Reddit, an online comment forum that is one of the internet�s most popular websites, on Monday banned a pro-Donald Trump forum as part of a crackdown on hate speech.

The Trump forum was banned because it too often hosted content that broke Reddit�s rules, including encouraging violence, and �antagonized� the company. It had previously tried to discipline the forum.

The pro-Trump forum was banned as San Francisco-based Reddit took down a total of 2,000 of the forums, or subreddits, most of which it said were inactive or had few users.

Social-media companies have long struggled to deal with hate speech on their platforms. A growing number of companies have said they are pausing social-media spending after a campaign by a group of civil-rights and other groups called for an ad boycott of Facebook, saying it has failed to curb racist and violent content and misinformation.

(AP)