Steel bands tighten around my heart. My knees knock and my vision wavers. But then I remember I’m not on Reddit, and metacanada has not yet replaced the moderation team with pod people.
What measures are in place to ensure the continuing security of our moderation team? If it won’t compromise them to tell us.
I observed that crazy transition too. I think the big question was whether it was coincidental/series of unfortunate decisions/mistakes that led to it, or if it was a concerted effort by a group.
It isn’t coincidental. I’m afraid I don’t have much of a source for this, but back in the day I lurked (out of morbid curiosity and misplaced sense of “know your enemy”) on stormfront, one of the earliest and biggest neo nazi online communities.
There I saw a lot of talk about how to specifically target and subvert local subreddits. Their plans were detailed and long, involving very slowly transitioning the subs content further and further right. Local subreddits tend to be easier to subvert than typical subs of their size because they tend to have a less “online”, critical audience and everyone is in the same time zone.Lots of people who only show up once a month or so.
The impact of propaganda on a local sub is also much greater than when it is spread out over a more general international community.
/r/Canada was definitely a successful target of their hate and even though they have faded now the damage is still done.
I didn’t think that there was doubt about that but it was a while back and I pulled way back from all the big subreddits after that. I wonder if there is a history written.