Reddit downgrades technology section to teach a lesson to lazy moderators

Reddit’s once-popular technology section is no longer a “default subreddit”. This means that the new users will no longer have the access to r/technology as one of the two dozen communities offered to them.  

It all started with the report by the Daily Dot which revealed that headlines posted to the section were secretly snipped out if they contained words like “Bitcoin,” “Anonymous,” “Obama,” “National Security Agency”, “CIA” and “Snowden”. Apparently the r/technology moderators on Reddit were using automatic filters to censor these words. It’s pretty serious charge for the site that proclaims itself as the Front Page of the Internet.  

Which is why Reddit took a big step like this.  Reddit communications director Victoria Taylor told the BBC  “The moderation team lost focus of what they were there to do: moderate effectively”.

She added “We might consider adding them back in the future if they can show us and the community that they can overcome these issues.” In the current situation, the technology section will be less visible to users who have either not asked it to be included by editing their “subscriptions” or have visited the site without logging in. A former moderator of /r/technology has posted his own version of the situation putting the blame on lack of moderators for such a massive list of topics.