Reddit has succumbed to Sony Pictures' demands. Just one day after receiving the film company's takedown request, the social news website has banned an entire subreddit dedicated to sharing the links to the gigabytes of information leaked by hackers onto the Internet.
The SonyGOP subreddit, which was moderated by a single user, is no more. Just a few days ago, the subreddit was used as the central hub for Redditors to discuss the hack that devastated Sony Pictures' computer network and also to gain access to more than 250 gigabytes of leaked internal data, including emails, memos, financial documents and private employee information, via links to the Pastebin pages and file-sharing websites posted by individual users.
Citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, Sony successfully convinced Reddit to block individual users, including the SonyGOP subreddit's lone moderator, delete posts containing links to Sony's information, and ban the entire sub-reddit altogether. On the subreddit's URL, users will be greeted with an image of a closed door barred with yellow tape.
"This subredddit has been banned," the page says.
However, Reddit says in an email to Business Insider that "discussions and news stories" about the cyberattack will still be allowed.
On Monday, Sony sent cease-and-desist letters to various media outlets threatening to sue them if they do not comply with Sony's demand that they refrain from publishing information collected from the huge trove of internal files leaked online by Guardians of Peace (GOP), the hacking group linked to North Korea claiming responsibility for the attack.
In a letter sent by high-profile lawyer David Boies to outlets including the New York Times, CNN and Re/code, Sony says it "will have no choice but to hold you responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination" of the Sony information stolen by hackers and released to the public.
Most media outlets defended their coverage, saying that how a major Hollywood studio conducted its business is of public interest and qualifies as free speech. First Amendment specialists agree.
"So long as media outlets didn't participate in the illegal taking of the information, they are protected in using information in any way they see fit," says lawyer Jim Ewert, who specializes in First Amendment cases.
Reddit's move resembles the earlier removal of a subreddit being used as a repository of links to private nude photos of several female celebrities, some of which were taken when they were below 18 years old, hacked from their iCloud accounts. Reddit called it "an extreme circumstance" at that time and explained that it was only banning the subreddit because of the illegal links to the private photos of minors.
However, DMCA requests do not have the power to force websites into taking down links to copyrighted material; it can only demand websites to take down the material itself, which makes Reddit's action of taking down the entire subreddit, instead of policing the subreddit post by post like it did with the subreddit dedicated to the celebrity photos, rather unusual for a website that takes pride in its policy of letting users post pretty much whatever they want.
Reddit eventually banned the nude celebrity subreddit. However, unlike with the SonyGOP subreddit, the website took an entire week before it decided to ban it, which means the private photos were all over the Internet when Reddit took action.
