While the default subs are slightly more in control now, smaller subreddits are where you really see the undesirable effects of reddit's moderator system. /r/xkcd was a great example, purporting to be about the XKCD comic, but also being used to promote the top mod's bigoted ideas, something that the comic's creator disliked but could do nothing about. The community also disliked it, but was not only powerless, but had any dissent deleted.
/r/horses was another example. To my understanding, it was originally a normal equestrian subreddit about horses. Then, owing to reddit's request policy and an inactive moderator, it was taken over by a bizarre and seemingly psychologically unstable mod who primarily modded various fetish subreddits, and seemed to see /r/horses as a subreddit for a fetish for equestrian girls. He made a number of bizarre and pointless rules, and angrily banned people for not following them, or for actually discussing horses, or disagreeing with him elsewhere on reddit, and so on. Thousands of users who had subscribed to talk about riding and caring for horses were now subscribed to a subreddit that had rules about how much nudity could be in photos. But they couldn't do anything, because one guy had noticed the mods were inactive, and took over. This went on for years, until the mod got himself shadowbanned and someone sane took over.
I seem to recall there was a huge skincare subreddit scandal too, where it came out that the mods were deleting posts and manipulating the subreddit to push products and websites that would make them money.
Oh, and /r/worldnews had some major problems, if I recall, though I don't remember the details.
While the default subs are slightly more in control now, smaller subreddits are where you really see the undesirable effects of reddit's moderator system. /r/xkcd was a great example, purporting to be about the XKCD comic, but also being used to promote the top mod's bigoted ideas, something that the comic's creator disliked but could do nothing about. The community also disliked it, but was not only powerless, but had any dissent deleted.
/r/horses was another example. To my understanding, it was originally a normal equestrian subreddit about horses. Then, owing to reddit's request policy and an inactive moderator, it was taken over by a bizarre and seemingly psychologically unstable mod who primarily modded various fetish subreddits, and seemed to see /r/horses as a subreddit for a fetish for equestrian girls. He made a number of bizarre and pointless rules, and angrily banned people for not following them, or for actually discussing horses, or disagreeing with him elsewhere on reddit, and so on. Thousands of users who had subscribed to talk about riding and caring for horses were now subscribed to a subreddit that had rules about how much nudity could be in photos. But they couldn't do anything, because one guy had noticed the mods were inactive, and took over. This went on for years, until the mod got himself shadowbanned and someone sane took over.
I seem to recall there was a huge skincare subreddit scandal too, where it came out that the mods were deleting posts and manipulating the subreddit to push products and websites that would make them money.
Oh, and /r/worldnews had some major problems, if I recall, though I don't remember the details.