Reddit You Are Doing That Too Much Try Again Extension

Transparency Study 2020

Introduction

The mission of Reddit is to bring community and belonging to everyone in the globe. An important office of this mission is ensuring users' condom, security, and privacy.

Nosotros publish this annual report to provide transparency near content that was removed from Reddit, accounts that were suspended, and legal requests nosotros received from third parties to remove content or disembalm individual user information. This year, as we go along to comprise guidance from The Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation, we offer more insight into what we practise almost illegal or unwelcome content on Reddit (Content Removals), how nosotros handle prohibited efforts to artificially promote content (Content Manipulation), and what nosotros practice with bad actors (Account Sanctions). Nosotros as well spotlight a few changes we fabricated to our Content Policy and our effort to understand the prevalence of hateful content on Reddit.

Reports for previous years can be found hither.

Our Approach to Content Moderation

Content moderation on Reddit happens through a layered, community-driven approach. This approach is akin to a democracy, wherein everyone has the power to vote and self-organize, follow a set of common rules, found customs-specific norms, and ultimately share some responsibility for how the platform works.

Reddit's Content Policy serves equally a set of principles-based rules that apply to all users and content on Reddit. Users then create their own communities (known as "subreddits") and establish additional rules that are tailored to a community'south unique and frequently highly specific needs.

Users who write and enforce these customs-specific rules are volunteer moderators (known as "mods"), and they perform the bulk of community moderation actions without involvement from Reddit, Inc. This self-moderation effort at the community level continues to exist the most scalable solution we've seen to the challenges of moderating content online. Reddit employees (known as "admins") are responsible for the Content Policy and enforce it across Reddit with the assist of mods, who apply the Content Policy to their communities in addition to their own specific rules.

Content Policy Update

In 2020, we updated our Content Policy as function of our standing effort to empower mods and their communities when dealing with issues like hate on Reddit. The announcement discussing these updates expressed our direct stance confronting detest and racism, which formed the footing for our update to Rule 1.

Rule ane:

"Remember the human. Reddit is a identify for creating customs and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit gratis of harassment, bullying , and threats of violence . Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability volition be banned."

In practice, the update provides a clearer position against hate and racism, and fundamentally supports efforts to brand Reddit ameliorate, daily. The effects of this change are described in more detail in a mail that discusses its bear on, and are seen throughout the information reported below.

Dominion Violation Removals

Every twenty-four hours, millions of people around the globe submit posts, comments, and other content to Reddit, and Reddit regularly receives reports and requests to remove some of this content from the platform. The section below covers content that mods and admins removed from Reddit during 2020. This includes removals performed by a scaled community moderation tool known as AutoMod.

Nautical chart i: Total amount of content created vs. content removed from Reddit in 2020

(LPT: click charts to aggrandize in a new tab)

Content Removed by Moderators

The numbers for 2020 over again highlight the importance of moderators and their tireless efforts to make Reddit a place where everyone tin can create community and belonging. The volume of content that was removed by moderators is broken downwards beneath by whether a removal was performed proactively past a modernistic or Automod, or whether it was done in response to a report from a user. Removals performed by mods tin can be for whatever reason specific to the rules for a given community, and are not necessarily an indication of content being in violation of the Content Policy.

The full number of removals past moderators rose notably in 2020, by virtually 61%. The increase has a few likely causes, one being more frequent use of automatic deportment to remove content from subreddits (primarily Automod), and another is that the overall number of pieces of content submitted to Reddit rose by 49% also in 2020.

Chart 2. Pieces of content removed by moderators in 2020

Note: Proactive AutoMod removals are the result of automatic deportment fix and configured by mods.

Content Removed by Reddit Admins

Admins also regularly remove content from Reddit to enforce the Content Policy and protect the integrity of the site. They practise this through both manual review and action, too as with the help of automatic tools and user reports.

This section distinguishes betwixt Content Policy removals and Content Manipulation removals. "Content Manipulation" describes things like spam, customs interference (i.e., "brigading"), vote manipulation (attempts to interfere with Reddit's upvote/downvote tallies), and other attempts to artificially promote content. In 2020, 99.2% of admin policy removals were for Content Manipulation, while the remaining 0.8% were for violations of our Content Policy. Numbers for both of these categories are cleaved out separately by subreddits, posts, comments, and individual messages (PMs). The removal reasons listed reflect our current Content Policy.

