This is an A+ study which seems to confirm that banning subreddits can be an effective way to silence their inhabitants. "Fat hatred" as an epidemic has largely disappeared since 2015, for example.
It's nice to get some hard data to counter the theory that if you ban a subreddit consisting of undesirables, they'll simply invade other parts of reddit and continue. In reality, the other parts of reddit aren't nearly so tolerant.
So what's the implication? Well, ban judiciously. Getting rid of places that fester hatred is like putting out a fire. But it's obviously very tricky to do this.
See /r/physicalremoval for an example of a sub that was just banned for inciting violence.
It's nice to get some hard data to counter the theory that if you ban a subreddit consisting of undesirables, they'll simply invade other parts of reddit and continue. In reality, the other parts of reddit aren't nearly so tolerant.
So what's the implication? Well, ban judiciously. Getting rid of places that fester hatred is like putting out a fire. But it's obviously very tricky to do this.
See /r/physicalremoval for an example of a sub that was just banned for inciting violence.