I'd just note that this is subreddit moderators censoring this story, not "reddit" itself. The moderators are not affiliated with reddit inc. It's still unacceptable that they're doing this, though.
These subreddits are huge though, and are defaults. Any default subreddit is going to have a lot more attention drawn to it and will have a lot more interaction between reddit the company and the individual moderators. It's not that reddit runs the subreddit, but I think it's inaccurate to say that they are "unaffiliated."
PCMR had been banned and I was still getting messages and phone calls. Obviously, I wasn't answering my phone, which is why when the police called and the phone number said "Unavailable", I didn't pick up. Then my wife called. I answered and she was asking if I was okay, because she had been called by the police. She gave me the phone number for a detective that was involved and I called him. (Later that night, I learned that my wife had Facebook divorced me so people wouldn't find her, lol) After a lengthy phone call he asked that I come down to the police station. I spent about an hour in an interrogation room, where I learned that not one, not two, but three cities' police departments, a SWAT team and a bomb squad were now evacuating people from the address that was posted on PCMR. A fourth city’s police department was engaged a bit later to visit an even older address they had on record for me.
It's worth noting at this point that the address that was being handed out was wrong. It had been my address once, years ago. It is an apartment complex with roughly a hundred and seventy-five units and just under a hundred people were being evacuated from their homes due to the terroristic threats. Families were rushing their children out, fearing that death would arrive in the form of an explosive fireball.
Had I still been living there, it's not hard to imagine a situation that may have ended in me being shot by a police officer.
All because of photoshopped images of a private conversation.
When I went home that night, I called my wife and told her not to come home but to go stay with her parents. I circled the block around my house and when I went inside, I went straight for the gun safe. I didn't sleep Monday night.
Nope. They have no such responsibility. They take a very hands-off approach to moderation and delegate all moderation to the moderators of the subreddit (unless something is illegal and the mods aren't doing anything, of course). If the users are fed up with the moderation of a subreddit, they can always make an alternate sub and carry on.
but.. but... muh freedum! In all serious, I agree with your sentiment, and I think every time this comes up it gets more and more tired. I suppose it's good that we, as a society, still have people who complain about it so that we never get to the point where their complaint is valid.
I think we're alright. Each time there is an influx (and this was a relatively small one) the prediction is that the floodgates will open. This never materializes. People often do not realize that we've been at this for nearly 3 years now. That said, if the floodgates did open my feed would still have you and the others I follow in it. I take comfort in that.
> The moderators are not affiliated with reddit inc. I doubt Reddit's moderators are doing something that's against Reddit's wishes though, and I doubt there's a meaningful editorial distinction to be made between a "subreddit moderator" and a "Reddit moderator".