Content Policy Removals

In 2020, Reddit admins removed 202,749 pieces of content for Content Policy violations (excluding spam and other types of Content Manipulation removals). The graph below represents removals carried out by our teams, broken out by reason.

Chart iii. Full pieces of content removed past admins

NOTE: Tearing content (26,986) includes 557 pieces of US-designated foreign terrorist organization content.

Annotation: This department does not adjust for reversals or reinstatement of content. For instance, if a mail service is removed simply reinstated later afterwards an appeal, the initial removal is all the same included in the numbers in this section, and the successful appeal is indicated in the appeals section below.

Subreddits (excludes Content Manipulation and Copyright)

Reddit admins may remove entire communities that are found to exist in violation of our Content Policy. Communities may also be removed if they lack active moderation, in accordance with our moderator guidelines. The removal of an entire community is ever carried out by Reddit admins. In 2020, Reddit admins removed 82,858 communities.

Chart iv. Subreddit removal reasons (including unmoderated)

Notation: This section of the study does not include community removals for repeated violations of copyright. Delight refer to the Copyright Removals section of the report for more on this. It besides does non include community removals for Content Manipulation (see below).

Posts

Reddit admins may remove posts that are found to be in violation of our Content Policy. There are different types of posts that can be created, including images, links, text, and video. The numbers beneath represent posts removed by our teams over the course of the yr, broken out by reason for removal, and type of post removed. 378,796,540 posts were created on Reddit in 2020. Admins removed 65,359, or 0.017% of that total, due to Content Policy violations.

Chart 5. Posts removed by Content Policy violation

Chart 6. Posts removed by format

Comments

These numbers stand for comments that were removed by Reddit admins for violations of our Content Policy, similar to posts above. In 2020, 2,473,610,855 comments were created on Reddit. Admins removed 112,452, or 0.045% of that total, due to Content Policy violations, which are broken out by reason for removal below.

Chart 7. Comments removed by Content Policy violation

Individual Messages

Individual messages (PMs) are direct messages sent between individual users that announced in an business relationship'south inbox. Reddit admins may remove messages that violate the Content Policy, by and large for harassment every bit seen below. In 2020, 753,804,145 PMs were created on Reddit, and 24,938 or 0.0033% were removed past admins.

Chart viii. Individual messages removed past Content Policy violation

Content Manipulation Removals

As mentioned to a higher place, 99.2% of admin removals were for Content Manipulation in 2020. This included 36,803,812 posts, 40,029,664 comments, and viii,194,658 private messages. Subreddits, or communities, may as well be removed if they are institute to be engaging in Content Manipulation (e.g., spam or vote/subscription cheating). 47,686 communities were removed for Content Manipulation in 2020. Vote or subscription cheating is when fake accounts are created and used to inorganically heave community subscriber volume. 12,417 communities were removed specifically for vote or subscription adulterous and 35,269 were removed for spam.

Chart 9. Content Manipulation removals (subreddits, posts, comments, private letters)

Business relationship Sanctions

Reddit admins are responsible for ensuring that users adhere to the Content Policy. Different types of account sanctions are applied for beliefs that violates a given policy. These include warnings, temporary bans of either 3 or seven days, and permanent bans, depending on the severity of the violation or corruption every bit well as previous violations. The section beneath covers the number of account sanctions applied by Reddit admins in 2020, organized by the policy that was violated. Note that multiple sanctions can be applied to a single business relationship over the grade of fourth dimension.

Nautical chart ten. Business relationship sanctions for Content Policy violation, by blazon (not including spam or ban evasion)

Nautical chart xi. Permanent account sanctions (spam vs. all other reasons)

Nautical chart 12. Permanent business relationship sanctions (not including spam)

User Reports

Users may written report content on Reddit via our Reddit Help Centre or by using the report button directly on a postal service or comment. By sending a report, users can alarm a community's team of moderators (anonymously) and/or Reddit administrators to something that violates either community rules or Reddit'southward Content Policy.

Reddit received 28,243,095 user reports for potential Content Policy violations in 2020. 3.59% of reports resulted in action being taken by admins. The remaining 96.41% of reports were either duplicates, already actioned, or the reported content didn't violate our rules.

