r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and Internet memes in support of U.S. presidentDonald Trump.[2][3][4] Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots".[5] The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting.[6][7] It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit.[8][9][10]
Activities by members and moderators of the subreddit were controversial, and site-wide administrators took steps, including an overhaul of the Reddit software, to prevent the subreddit from having popular content displayed on Reddit's r/all forum, which the company's motto describes as "the front page of the Internet".[11] A quarantine of the subreddit was imposed in June 2019, which required users to click an opt-in button to view the subreddit and prevented the subreddit from appearing in Reddit's search results and recommendations.[1][12][10] Additionally, ads could not be run on the message board and certain features such as custom CSS were not available.[1] Moderators of r/The_Donald created a backup website outside of Reddit in response to the quarantine.[13]
The subreddit had a lengthy documented history of hosting conspiracy theory content that was racist, misogynistic, and Islamophobic.[14][15] On June 29, 2020, Reddit banned the subreddit for frequent rule-breaking, for antagonizing the company and other communities, and for failing to "meet our most basic expectations".[16][17]
After the subreddit was quarantined and placed in restricted mode in early 2020, moderators of r/The_Donald created and moved to the site thedonald.win,[18] and after President Joe Biden's inauguration moved again to patriots.win to continue supporting Donald Trump and a potential political party he would create, the "Patriot Party".[19]
^ abcHaskins, Caroline (June 26, 2019). "Reddit Quarantined r/The_Donald for 'Threats of Violence'". Vice. Archived from the original on August 31, 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2019. According to Reddit Help, Reddit quarantines add warning portals to subreddits, cut off revenue opportunities, remove subreddits from Reddit-curated feeds like r/Popular, remove subreddits from recommendations and search, and remove custom CSS styling.
^Flores-Saviaga, Claudia; Keegan, Brian; Savage, Saiph (2018). "Mobilizing the Trump Train: Understanding Collective Action in a Political Trolling Community". Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. 12. The AAAI Press, Palo Alto, California USA. arXiv:1806.00429. doi:10.1609/icwsm.v12i1.15024. ISBN978-1-57735-798-8. OCLC1106300776. S2CID44171984.
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