"Soon after we published this story, one of the r/MildlyInteresting moderators told The Verge that the entire mod team has now been reinstated — and by a different admin than the one that removed them. The mod’s account had received a 7-day suspension, but that has been reversed, too, they said. A Verge commenter who identifies as an r/MildlyInteresting mod also says the team has been reinstated and unsuspended.
Asked if Reddit could confirm the reinstatement, [Reddit spokesperson Tim] Rathschmidt declined, saying, “I’m not going to set a precedent of confirming with The Verge every action we do or don’t take to ensure users can access their communities.”
He didn’t elaborate on how removing a subreddit’s entire moderation team with no communication ensures users can access their communities, particularly since they were never entirely inaccessible beyond the limitations imposed by Reddit itself."
Why sow conspiracy?
Is my suggestion departed enough from expectation from exhibited behavior patterns from Reddit’s CEO and admins that it needs to be cautioned as intentionality sowing conspiracy?
Is it really outside the bounds of what’s possible?
If you criticize it so, and think it easy to verify, then why not provide that verification?
Why pretend this is an extreme idea when we see sock puppeting often enough to have a term for it?
You can go look at the mod list of /r/mildlyinteresting just as easily as I can. The fact that you haven’t shows you’re more interested in Tucker-Carlson-esque inflammatory hypotheticals than actual verification. I’m not going to go fetch a screenshot like a good dog just so you can ignore that, too.
Edit: For some reason I can’t reply below - did I get blocked? Hmm. Anyway, I’m generally a helpful person, but I’ll be as hostile as I need to be to protect this place from becoming known for mad disinformation. We’re on the same side here: Spez is absolutely a shithead having a week-long toddler meltdown at this point, but there are so many factual things to call him out on that resorting to lies is both unnecessary and damaging.
See also: making a show out of that time he was a mod of jailbait when he was likely added without his consent.
Man. Why are you so hostile? I’m not going to Reddit anymore. I guess I’ll just believe you, but man, you’re kind of a dick.
Look. I looked at your history here, and I think you’re a good person with your head in the right place. We’re on the same side. But, I do think that your fear of being seen as being capable of being grouped in with a conspiracy theorist by my one off joke is a bit paranoid, and your defensiveness over rationalizing it is a bit much. Also, I am actually pretty offended by being compared to Tucker Carlson and think that’s rude and misplaced, and here’s why:
Because just yesterday, when I half jokingly said the comment on that news article could be one thing or could be a sock puppet, I was saying Reddit admins could sink that low.
But now, today, they’re not only crossing that picket line and removing and banning mods, but it seems there’s evidence of shadow bans or shadow removals for comments via word/string filters, such as “fuck spez”.
So those things are both incredibly fucked, manipulative, and subversive, along with everything that spez/hoffman has done so far. Proving a sock puppet account is difficult, but like you said, seeing who the current mods are on a sub aren’t. My angle wasn’t that the commenter was a liar, but rather could just be a new mod, which, to my vet limited knowledge about checking mod history and refusal to go to Reddit again, is pretty difficult to verify. Maybe sidebars list mods and could just use archive.org? But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to anybody anymore. None of this does, not this post, not the replacement of mods, not our argument; none of it.
Look. I’m done with Reddit, so what my argument here is bitter, sad, and somewhat tongue in cheek. I’m paying attention to Reddit from the outside because, i dunno. Maybe like the post you made said, seeing it go down in flames is somewhat cathartic. But also, idealist schadenfreude and hope that maybe the death of Reddit can be a beacon of hope and power to users and normal people, and a warning flag to other platforms; it’s the threat of pitchforks that if you handle shit like this again, the responsibility and integrous people are everywhere and are not mindless cattle.
So, if you claim it’s genuine, I’ll take your word on it, I’m not here to fight you. I think we’re both upset about this whole thing and are on edge and want it to go correctly because we care. I see that and I respect you, and I’m sorry if what I said was upsetting, I didn’t mean it to be abrasive or pushy or cause our reputation or stance to be weaker. I’ll try to be more careful on what I speak of. But in return, I simply ask that you take back the comment on Tucker Carlson. That shit was too far.