Chart 13. User reports in 2020

Appeals

Whether applied against an individual piece of content, an account, or an entire community, actions taken by Reddit in response to Content Policy violations may be appealed. Appeals are evaluated by Reddit admins, and are either granted (resulting in the reinstatement of the content/business relationship/community), or denied. In 2020, Reddit admins received 42,517 appeals. sixteen,134 (37.95%) were granted, and the remaining 26,383 (62.05%) were denied.

Other Admin Deportment

Account Securing Transactions

If we accept reason to believe that an business relationship's credentials accept been compromised, we may force the user to reset their password. Affected accounts receive notices of the reset asking through private messages, emails, and onscreen banners. Those accounts are locked until the password reset procedure is completed. In 2020, 6,701,894 accounts with matching historical third-political party breaches were put through the forced password reset procedure.

Quarantined Subreddits

Nether sure circumstances, Reddit admins may apply a quarantine to a community. In 2020, 72 communities were quarantined, which is notably fewer than the 256 quarantines in 2019. This is an effect of the updates to our content policies in 2020. Specifically, the change to Dominion 1 resulted in more subreddits existence banned in 2020 as opposed to being quarantined.

Legal Removals

This section reflects legal removal requests received by Reddit in 2020 from governments, law enforcement, and private parties . One legal removal asking may identify several pieces of content (URLs), and then in this department nosotros written report both the number of requests and the total number of pieces of content removed in response to these requests.

Law Enforcement/Regime Requests to Remove Content

This section includes both court orders to remove content and requests submitted on behalf of governments to remove content. Governments may request the removal of content for a multifariousness of reasons, including alleged violations of local police force. Reddit scrutinizes each asking and may reject it for a variety of reasons, including that the request is overbroad or inconsistent with international police force. All reported content is reviewed nether our Content Policy and any violations are actioned by the appropriate team. In situations where there are no underlying Content Policy violations, Reddit may restrict admission to the post in the reporter land.

Chart 14. Government requests to remove content past land

Nautical chart xv. Reddit removals in response to Government requests (pieces of content)

Notation: In ane instance during 2020, the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority (PTA) alleged that 812 communities contained obscenity and nudity in violation of Section 37 of the Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (PECA) and Section 292 and 294 of Pakistan Penal Lawmaking. Out of the 812 subreddits reported to Reddit, 33 had already been removed. Following an cess of the relevant local laws, nosotros restricted access to 753 subreddits in Pakistan and took no activeness on the remaining 26. These local restrictions account for a large portion of the chart higher up.

Child Sexual Abuse Material

We have zero tolerance for content that sexually exploits and puts children at risk. When we find child sexual abuse imagery cloth ("CSAM") on the platform, we purge it and permanently ban the user from accessing Reddit. We also take the steps required under law to report the relevant users to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and preserve whatsoever necessary user data.

Reports regarding CSAM are received in a number of means:

PhotoDNA technology for images;
YouTube CSAI engineering science for videos; and
User reports.

In 2020, nosotros made 2,233 CyberTipline reports to NCMEC.

Legal Requests Submitted by Individual Parties to Remove Content

Reddit too receives legal requests to remove content from private parties. Examples include requests from lawyers/solicitors, individual individuals, corporations, and social organizations to remove content they believe is defamatory or otherwise violates private legal rights.

In 2020, Reddit received 173 legal demands for the removal of content citing local laws (non including requests under the General Information Protection Regulation, California Consumer Privacy Human action, or Network Enforcement Human action).

If nosotros determine that the content at issue in a legal asking violates our Content Policy, it is removed on account of the policy violation. Every bit described to a higher place, when Reddit receives a removal request for content that violates local law but does not violate our Content Policy, Reddit may restrict the availability of that content in the land where it is alleged to be illegal.

Reddit complied in whole or in part with 46 individual political party legal removal requests in 2020. This resulted in 40 pieces of content being geoblocked in the reporter country and 25 pieces of content being removed entirely for violations of our Content Policy.

*Includes 595 requests received from individual parties under the Network Enforcement Deed (NetzDG). For more on these requests, delight refer to our bi-annual NetzDG report here (under "More information about Reddit'due south handling of NetzDG reports").

