Reddit starts blocking users from sharing hacked Sony documents

17 Dec 2014

Moderators on Reddit are understood to have started preventing users from sharing stolen Sony documents on the site by banning them after receiving take-down notices from Sony.

It is understood that a number of individual user accounts, posts and a subreddit called SonyGOP have been deleted.

Reddit was complying with a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown request from Sony after lawyers from Sony began contacting various news outlets that had been publishing stolen emails.

The massive attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment by a group calling itself Guardians of Peace has seen five movies, 47,000 personal files and some 250GB of data shared online.

According to Business Insider comments about the hack have not been banned by Reddit.

The removal of the SonyGOP subreddit follows not long on the heels of Reddit’s decision to ban the TheFappening subreddit which emerged when Reddit users gathered to discuss photos stolen from celebrities’ iCloud accounts.

In recent days Sony has been issuing legal letters to news sites around the world including the New York Times warning them not to produce stolen data.

Reddit image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com