Content warning: This article contains numerous examples of bigoted rhetoric. Users on Reddit’s “r/conspiracy” forum have repeatedly and openly posted anti-LGBTQ content for years without pushback, despite the platform’s rules prohibiting “hate based on identity or vulnerability” and anti-LGBTQ “gro...
Thats because it was overrun with MAGAs during the Trump presidency. Why aren't they punished for breaking the rules? Probably site traffic, which is just money.
The written rules don't matter, even if Reddit gaslights you into believing so. The only rule that matters is unwritten (Rule Zero: "do not stand between Reddit Inc. and a bag of money, you filthy user"), and they aren't breaking it.
Oh yeah, reddit actively tolerated The_Donald, doing everything they could to keep the sub as active as possible while "limiting" its reach to /r/all and everything else. And on top of maintaining the site traffic, Spez himself is an alt-right racist prepper who thinks he'll be a slave owner when society collapses, and likely supported half of the shit T_D got up to.... Whole site is a fucking mess all the way down to the roots.
TD is an interesting case. If we focus solely on Reddit Inc.'s best interests (i.e. disregard moral matters), you got two factions: the "leave TD ⟨A⟩lone" and "⟨B⟩an TD". ⟨B⟩ was protesting through lockdowns, and the admins had multiple choices on what to do:
Leave TD alone, force ⟨B⟩ to end the protests.
Leave TD alone, let ⟨B⟩ protest.
Ban TD, let ⟨A⟩ to reorganise in smaller and less visible subs.
Ban TD, suspend ⟨A⟩, tell them to never come back.
In all those cases, Reddit would be pissing off one of the factions, but the other would trust the platform a tiny bit more. 1 and 4 would start a big mass exodus of ⟨B⟩ and ⟨A⟩ respectively; 2 would get a smaller ⟨B⟩ exodus, at the expense of advertisement; 3 would get a smaller ⟨A⟩ exodus at the expense of the overall reputation of the site.
Instead the admins decided to quarantine TD and call it a day. It lowered the trust of both factions on the platform, ⟨A⟩ was still organising mass exodus (Communities dot Win, Ruqqus, etc.), and ⟨B⟩ stopped protesting but it was still pissed because the offending sub was still there. Long-term it was the worst thing for Reddit Inc. that the admins could do, and yet they did it.
/r/Conservative was always led by the same clique of assholes, by the by. They went full fascist once T_D took off, but they made the aforementioned hardcore racist a moderator, not long after that conversation.