Reddit Bans Anyone Using Aimee Challenor’s Name; Here’s Why

Twitter, which was previously thought to be a bastion of free speech, censored a sitting president, Donald Trump, on January 8th, 2021, when the social media platform temporarily banned him.

This has happened before on Reddit. When a moderator’s identity “got out,” the websites of multiple subreddits were shut down in 2012. In 2015, Reddit was blocking subreddits (communities) based on the location of the subreddit’s userbase. Over 2000 subreddits, including a pro-Trump group called r/TheDonald, were banned in 2020.

Reddit users are claiming several Reddit communities and subreddits engage in obvious censorship. Including global and national subreddits such as r/worldnews, r/politics, r/india, r/politicalhumor, and r/unpopularopinion, this contains everything relevant. A number of subreddits like r/WatchRedditDie, r/DeclineIntoCensorship, and r/Banned will keep track of subreddits that have experienced heavy censorship.

Once again, the issue of free speech on privately owned social media companies has reared its ugly head. a former Green spokesperson named Aimee Knight is now employed by Reddit (formerly Aimee Challenor).

Aimee, a trans activist, was an important member of the Green Party, holding an important position in the party’s national LGBTQI wing, and she once ran for the deputy leadership position.

Aimee’s father had been charged with 22 sexual offenses that were among the most serious and extreme, committed against a child. This crime took place in the victim’s home, where they were raped, physically assaulted, and produced child pornography.

Following this, Aimee employed him as their election campaign manager while he was awaiting trial.

Even though Aimee did not formally report the charges to anyone in the party, she was found to have informally reported them to a friend of the party, however, she failed to tell the leader of the Green Party about the father’s membership in the party or the activist’s campaign, and could have put him in contact with children and other vulnerable people.

In addition to election officer duties, the report found that Aimee had hired her father as a photographer, which alarmed people due to the nature of some of the charges her father faced and the fact that a political campaign often engages with children and vulnerable populations.

The party terminated Aimee, their father, and their mother after the investigation concluded and the report was released. At the time, this was widely reported by the press in the UK. After his conviction, the father was sent to prison for 22 years.

It was about two years later, in November 2015, when the activist’s partner allegedly made a public admission on social media, expressing an interest in writing literature that included sexually abusive actions with a child. -Despite this, Aimee and their partner insist that the admission was made by a hacker, which led to the activist being expelled from their second major political party and causing the activist to resign from a prominent LGBTQ campaign group and relocate to the United States, where their partner lives.

Recent hiring by Reddit caused the site to temporarily ban and delete posts and comments that mentioned Aimee’s name, along with linking to articles published in magazines and blogs about the two prior incidents and mentioning the new employee, as well as articles from the media about the criminal case and investigation.

Aimee, on Reddit using the username u/isnottheimposter, has temporarily banned one of the moderators of r/UKPolitics because they linked to an article about her. Due to this incident, several other moderators had to temporarily close the subreddit and conduct an investigation.

Reddit is now banning anyone who mentions Aimee’s name in a comment, post, or message. Many Reddit users, especially those from the /r/futurology subreddit, dislike this proposed tactic.

Also, as a result, hundreds of Reddit community moderators have locked down their subreddits, making them inaccessible to the general public.

There are a number of questions that arise in the series of events. The fact that admins are allowed to benefit from their power is perplexing. Regarding Reddit’s recent efforts to simply erase mentions of the issue rather than engage the communities affected, what about their hiring policies? Even a cursory internet search raises serious questions, and Reddit has failed to answer those questions.