How Charlottesville forced Reddit to clean up its act

The use by white supremacists of Reddit to organise last year's violent rally in Virginia was a catalyst for change at the digital giant. In an extract from her new book We Are the Nerds, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin looks at how the site has tried to detoxify itself

As the clock ticked up to 9pm on Friday 11 August 2017, more than 200 men snaked down a dark, long expanse of grass in Charlottesville, Virginia, called Nameless Field. The assembled group was abundantly white, and almost uniformly dressed in pressed khakis and polo shirts. Each man grasped a wooden torch filled with kerosene.

They formed a column, lined up two by two. They lit their torches. Organisers, wearing earpieces, paced up and down the line issuing directions, amplified by electric bullhorn. "Now! Now! Go!" the bullhorns ordered. The men marched, and began to chant. "Blood and soil!" they yelled, echoing Nazi ideology. "Jews will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!"