Issues Database

r/India, one of the largest country subreddits, has faced persistent accusations of opaque, politically biased moderation, including shadowbans and selective deletions around sensitive national events.

u/N8theGr8 became a recurring example of Reddit's 'power moderator' problem — a single volunteer who, by 2021, moderated dozens of communities containing millions of members and organized a cross-subreddit protest demanding Reddit act on COVID-19 misinformation.

A handful of 'power moderators' control a disproportionate share of Reddit's biggest communities. The long-running controversy over u/AwkwardTheTurtle became the emblem of the problem.

Reddit quarantined the misogynistic 'Men Going Their Own Way' subreddit in 2020 and permanently banned r/MGTOW and r/MGTOW2 in August 2021 for promoting hate and violence against women.

India's IT Rules 2021 and Section 69A blocking powers brought Reddit within a confidential, executive-driven content-takedown regime, with intermittent ISP-level blocking of Reddit reported across the period.

Reddit administrators permanently suspended the account of r/conspiracy's most prominent moderator, axolotl_peyotl, citing repeated content-policy violations — a direct admin removal of an entrenched head moderator that the community treated as both overdue and as admin overreach.

In late August 2021, moderators of roughly 135 subreddits took their communities private to protest Reddit's refusal to act on COVID-19 misinformation; days later Reddit banned the COVID-denialist hub r/NoNewNormal — citing brigading rather than misinformation — and quarantined 54 other subreddits.

Reddit hosted active pro-eating-disorder communities such as r/proED; a peer-reviewed longitudinal study using Reddit data found measurable real-world weight loss and shrinking weight goals among participants.

Reddit hired a controversial figure as an administrator, then banned a moderator for linking to reporting about her — sparking a mass subreddit blackout before the company reversed course.

r/Sino, a heavily pro-Chinese-Communist-Party community, became a long-running flashpoint over CCP-aligned content, denial of Uyghur persecution, and aggressive moderation, while Reddit declined to ban it.

After moderator u/pinkcatsonacid publicly raised concerns about newer r/Superstonk moderators, the subreddit's lead moderators stripped her of her position and banned her, triggering mass resignations and the migration of tens of thousands of GameStop 'apes' to the breakaway community r/GMEJungle.