Discussing Blackness on Reddit? Photograph Your Forearm First

The first moderator of Black People Twitter was a white Reddit user who had become enamored of the candid perspectives on culture and current events that were circulating among black Twitter users and started posting screenshots of them in late 2014. These days the subreddit is run by a multiracial group of more than two dozen moderators, many of whom are black.

But by last spring, it was having increasing problems with violations of its "bad-faith participation" rules. The moderators found themselves shutting down dozens of conversations each week. So they decided on a bold change, one that has unleashed waves of outrage across Reddit for months.

The most heated comment threads, they announced, would give priority to nonwhite participants. Anyone who wished to participate would need to send the moderators a photograph of their forearm, proving they were not white.

Complaints flowed in — from proponents of far-right ideologies, avowed liberals and many people in between. “Isn’t this just racist?” read one.

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