Reddit, cradle of free speech and tolerance toward all viewpoints, is home to r/ferguson, a board that, despite its innocuous title, is part of a network of white supremacist subreddits dubbed the "Chimpire."

The Daily Dot discovered r/fergsuon, whose front page currently displays several items supporting Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, alongside other, openly racist posts, and contacted its founder, who goes by Jewish_NeoCon2. He told the site he registered r/ferguson two days after Brown was killed so that other, non-racist persons couldn't grab it.

The Ferguson subreddit isn't very large—just 174 people subscribe at the time of this writing, as opposed to 12,528 on r/StLouis, a more established board—and several of its users post straight, non-racist news items about the protests. Its intent, however is clear: a sidebar urges users to visit r/GreatApes, a popular white supremacist board also moderated by Jewish_NeoCon2, and advertises itself as part of the so-called "Chimpire," a community of dozens of virulently racist subreddits.

Reddit historically takes a laissez-faire attitude toward this stuff. r/TrayvonMartin, a similarly racist subreddit, which popped up after Martin was gunned down in 2012, was allowed to operate, and as the Daily Dot notes, r/niggers, another board, was only shuttered after moderators "repeatedly broke key site rules" unrelated to hate speech. I've contacted the company to ask whether it intends to take action against r/Ferguson.