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Published February 3, 2019 2:00PM (EST)

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Reddit, the vast online forum and link aggregator, is a digital haven for advice, self-help, and general discussion; for almost any subculture or topic you want to discuss, you can find a Reddit community. Now, as the anti-vaccination movement has driven more parents to exempt their children from vaccines, some teenagers are turning to online forums like Reddit to find advice on how to get vaccinated, against their parents’ wishes.
Laura C., an 18-year-old from Colorado who has posted on Reddit about her situation, told Salon over email she has not been vaccinated since she was two. She said her mom calls herself an anti-vaxxer.
“I haven't had my boosters,” she said. “My mom always talked about how I was ‘too special’ for shots because of my autism,” adding that she “stopped with the first MMR.”
MMR refers to a vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella, a standard-issue vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children should get two doses of the vaccine; the first between 12 and 15 months of age, and the second between four and six years of age.
The normalization of the anti-vaccination movement is relatively recent, and has been wreaking havoc on public health. The CDC found that the number of two-year-olds who had not received vaccinations grew to 1.3 percent for those born in 2015; comparatively, for those who were born in 2011, the percentage was at 0.9. Though that gap seems small, the relationship between unvaccinated people and disease is not linear; rather, there is a tipping point that confers " herd immunity ," meaning that enough people are vaccinated that the disease will not spread, despite the few unvaccinated.
The World Health Organization named “ vaccine hesitancy ” one of the top threats to public health to prioritize in 2019. Until about twenty years ago, just about everyone in the United States was automatically vaccinated from youth, by virtue of state laws mandating it. However, American children in all 50 states are allowed a medical exemption if the child has a specific medical condition, and all but three states in the U.S. offer non-medical exemptions for religious reasons. Eighteen states allow philosophical exemptions for those who object to immunizations due to personal or moral beliefs — and it is these exemptions that have been the root of a loophole allowing parents who don’t believe in vaccinations to keep their children from getting them.
Laura, who did not want her full name to be published, said she felt “left out” when she read other students’ transcripts for school, and that she still needs a variety of shots before she can attend college, which has led her to seek out her own options.
“I plan to get Hepatitis A and B, MMR, the flu, HPV, TDaP [tetanus, diptheria and pertussis] , and many other immunizations that I was ‘exempt’ from,” she said, noting the rise in measles has made her “seriously anxious.”
In 2000, 37 years after measles vaccination programs began, national health experts declared that the disease had been eliminated in the United States. Yet in 2018, the second-greatest number of annual cases were reported since the disease was declared "eliminated" 18 years earlier. Many public health experts have attributed that rise to the increasing popularity of the anti-vaccination movement. A county near Portland, Oregon , is the latest to experience an outbreak, and it is likely not a coincidence that this occurred in a county that has seen a decrease in child vaccination rates. From 2014 to 2015, a measles outbreak in California spread throughout eight states. Of the California residents who had measles, 45 percent were unvaccinated.
A 23-year-old in Canada, who also requested to remain anonymous, told Salon via email she never got vaccinations as a child.
“I was a home birth and my mom took me to homeopathic and naturopathic doctors who she knew,” the 23-year-old told Salon. “I found out [I wasn’t vaccinated] when it was time to get our shots at school, they sent us home forms for our parents to fill out and my mom said that I had an exception and told me not to get any shots.”
Around the age of 13, the Canadian started scouring the internet to figure out how to get vaccinated herself. Eventually, she found a youth clinic that provided free sexual health services to youth.
“I talked to one of the doctors there about lots of different things and vaccines came up,” the 23-year-old explained. “We started talking and she pointed me towards Wikipedia and WebMD and encouraged me to look into it myself and see what I thought about vaccines. I had also never been allowed to take antibiotics, and at the time I had strep throat so I looked those up on Wikipedia as well.”
After this research, the 23-year-old came to believe that misinformation has driven the mother’s decision. Eventually, she went to a vaccine clinic.
“I asked for everything I could get and then was given a booster appointment card. Since then, I've gotten all my boosters and get a yearly flu shot,” she explained. “I do wish my parents has gotten me vaccinated, and I'm glad I was able to get myself vaccinated.”
Nicole Karlis is a senior writer at Salon. Tweet her @nicolekarlis .
