A couple days ago the big mall shooty in Indiana. There was a post at the top of r/news blowing up while it was still going on. Didn't bother reading the comments because it'd be the same boring circle jerk. Then the news came out it was stopped by a "good guy with a gun". So the next day thought I'd see how redditors found a way to frame him as the bad guy or whatever. And the thread had disappeared! 6500 comments and it was locked and deleted (hidden from results, you can still see it with a direct link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/w1jrf2/active_shooter_reported_at_greenwood_park_mall_in/).

There were a few other posts about the shooting that were also manually removed by mods, even one that had hundreds of comments (666 to be exact \m/), the reason given it was already posted or supposed issue with the source.





But why was the original big thread with thousands of comments deleted? It's officially labeled "Questionable Source" but the information has long since been corroborated. People were repeatedly posting police scanner information while the situation was still active, which mods think will endanger people on the scene. But the thread wasn't deleted until much later, the next morning. The obvious answer is that the good guy with the gun goes against the anti-gun narrative, but again it was left up until the next day and then a new post
completely focused on that aspect of the story became one of the most popular.

I thought it was weird there wasn't a mod sticky explaining the lock on such a popular post, even a generic "ya'll can't behave". Or that no one in the new thread seemed to be asking what happened to the old one, or any posts on subredditdrama alluding to well, drama or anything. After so many comments, what finally tipped things over the edge to get it shut down?
On a side note, r/news took a turn a few months ago when they started requiring a verified email to post. They had an announcement about it but it didn't state it in the title (just "updates to rules" or something like that) and I don't think most people bother reading the sidebar, especially if they're already active in the sub. The thing is people without verified emails aren't completely prevented from posting and apparently can see their own comments--They don't get any notice when they submit a comment that it'll be invisible to everyone else. I learned about it because there's occasionally confused people on the "am i shadowbanned" sub asking about it. It answered a question I'd had for a while, why there are significantly fewer comments now. It makes me wonder how many people there are continuing to argue into the void, oblivious that no one can see their posts.