Copyright Removals

Reddit respects the intellectual property of others and requires that users of our services do the same. When Reddit receives a consummate and valid copyright notice, it complies with the notice and removes the infringing content identified in the request.

This section of the study provides data on the volume of content removed from Reddit in 2020 in response to valid copyright notices, as well equally data on the content we declined to remove in response to incomplete or invalid notices. We also include data on content that was reinstated past reason of the original affiche submitting a copyright counter notice or the rightsholder retracting its removal request.

In 2020, Reddit received 86,866 copyright notices, reviewed 517,054 pieces of content, and removed 375,774 pieces of content. In 2019, Reddit received 34,989 copyright notices, which resulted in 124,257 content removals. In 2018, Reddit received 9,534 copyright notices, which resulted in 26,234 content removals.

User and Subreddit Copyright Bans

We have a policy that includes the removal of whatsoever infringing textile from the Services and for the termination, in advisable circumstances, of users of our Services who are repeat infringers.

In 2020, Reddit removed 303 users and 514 subreddits for excessive copyright infringement removals.

Incomplete or Invalid DMCA Notices

When Reddit receives an incomplete or invalid copyright detect under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), it rejects the notice and declines to remove the content identified in the request.

A request may be incomplete or invalid for many reasons, including:

Declining to include data required past copyright constabulary, such as the copyright owner's (or their authorized representative'south) concrete or electronic signature
Confusing other problems for copyright infringement, such as privacy or harassment
Failing to include enough information nigh the copyrighted work that the claimant alleges is existence infringed
Targeting an entire subreddit/customs or entire user contour instead of specific infringing content
Targeting content that makes a "off-white use" of the claimant's work as immune by copyright law
Targeting content that does not copy the claimant'south work
Targeting content that is not hosted by Reddit
Targeting content that has already been removed from Reddit at the time of review

In 2020, 120,927 pieces of content did not authorize for removal due to invalid or incomplete copyright notices.

Chart xvi. Content identified in copyright notices to Reddit in 2020 that we declined to remove

Counter Notices and Retractions

When Reddit removes content pursuant to a copyright detect, Reddit sends a message to the user who posted the content. This message informs the user of the removal and provides them an opportunity to submit a "counter notice" swearing their conventionalities that the rightsholder'south notice is mistaken. Copyright law prescribes the statutory counter notice procedure, which results in Reddit reinstating the content unless the rightsholder files a lawsuit.

Reddit may besides restore content that was removed as a result of a copyright infringement notice if the copyright possessor who submitted the notice but retracts their claim of copyright infringement.

Reddit complies with counter notices and retraction requests that are consummate and rejects those that are incomplete or invalid.

In 2020, Reddit received 143 counter notices and 9 retraction requests.

Requests for User Data

Reddit discloses specific user information in response to requests from regime entities (including police force enforcement agencies) and private parties (e.g., potential civil litigants and criminal defendants) only where required past law or to forestall imminent actual harm. Nosotros too endeavor to notify our users if and when their personal data is subject to such a request, except when nosotros are specifically prohibited from doing so. Reddit reviews each request and legal process for facial validity and legal sufficiency, and objects when appropriate.

This section of the report provides information on the book of requests received in 2020 and our rate of compliance.

Private Party Requests for User Information

While constabulary enforcement or other authorities entities submit most of the requests for user information that Reddit receives, private parties also result legal process (east.one thousand., subpoenas) for Reddit to disclose information for use in civil litigation and criminal defense proceedings. Reddit only accepts legal requests issued nether applicative law.

Under US constabulary, non-governmental entities may not obtain the content of communications with a civil discovery demand. This means that such demands may but require Reddit to disclose basic account data, which includes username/subscriber identity, IP logs (including registration IP), the user's name (if any), e-mail address (if any), and billing information (if any).

Reddit carefully reviews each request information technology receives. If we decide that a request is invalid, overbroad, or in violation of applicable law (east.grand., law regarding unmasking anonymous speakers), Reddit will object to or challenge the asking.

Every bit with requests from law enforcement/government entities, Reddit attempts to notify the relevant user(due south) whenever we receive a valid legal request from a individual party.

