCloud accounts. was created as a hub to share and discuss these stolen photos. Most of the stolen images were posted within the subreddit. Victims of the scandal (called "CelebGate" by the media) included
Jennifer Lawrence,
Kate Upton,
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and other high-profile individuals. Several leaked photos of
Liz Lee and
McKayla Maroney may have been taken when the women were underage, which would constitute child pornography, though this remains controversial. Reddit administrators closed the subreddit in September 2014. The scandal led to wider criticisms from
The Verge and
The Daily Dot concerning the website's moderation.
TruFemcels In January 2021, Reddit banned , a subreddit for
female incels ("femcels"), for promoting hate. Critics accused the sub of
lookism, racism,
transphobia, spreading alt-right conspiracy theories, and using incel terminology. After the ban, the community migrated to a dedicated website, ThePinkPill.co.
TumblrInAction In June 2022, Reddit banned (TiA) for promoting hate. TiA was an
anti-gender movement subreddit created to mock
Tumblr "
gender ideology" and "
social justice warriors (SJWs)". At the time, the subreddit had over 470,000 members, including some who joined after was banned. , a sister subreddit to TumblrInAction, was also banned. Months prior, in December 2021,
Slate had referred to TumblrInAction as "a breeding ground for online hate...[linked] to
Gamergate and all sorts of online harassment tactics".
UncensoredNews was a far-right subreddit that claimed to be the "free speech" alternative to the more popular news-related subs. Founded by users who moderated several
white nationalist subreddits before June 2016, it saw a massive increase in subscribers following the
Orlando nightclub shooting, as the moderators of were accused of censoring the name, religion, and
motive of perpetrator
Omar Mateen. primarily promoted stories about crimes committed by minorities or left-wing people, such as
attacks on white farmers in South Africa. Their stories often had a
xenophobic, Islamophobic, and racist bent. For example, a post stickied by one of the sub's moderators was titled "Here at uncensored news we love racism,
bigotry, misogyny, hatred, xenophobia, transphobia, homo phobia [
sic] etc." while another user compared
miscegenation to
bestiality. and its moderators were banned on March 12, 2018 for inciting violence, possibly in response to a thread where users debated whether Jews or Muslims were more dangerous. == Active subreddits ==