Culture The internet’s obsession with Luigi Mangione is testing Reddit’s limits - As online communities rally around the accused killer of a healthcare CEO, Reddit is enforcing stricter content moderation rules.

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Since December, Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has become an internet phenomenon. Both scorned and idolized, his notoriety has given rise to a number of online communities, and some have begun embracing violent rhetoric.

A moderator of the long-standing subreddit r/popculture, where discussions about Mangione had been ongoing, was recently suspended for approving a large number of comments (by Reddit standards, that means at least 20) containing direct calls for violence.

“This sub has been placed in restricted mode, and the main mod was suspended for approving comments that mentioned ‘luigi,’” a post on r/popculture claimed. “Apparently, saying ‘luigi’ is now against the rules too, even though they never told us. All comments with the word ‘luigi’ get flagged as possibly inciting violence.”

While some users claimed they had been blocked or censored simply for mentioning Mangione’s name, a Reddit spokesperson said there’s no sitewide filter for the word Luigi or expectation that users stop talking about Mangione. According to the spokesperson, the r/popculture moderator’s suspension was a result of allowing comments that advocated for violence—a direct violation of the company’s Mod Code of Conduct.

Despite the crackdown, plenty of other Mangione-related subreddits remain active on the platform. r/FreeLuigi, which describes itself as a place to “keep up to date on the case involving Luigi Mangione,” boasts some 37,000 followers. (Slate recently spoke to one of the r/FreeLuigi moderators, who claimed the subreddit was not meant to condone violence against health insurance CEOs. “No one in r/FreeLuigi wants anyone to get murdered, and no one is celebrating that a man died,” the moderator said.)

Separately, Reddit’s safety team recently issued a warning to users that subreddits found promoting or amplifying violent content could face consequences. “Today we are rolling out a new (sort of) enforcement action across the site,” the alert read. “Starting today, users who, within a certain timeframe, upvote several pieces of content banned for violating our policies will begin to receive a warning.” (Upvotes and downvotes are core to Reddit’s algorithm, determining a post’s visibility.)

The message concluded with a note that while the system is currently “warn only,” additional enforcement measures could eventually follow.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Putting the fear of God on CEOs is based. He also was responsible for getting a insurance company to back down on a scheme to charge extra on anesthesia and force doctors to do surgeries in a hurry.

I get what you mean, but it's a case of no good alternative existing. Nothing he could have done would have really helped, but the little trolling he did was the only real thing he as a person could do thanks to the system having denied all other possible routes.

The fact the guy was in the open without security was rare enough, I doubt any real amount of ceos regularly show themselves to the plebs, and the ones that do probably cared more about nigger attack than an organised assassination by some rando. And any good effect was at best temporary until the heat goes down a month later.

*got lefties and plebbitoids to openly admit they're cool with a shot-in-the-back-of-the-head premeditated murder

Didn't they do it already? Be it Trump or a nameless rich person

I don't get the worship. Extreme violence is not something that should be applauded

Emasculated people want to feel powerful, and living by proxy means they won't get in trouble. It's a case of a systematical problem that's easier to pretend all responsibility flows up and killing the ceo solves everything than actually organise and fix. I guarantee there's no shortage of redditors glorifying the act that work in the insurance industry and blame the upper management for exploiting others to move up the ladder.

 

[TowinKarz]

Emasculated people want to feel powerful, and living by proxy means they won't get in trouble. It's a case of a systematical problem that's easier to pretend all responsibility flows up and killing the ceo solves everything than actually organise and fix. I guarantee there's no shortage of redditors glorifying the act that work in the insurance industry and blame the upper management for exploiting others to move up the ladder.

It's really telling that being motivated enough to kill means you should also be motivated enough to affect your change through nonviolence, but it never works out that way.

These people always want a shortcut so they can get the good stuff without the work.

Insurance companies aren't liked, nobody likes dealing with them, it would be possible (but arduous) to elect or pressure officials who will reign them in. Yet this doesn't happen because nobody wants to do months, years, of organizing and door-knocking that would entail. Just easier to accept the system and hope it somehow collapses on itself and reforms a better way on it's own... provided you just give random violence a chance. (as long as it's not me throwing my life away by pulling the trigger).

 

[Ingmar Aspergman]

The only thing that Luigi did was make reddit's bloodthristy as fuck fedposting easier to spot and harder to ignore.

None of these people are really up to actually killing, they are cowards and faggots. But they LOVE to virtue signal about it.

When I learned he had more reactionary views, I wasn’t surprised. Because a leftist would just loudly fedpost publicly to signal how fucking based and class conscious he is.

The recent meme is “we need a class war, not a culture war” which really means “we don’t believe in your right to exist and have spent the last ten years scorning you endlessly, but we need bodies for the revolution that will never happen” and I think Luigi is an example of that. They need white men as soldiers to get ground into chorizo so they can stay home and fuck themselves with tentacle dildos lmao.

 

[Bill's Due]

I just realized this fucker looks like a younger version of Kramer, but he hasn't said the magic word just yet.

Anyway, I think my biggest frustration with these tards is that if they weren't spending theit entire day screeching at Reddit, they would actally understand Trump and RFK's position is that *the current medical corporations are undermining our ability to have a healthy nation*. It is a populist take, which they SHOULD be happy about, and RFK is looking to weaken their power because a perpetually sick nation ain't gonna be able to do much.

In other words, because they've convinced themselves that Trump is basically a 2009 GOP tard on steroids, they don't even understand that Trump *actually supports a lot of their views*, just from a different slant of a nationalist angle.

Only difference? He doesn't want to fucking assassinate health CEOs to do it. What the hell did that assassination do for the country? My meds still cost a left nut without insurance, people are still getting denied treatment, troons are still being mutilated, so what the FUCK did they expect this to do?

 

[evilsponge]

I just realized this fucker looks like a younger version of Kramer, but he hasn't said the magic word just yet.

*swoops in, slaps money on the table*
"I'm out..."
"You're out?"
"Well it was that CEO across the street...."

 

[clipartfan92]

Luigi did nothing wrong. Free dat boi.

 

[Hitman One]

Redditniggers are happy to have literal paedophiles as jannies and to host subreddits encouraging children to take hormones brewed in some favela monkey's fetid bathtub, but updooting badthought about killing le heckin wholesome ceoarinio is a step too far.