Reddit stands up against Trolls and Hecklers

If you are on social media, chances are high that you would have got trolled or harassed at least once at some point of time. And usually, we accept it as part of the contract. Not anymore. Reddit, the Internet’s freewheeling post-anything message platform will now let its users crack down on personal attacks and online heckling.

The company which is hailed as flag-bearer of “internet democracy”, on Wednesday announced a new kind of blocking tool so they can virtually mute people who post offensive or harassing comments. Though this option was already available since 2011, it was limited to private messages only. The feature has now been updated for broader application.

Now when Redditors block someone, instead of the site simply mixing private messages from that person, all of the blocked user’s posts and public comments will be invisible to the person who chose to block them. The blocked user, however, will not know they’ve been blocked, and others will still be able to see their posts.

Reddit co-founder, Christopher Slowe announcing the news wrote, "Reddit is a place where virtually anyone can voice, ask about or change their views on a wide range of topics, share personal, intimate feelings, or post cat pictures. This leads to great communities and deep meaningful discussions. But, sometimes this very openness can lead to less awesome stuff like spam, trolling, and worse, harassment."

Slowe further added, “Our changes to user blocking are intended to let you decide what your boundaries are. And to give you the option to choose what you want — or don’t want — to be exposed to.”

This feature is just the latest effort by the site to get a bit more proactive in serving user needs. Reddit has been updating internal processes and policies fairly frequently since Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman returned to the company in the role of CEO this past summer.