In 2020, Reddit received a total of 19 User Information Requests from private parties in the United States, and one (1) User Information Request from private parties in another country (France). This is a decrease from the 32 requests received in 2019.

Police force Enforcement/Government Requests for User Information

Reddit receives requests for the disclosure of user information from police force enforcement ("LE") or government entities on a regular basis. In 2020, 611 of these requests were standard, non-emergency police force enforcement/government requests and 324 were emergency disclosure requests ("EDRs").

Standard Non-Emergency LE/Gov Requests for User Data

Reddit received 611 non-emergency requests for user information from law enforcement and other government entities in 2020. This represents a 50% increment compared to the number of requests received in 2019 (406). Reddit disclosed user information in response to 424 of these requests (69%).

United states of america: 506 requests

Subpoenas: 302
Courtroom Orders: fifty
Search Warrants: 102
Pen Register / Trap and Trace Orders: 1
Non-Disclosure Order Extensions: 51

International:

International law enforcement/government requests: 105

Reddit carefully reviews each request for compliance with applicable laws and regulations. If we determine that a request is not legally valid, Reddit will challenge or turn down information technology. If we consider the request to be overbroad or unclear, nosotros will ask the law enforcement or the government entity to change or refine the request.

Nautical chart 17. Compliance rate for standard non-emergency LE/Gov requests

Chart eighteen. Compliance charge per unit for International User Data Requests, past country

NOTE: In 2020, requests for user information from India oft accompanied content removal requests. This trend resulted in the higher volume for India seen above equally compared to previous years.

Emergency Disclosure Requests

Emergency disclosure requests are law enforcement requests seeking disclosure of limited user information without legal process in emergency situations. Reddit merely grants such requests if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary to forbid imminent death or serious bodily impairment to a person.

Reddit evaluates these requests on a instance-by-case basis.

In 2020, Reddit received a total of 324 emergency disclosure requests worldwide. Of these requests, 254 were from United states of america constabulary enforcement and 70 were from international law enforcement. Reddit disclosed express user account information in response to 203 (63%) of the requests received. The number of emergency disclosure requests received in 2020 decreased by eleven% from the number of requests received in 2019 (366). In a continuing trend from 2019, Canada submitted the highest number of international emergency disclosure requests again in 2020 (38).

Chart xix. Compliance charge per unit for International Emergency Disclosure Requests, past state

Nautical chart 20. Compliance rate for Emergency Disclosure Requests, Usa vs. International

Preservation Requests

Government entities also send legal requests directing Reddit to temporarily salve sure user account information. These preservation requests can only demand retention of data already in the business relationship when the asking is received; they cannot be used to hogtie Reddit to preserve information preemptively. Government entities send these requests in anticipation of obtaining legal process (e.m., a subpoena, court club, or warrant) to ensure the user's information is not edited, altered, or destroyed in the meantime. A preservation request may result in data existence retained beyond its standard retention period.

Reddit will not disclose the preserved information to law enforcement unless and until Reddit receives valid legal process. After the requested preservation period lapses, Reddit purges the preserved data unless it receives a asking to extend the preservation.

In 2020, Reddit received 374 preservation requests, a 67% increase over the 224 requests received in 2019. Reddit complied with 79% of these requests. Of these requests, 313 were from US police enforcement and 61 were from international police force enforcement.

Chart 21. Preservation requests received, Usa vs. International

Chart 22. Compliance charge per unit for International preservation requests received, by country

Chart 23. Compliance rate for preservation requests received, US vs International

US National Security Requests

Unfortunately, we are prohibited from reporting verbal numbers of National Security Messages or Strange Intelligence Surveillance Act orders received. The USA FREEDOM Human action of 2015 (50 U.S.C. § 1874) sets forth large bands of numbers that a company must use if information technology wants to report its receipt of national security legal process (and just by using fifty-fifty larger bands can we differentiate between receipt of NSLs and FISA orders).

We can share, however, that Reddit has never received whatever national security requests for bulk information.

These reporting rules may work for larger companies that receive large numbers of national security requests, but they practice little for smaller companies like Reddit that receive few, if whatever, national security requests. As others take pointed out, these disclosure rules undermine the effectiveness of this transparency written report and diminish the trust our communities are able to identify in united states of america.

Information available for download

hankepretage85.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/transparency-report-2020-1