Reddit’s /r/Games Closes For The Day In Response To Discrimination

It will open up again tomorrow.

April 1st is often a day where website admins will try to trick their visitors with an April Fool’s joke. However, the moderators over at the subreddit /r/Games have decided to mark the occasion by taking a stand against bigotry and discrimination.

The community has been shut down for an entire day in the hope of drawing attention to the worst cases seen by the mods in the hope that it will help combat the issue on the site as well as the wider gaming culture.

In a statement, they explained how examples of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and personal attacks had become for more common than was acceptable. This type of behavior has seemingly become too much for the mods who feel that many members of the community are purposely being excluded or made to feel unwelcome.

“At /r/Games, our community is becoming increasingly responsible for perpetuating a significant amount of these combative and derogatory schools of thought,” the post explained. “We remove those comments, we ban the perpetrators, but the issue still persists at a fundamental level: the notion that it’s okay or acceptable to ridicule and demonize traditionally disenfranchised and marginalized members in the gaming community.”

The subreddit will be open to new posts from April 2nd. Although it is impossible to tell how the temporary closure is being received by members while comments are switched off, the mod post announcing the shut down has received thousands of upvotes.

/r/Games is one of the most popular subreddits in addition to being the most likely destination for those wishing to discuss gaming matters on the site. With 1.7 million subscribers using the subreddit to discuss games and the industry, it has become one of the best known forums for players to engage with each other.

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