The Reddit page that had previously been the central home to find links to a wealth of celebrity nudes that leaked last week has now been banned by Reddit. The page, previously titled /r/thefappening, now opens to an image of caution tape and text that reads "this subreddit has been banned."

The decision to ban "The Fappening" is explained in a Reddit blog post titled "Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul." While other subreddits like /r/picsofdeadkids continue to exist on the site, Reddit explains that banning The Fappening was a necessity because of a violation of the site's policies, most likely that nude photos of McKayla Maroney were taken when she was underage.

Reddit's statement, which you can read in all its longwinded self-seriousness here, explains their reason for finally banning the page:

While current US law does not prohibit linking to stolen materials, we deplore the theft of these images and we do not condone their widespread distribution.

Nevertheless, reddit's platform is structurally based on the ability for people to distribute, promote, and highlight textual materials as well as links to images and other media. We understand the harm that misusing our site does to the victims of this theft, and we deeply sympathize.

Having said that, we are unlikely to make changes to our existing site content policies in response to this specific event.

The post continues to explain that Reddit sees themselves as "not just a company running a website where one can post links and discuss them, but the government of a new type of community."

The creator of The Fappening, on other hand, is not pleased about his creation being taken down. In an AMA he did with Redditors yesterday, he expressed his discontent:

I am not happy. If they banned my sub on Sunday(or even Monday after we broke the servers) I would be fine with it. But, they made a decision that seems based on what their lawyers say, rather than what is best for the site.

One Redditor aptly notes that "Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul" reads like a Jaden Smith tweet, so something good has come from this after all.

[Image via AP]