Reddit's post-Orlando purge has forum's users questioning commitment to free speech

Reddit users are seeing red over this one.

After the June 12 Orlando massacre by an avowed Islamic readical terrorist, Reddit users started commenting on the news and stating their opinions. Some comments included obvious hate speech that violated the news networking site's published standards, but many were simply calling out Orlando shooter Omar Mateen as an Islamic extremist. Others were merely suggesting where to donate blood in the aftermath. Many just linked to news reports.

A Reddit moderator deemed entire threads offensive and deleted them in what was seen as an obvious attempt to remove comments that took a certain political viewpoint, especially those that suggested Islamic terrorist attacks are on the rise in the United States.

Users complained about the censorship.

"The vast and overwhelming majority of removed comments were not hate speech," said one forum user. "All they had in common is that they mentioned radical Islam. There is proof of this fact all over Reddit, and it has been documented by multiple unaffiliated third party websites."