Reddit has banned the Incels subreddit for its content that promoted violence against women. The community was comprised of men who blamed women for their virginity, or “involuntary celibacy”, and sometimes advocated rape.
“Communities focused on this content and users who post such content will be banned from the site,” Reddit said in a statement. “As of Nov. 7, r/Incels has been banned for violating this policy.”
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This removal is in line with its latest policies, announced in October, forbidding violent content on its platform. Of the first to go were white supremacist and Nazi groups.
The r/Incel community consisted of around 40 000 members according to The New York Times.
Another subreddit called IncelTears logged many of its now-deleted threads. In an archived post titled “Proof that girls are nothing but trash that use men”, commenters on r/Incels blamed women for twirling their hair, “being flirty” and attracting “orbiters” (men who want to sleep with their female friends).
Many in the incel community — which is not limited to Reddit, and found on various platforms on the web — refer to women as “femoids”, a mixture of female and humanoid that implies subhuman status.
According to a petition calling for the removal of r/IncelsCommunity, members also referred to Elliot Rodgers, who killed six people and injured fourteen others in 2014, as Saint Elliot.
In his last YouTube video, Rodgers complained about being rejected by women.
“You girls have never been attracted to me,” he said. “I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it.”
Rodgers also made his home online on various forums that treated women as vessels to sexually satisfy men.
Feature image: screenshot, Reddit
