Reddit's 'decency' reckoning has begun. Why are trolls and racists still winning?

Decision to stop short of a full-on purge of site's most controversial threads demonstrates awakening within Reddit to a long-acknowledged problem: the site might not be able to survive without them

Reddit finally began contending with the hate-filled parts of its popular internet free-for-all on Thursday, as new leadership vowed to crack down on the site's baroque selection of pornography and to isolate other "content that violates a common sense of decency".

Dozens of so-called "subreddits" devoted to images and fantasies of rape and violence have now vanished, less than one week after Reddit's female chief executive departed amid a chorus of death threats and slurs from the site's notoriously toxic users.