I open my Reddit inbox to a new message: “You have been permanently banned from participating in r/ABoringDystopia because your comment violates this community’s rules,” it states.
My crime? Pointing out that Russia’s acts of mass rape, torture, and murder against Ukrainians, along with the forcible deportation and re-educating of children, was a funny way for Russia to encourage them to be “neutral” rather than pro-Western. “Your submission has been removed as it appears to be misinformation or misleading” stated a further, public comment from the moderator team.
Russian rape, torture, and murder in Ukraine is of course, extremely well-documented. Meanwhile, a comment in response saying “Ukraine has done this too” has been allowed to remain, as has a further comment claiming that Ukraine and Russia are “as close as you can get” as nations (a Russian propaganda favorite is to describe them as “brotherly”). These comments clearly disseminating actual disinformation remained on the widely-seen post which had 1,300 upvotes.
The board, r/ABoringDystopia, “a subreddit for chronicling how Advanced Capitalist Society is not only dystopic but also incredibly boring”, has 781,000 members and while currently primarily focused on Israel and Gaza, recent posts about Ukraine have titles such as “Ukraine death toll spirals, NATO demands more must be willing to die”.
This is just one of several Reddit communities that have apparently had moderator teams taken over by people pushing a clear anti-Ukraine agenda, with a concurrent, visible spike in pro-Russia propaganda in certain communities in recent months, on what the company calls the “front page of the internet”.
It seems a strange development for the San Francisco-based content site, which signals its cuddly intentions through “lovable mascot Snoo”, who is as “genderless and as blank as a canvas, ready to be filled by our hopes, wishes, and dreams.”
Reddit’s rule No. 1 is that: “No community should be used as a weapon. Communities should create a sense of belonging for their members, not try to diminish it for others.” The rules also state: “Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups.” The author asked Reddit for comment, without any response at the date of publication.
It is hard to see how Ukrainians could be considered anything other than vulnerable, given the unknown number of dead and wounded, the more than 6 million who have fled the country, and the damage to buildings and infrastructure that may now exceed $1 trillion, all at the hands of a much larger neighbor waging an unprovoked war of aggression. It’s reasonable to think denying all of this might not create a sense of belonging for Ukrainians and might be understood as using Reddit as a weapon.
This author is far from the only casualty. “They [the moderators] banned me for calling a mod out, for spreading pro-Russian rhetoric,” wrote Reddit user KP_PP. Another poster, confused about their r/ABoringDystopia ban, reached out to its moderator team and received a message in response which stated: “You don’t recognize mainstream disinformation, and I don’t think I can teach you that in 5 minutes.”
The r/antiwar subreddit appears to be a very recent takeover target. With 12,900 members it is not the largest community on Reddit, but this does place it squarely within the top 5% of all communities in terms of membership.
Three months ago a new moderator team was instated by subreddit head u/democracy101. Any posts documenting Russian aggression in Ukraine are now swiftly removed, while the board has been flooded with posts about how Ukraine is losing, or how American “neocons wrecked” the country.
The pinned post from moderator u/n0ahbody proclaims: “People who call for an end to Russian aggressions but not the Western aggressions Russia is reacting to don’t really want peace.” This user takes the view that any negative opinion about Russia is “shaped by what the fanatically Russophobic MSM wants you to think,” and that the United States is not threatened by its neighbors. Russia is.”
When u/n0ahbody took over the sub, the user posted a triumphant and vitriolic diatribe in another pro-Russia subreddit with some 33,500 members, r/EndlessWar. “We are making progress. We are purging the sub of all NAFO and NAFO-adjacent elements. Hundreds of them have been banned over the last 24 hours for various rule infractions, for being NAFO or NAFO-adjacent,” the user said, referencing the grassroots, pro-Ukrainian North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO) meme movement.
Several former users have reported they have indeed been banned from r/antiwar since the change in moderators. “If this subreddit cannot be explicitly against the invasion of Ukraine it will never truly be anti-war,” wrote one user Halcyon_Rein, in the antiwar subreddit on September 6. They then edited the post to say, “Edit: btw, I got f**king banned for this 💀💀💀”
Many are concerned that “the anti-war movement will now appear to be a pro-war movement as a result of the malicious mod takeover,” wrote another user u/SnooAdvice6772 at the time.
There is evidence that Russia and its supporters have engaged in a broad campaign on the site for some time. In 2019, the tech blog, Engadget, noted that Russian propaganda was specifically targeting at least 89 leftwing and rightwing subreddits, “suggest[ing] a Russian-led attempt to antagonize and influence Americans online, which is still ongoing.”
While it is hard to make any direct links, in 2021 researchers noted that even then “growing evidence points to recurring influence campaigns on social media, often sponsored by state actors aiming to manipulate public opinion on sensitive political topics,” adding that “based on analysis of known Russian-sponsored troll accounts identified by Reddit, is that they show loose coordination, often interacting with each other to further specific narratives.”
These can’t be the only subreddits where an active pro-Russia takeover has occurred — but certainly, these are prominent and disturbing examples.
Aliide Naylor is the author of ‘The Shadow in the East’ (Bloomsbury, 2020). She lived in Russia for several years and is now based between London and the Baltic states, working as a journalist, editor, and translator.