Copyright © 2022 Salon.com, LLC. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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In an unexpected watershed moment, one of the last remaining bastions of free speech, Reddit, has banned the posting of “suggestive or sexual content featuring minors.” In one fell swoop Reddit has asserted that it retains moral control over the direction and usage of the site. Around 30 offending subreddits have been shut down, and Reddit is promising to keep on top of any new subreddits that emerge.
Reddit isn’t ignorant of the precedent that this sets. “We understand that this might make some of you worried about the slippery slope from banning one specific type of content to banning other types of content,” reads the the jailbait-banning missive . Following that, right at the end of the post, Reddit finally provides a justification for the ban: “We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal. However, child pornography is a toxic and unique case for Internet communities, and we’re protecting reddit’s ability to operate by removing this threat.”
In other words, Reddit is well aware that this is the beginning of the end for free speech, but that it has no choice in the matter. Whether this is because the Feds are leaning on Reddit, or because it simply doesn’t have the necessary resources to police the posting of inappropriate images, we don’t know. To be honest, it doesn’t matter. This is the slippery slope that Reddit (and its passionate users) talk about. The precedent is set. It is now not a question of if Reddit will swing its ban hammer again; it’s merely a matter of what it will ban .
Let’s take a step back and look at what Reddit actually banned today. For a start, “suggestive or sexual content featuring minors” (i.e. jailbait) is not illegal. To be classified as “child pornography” a work must be sexually explicit or obscene . A photo of a boy or girl that is not sexually explicit is fine. Obviously the definition of “sexually explicit” is subjective, which leads to this being a very gray area of the law. All of the banned subreddits fall into this gray area.
Furthermore, US child porn law covers digital images (i.e. CGI) that depict a minor in a sexually explicit way. Whether this covers anime/manga that depicts minors is another gray area. Gray or not, though, Reddit has also exiled lolicon and shotacon from this day on.
What gray area is next? File sharing? Growing your own weed or cooking your own meth? How to build a bomb?
Now, I know this is a bit unfair. It is this gray subjectiveness that makes child porn such a difficult topic to discuss and to police. One moderator might decide a picture is fine, but another moderator (or the FBI) might feel otherwise. You can try to introduce a measure of objectiveness — in the US, a female nipple is explicit; in Europe, nipples are fine — but at the end of the day it’s almost impossible to qualify whether a photo is sexual in nature or not.
But that’s how the censorship cookie crumbles. Where do you draw the line? For example, /r/picsofdeadkids (don’t visit it) is still accessible, as is /r/beatingwomen. While we’re at it, Reddit is more than happy to continue hosting 18+ porn subreddits — but what happens when photos of (apparently) underage boys and girls inevitably appear on those boards? Will Reddit shut them down? Does a subreddit have to have a certain number of offending images to be considered a child porn board? How long do the moderators have to delete those posts? Has Reddit published these thresholds anywhere?
That’s the problem: As soon as you curtail free speech just slightly, everything becomes so complicated . Gone are the protections of free speech and free thought. Can I post this photo of a cute girl? I don’t think she looks under 18, but what if Reddit disagrees? Where Redditors were once empowered users of the largest, free community on the web, they are now beholden to moral whimsy.
Reddit clearly states that this blanket ban is because its “previous policy to deal with [child porn] on a case by case basis has become unsustainable.” In other words, Reddit is now so popular that it cannot practically afford its members the right to free speech. In essence, Reddit is too big to maintain its Wild West status and is graduating (morphing) into the next stage of its life cycle. This is normal for large communities, but it does mean that Reddit will now steadily trend towards moralism, bureaucracy, and conservatism.
With “suggestive content” now out of the way, what’s next? Will /r/Trees and /r/Cannabis, two subreddits dedicated to the smoking, growing, sourcing, and general championing of illegal drugs, be allowed to stay? What about the subreddits that tackle explosives or fabricating other dangerous chemicals?
Therein lies the crux: Before, you knew exactly what was and wasn’t allowed on Reddit — now we have no idea. All it took for Reddit to enact a ban on “suggestive or sexual content featuring minors” was a concerted push by the users of Something Awful , another large community. Are the founders of Reddit against such images, or are they merely kowtowing to public pressure? Does this mean that they will ban /r/Trees if Something Awful launches a similar attack? What about piracy, or photos of dead children? By not banning those boards, is Reddit implying that that those topics are okay?
These are questions that Reddit should be immune from — but now, thanks to this clunky, opaque implementation of censorship, all we have is questions. Redditors deserve better.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of known controversial communities on Reddit
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Further information: Doxing and Internet privacy

