Person extensively quoted in the article here. They are welcome to reach out. But not a single person from any level did that, nor replied to my polite requests to explain and engage. We first contacted them in early June and by 13th June, I had escalated to Steve Huffman @spez.
An acquaintance investigating Reddit's moderation mechanization inquired how a major subreddit was moderated after an Associated Press post was auto removed by automod. They were banned from said sub. They inquired why they were banned, and they shared they would share any responses with a journalism org (to be transparent where any replies would be going, because they are going to a journalism org). They were muted by mods for 28 days and were "told off" in a very poor manner (per the screenshots I've seen) by the anonymous mod who replied to them. They were then banned from Reddit for 3 days after an appeal for "harassment"; when they requested more info about what was considered harassment, they were ignored. Ergo, inquiring as to how the mods of a major sub are automodding non-biased journalism sources (the AP, in this case) without any transparency appears to be considered harassment by Reddit. The interaction was submitted to the FTC through their complaint system to contribute towards their existing antitrust investigation of Reddit.
Shared because it is unlikely Reddit responds except when required by law, so I recommend engaging regulators (FTC, and DOJ at the bare minimum) and legislators (primarily those focused on Section 230 reforms) whenever possible with regards to this entity. They're the only folks worth escalating to, as Reddit's incentives are to gate content, keep ad buyers happy, and keep the user base in check while they struggle to break even, sharing as little information publicly as possible along the way [1] [2].
