One thing that I don't get is why have reddit admins picked now of all times to grow a spine and defy the mods? From what I understand reddit admins have usually gave in at every opportunity and given the mods whatever they want, and have had little-to-no issue banning wrongthink subs left and right the last few years. It seems like normally they would have banned it and be done with it.
From what I recall, this is a bit of a step up from previous times. Past protests were basically over in a day and could safely be ignored unless reddit wanted the excuse to remove some problem subreddits, or were about more generalized demands that something be done about a problem that some subreddits happen to embody. This latest thing is a protracted protest with some subreddits essentially being held hostage for demands that a specific list of subreddits be banned. So I wouldn't be surprised if Reddit admins are getting annoyed that some moderators are starting to feel entitled to demand subreddits they don't like be removed. Especially when Reddit likely has it's own internal data on how effective the lighter approach of quarantining a subreddit is working., and if it was going fine they could have been all set to let the problem subreddit die quietly until these asshole blew in and created a Streisand effect with their demands. Furthermore what they're demand be removed is a much thornier issue this time. It's easy to demand that "covid misinformation" - which is essentially a subset of "medical misinformation" - be banned. It's another thing to decide what counts as "misinformation".
Yes the vaccines, masks, and lockdowns work. However it's understandable for people to be hesitant about a new vaccine when of the several variants only one's had time to receive full FDA approval. Such people need to be talked into it, and that can't happen if they aren't allowed the chance to express their disbelief. Mask recommendations have varied widely over the course of the pandemic as the situation has shifted. So it'd be easy to end up banning people and subreddits for saying "don't wear masks" right as the official recommendation changes to "if you've been vaccinated you don't need to wear a mask". While for lockdowns there's a lot of room for debate. Some places had lighter lockdowns than others, and did about the same. So that's reasonably going to bring people saying the heavy lockdown is unnecessary, especially if they've seen their job or business destroyed purely because of the lockdown.
So that's a really big, shifting tangle that Reddit would probably prefer to minimize their involvement with. Which would require telling the mods making demands "No".
I'm continually surprised admins let /r/Catholicism live without touching it.
It's been full of unapologetic fascists for years. Not like "everyone conservative is fascist #resistance" but like...literal fascists who hold out hopes for Franco's ghost coming back.
They likely don't want to risk the headlines that'd come from messing with it. The second they quarantine it, much less ban it, and both clickbait and respectable news sites would be leading with headlines like "Reddit bans Catholicism!". Which would immediately turn into them attempting to defend their actions, as well as fend off demands that they ban "Judaism", "Islam", and "Atheism" as well.
Not worth it, especially when at a glance /r/Catholicism is a relatively small, quiet subreddit.