^ Jump up to: a b Morris, Kevin (October 11, 2011). "What r/jailbait's closure really means" . The Daily Dot . Archived from the original on September 29, 2013 . Retrieved October 28, 2012 .

^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Chen, Adrian (October 12, 2012). "Unmasking Reddit's Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web" . Gawker . Archived from the original on October 12, 2012 . Retrieved October 28, 2012 .

^ "r/announcements - "Revamping the Quarantine Function" " . reddit . September 27, 2018 . Retrieved May 10, 2020 .

^ "Quarantined Subreddits" . Reddit Help . Retrieved April 10, 2022 .

^ Stephen, Bijan (September 28, 2018). "Reddit updates its quarantine policy with an appeals process" . The Verge . Archived from the original on July 3, 2019 . Retrieved May 10, 2020 .

^ Alfonso, Fernando (June 10, 2014). "Reddit bans infamous forum about beating women" . The Daily Dot . Archived from the original on June 21, 2014 . Retrieved June 10, 2014 .

^ Ongley, Hannah. "Gross Reddit Forum Glorifying Beaten Women Finally Gets Shut Down" . Styleite . Styleite LLC. Archived from the original on June 11, 2014 . Retrieved June 10, 2014 .

^ Jump up to: a b Lamoureaux, Mack (April 24, 2018). "A Brief History of 'Incel,' the Misogynistic Group Allegedly Cited By Toronto Van Attacker" . Vice . Archived from the original on November 23, 2018.

^ Shukman, Harry (March 7, 2018). "Why won't Reddit ban this pro-rape site that hates women and praises Hitler?" . babe . Archived from the original on July 6, 2019.

^ Binder, Matt (September 30, 2019). "Reddit changes its harassment policy and bans major incel community" . Mashable .

^ Basu, Tanya (February 7, 2020). "The "manosphere" is getting more toxic as angry men join the incels" . MIT Technology Review .

^ "r/braincels" . reddit . Archived from the original on October 1, 2019.

^ Isaac, Mike (June 29, 2020). "Reddit, Acting Against Hate Speech, Bans 'The_Donald' Subreddit" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on June 29, 2020.

^ Jump up to: a b Martinez, Ignacio (August 7, 2019). "Chapo Trap House subreddit quarantined for allegedly encouraging violence" . Daily Dot. Archived from the original on June 30, 2020 . Retrieved June 29, 2020 .

^ Reinstein, Julia (June 29, 2020). "Reddit Banned A Ton Of Subreddits Including r/The_Donald And r/ChapoTrapHouset" . Buzzfeed News. Archived from the original on June 29, 2020 . Retrieved June 29, 2020 .

^ Jump up to: a b Tiffany, Kaitlyn (December 8, 2020). "The Secret Internet of TERFs" . The Atlantic . Retrieved December 9, 2020 .

^ Todd, Bridget (July 16, 2013). "Does Anything Go? The Rise and Fall of a Racist Corner of Reddit" . The Atlantic . Archived from the original on April 23, 2017 . Retrieved March 6, 2017 .

^ Wall, Brandon. "Racist Reddit Group Embraces Alleged Charleston Shooting Manifesto" . Buzzfeed . Archived from the original on July 3, 2015 . Retrieved July 20, 2015 .

^ Hankes, Keegan (March 10, 2015). "How Reddit Became a Worse Black Hole of Violent Racism than Stormfront" . Archived from the original on June 12, 2015.

^ Kaplan, Sarah (March 11, 2015). "The state of hate in America: A new home on the Internet" . The Washington Post . Archived from the original on July 30, 2017.

^ Cush, Andy (August 20, 2014). "Reddit's Ferguson Board Is Run by White Supremacists" . Gawker. Archived from the original on June 13, 2015.

^ Woollacott, Emma. "Users Flock To Voat As Reddit Shuts Harassing Groups" . Forbes . Archived from the original on June 15, 2015 . Retrieved August 26, 2017 .

^ Huffman, Steve. "Content Policy Update" . Reddit.com . Archived from the original on August 5, 2015 . Retrieved August 5, 2015 .

^ Jump up to: a b c Chow, Andrew R. (January 10, 2022). "Reddit Allows Hate Speech to Flourish in Its Global Forums, Moderators Say" . Time . Archived from the original on January 20, 2022 . Retrieved January 20, 2022 .

^ Sharma, Anushka (January 13, 2022). "Right Online: Hateful, extremist content on Reddit, Discord pose worrying trend for young adults in India" . News 9 . Retrieved March 4, 2022 .

^ Saraswat, Raunaq (January 25, 2022). "Out of Sight: How Reddit Became a 'Safe Space' for Hate in India" . The Quint . Retrieved March 4, 2022 .

^ Jump up to: a b c Chow, Andrew (March 24, 2022). "Reddit Moves to Control Hate Speech and Misinformation in Two Forums" . Time . Retrieved March 25, 2022 .

^ Gray, Justin (September 26, 2012). "Teacher allegedly posts pictures of students on 'CreepShot' website" . Fox Atlanta . Archived from the original on June 1, 2013 . Retrieved May 3, 2013 .

^ "/r/Creepshots – Moderation History" . Stattit.com . Archived from the original on September 6, 2013 . Retrieved May 3, 2013 . -09-27 – Promoted violentacrez

^ Alfonso III, Fernando (October 11, 2012). "Redditors declare war on Gawker Media" . The Daily Dot . Archived from the original on October 25, 2012 . Retrieved October 28, 2012 .

^ Roy, Jessica (October 11, 2012). "Reddit Readies for Brewing 'Inter-Website War'; Major Subreddits Ban Links to Gawker Media" . BetaBeat . Archived from the original on October 15, 2012 . Retrieved October 28, 2012 .

^ Jump up to: a b Morris, Kevin (October 12, 2012). "Clearing up rumors and hearsay as the Internet eagerly awaits the
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