Reddit moderators spent years asking for help fighting hate. The company may finally be listening

Reddit announced last week it was shutting down a noxious pro-Trump group that had violated the site's rules for years. — Dreamstime/TNS

For years Jefferson Kelley watched hate bloom in his treasured online spaces.

When Kelley, a Reddit moderator, booted hateful users off threads where Black people discussed sensitive personal experiences, racial slurs piled up in his inbox. Crude remarks about women filled the comment sections under his favourite Star Trek GIFs. The proliferation of notorious forums, including one that perpetuated a vicious racist stereotype about Black fathers, stung Kelley, a Black father himself.