Reddit bans posting UnitedHealthcare shooter’s manifesto

Moderators of multiple Reddit communities say the company has banned posts that include the alleged manifesto of Luigi Mangione, who has been charged for murder in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

In a post on Wednesday, a moderator of r/popculturechat wrote (emphasis theirs):

We wanted to reach out to tell you all that we have officially been notified by Reddit that we must adhere strictly to their site-wide rules regarding violent content. Specifically, Reddit has told us that we are not allowed to post Luigi Mangione’s manifesto, even if it is reported neutrally.

The moderator says that if they do not enforce the guidelines “to the letter,” there could be site-wide permanent bans on user accounts and “the potential shutdown of this subreddit.”

As a result, the moderator team is doing the following to adhere to Reddit’s rules:

• Any posts or comments that repost or encourage the manifesto will be removed.

• Any posts or comments that show support for violence, including expressing positive feelings toward the death of Brian Thompson or similar content, will be removed.

• We will be extremely strict in moderating these discussions to ensure compliance with Reddit’s policies.

• If rule violations persist, we will be forced to implement a “cool down” period, meaning we will temporarily remove any posts about Luigi Mangione for a period of time to allow the situation to settle.

An r/popculturechat moderator also shared the full message the mod team received from Reddit admins (employees). In addition to linking to a support document that says that an example of a post that would violate the policy is one that contains “mass killer manifestos or imagery of their violence,” part of Reddit’s notice says the following:

Do not post content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual (including oneself) or a group of people

It is very important that your community abides by these rules and does not allow or encourage users to engage in this behavior. Enabling users to post a killer’s manifesto and calls to harm people is not allowed under any circumstances. Content that violates site-wide rules should be disallowed and removed.

It’s unclear if r/popculturechat is the only subreddit to have received a specific warning from Reddit. A post from moderators of a subreddit about Mangione claims that “Reddit is prohibiting posting the manifesto” and that “the mods must remove if posted,” but doesn’t say where that information is from. A moderator of another subreddit, r/wineandcrimepodcast, posted a slightly modified version of r/popculturechat’s message but says that “they had gotten warnings that some of us did not.”

Reddit appears to be taking some actions of its own: a user on r/esist says that Reddit is deleting posts with excerpts from the manifesto, “including my last post,” and that their account has “a warning on it for encouraging violence.”

But Reddit also seems to be inconsistently removing the manifesto, as we were able to find a link to the manifesto in Reddit search without much work. Reddit’s new AI-powered Answers tool also showed me information about the manifesto and where I could find it.

A Reddit spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous citing safety concerns, says that manifestos related to violent acts have “long violated our Content Policy” but that “discussion is allowed as long as it doesn’t violate other aspects of our violence policies (e.g., glorification, incitement).”

The first rule of Reddit’s content policy states that:

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

Its content policy also says that “we ask that you abide by not just the letter of these rules, but the spirit as well.” The Reddit spokesperson also pointed us to the support document I mentioned earlier.

Update, December 12th: Added context from Reddit.

Update, December 13th: Added information shared by an r/popculturechat moderator.