Background

Reddit's AutoModerator is a tool used to help moderators manage their communities by automatically flagging potential rule-breaking content. However, in this case, the tool appears to be overzealous, flagging the word 'Luigi' as potentially violent.

The issue was first reported by a moderator from the r/popculture community, who noticed that a post about the video game Luigi's Mansion 3 had been flagged by the AutoModerator. The moderator was instructed to 'check for violence' despite the fact that the post was harmless.

Reddit's Response

A Reddit spokesperson stated that there is no sitewide filter for the word 'Luigi' and that the company does not expect users to stop talking about Luigi Mangione, a person accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. However, the spokesperson did acknowledge that the AutoModerator may be flagging comments that mention 'Luigi' in some cases.

The spokesperson explained that the r/popculture community had recently fallen to a single moderator, which triggered the automod features, including a filter for keywords that could indicate violating content. The remaining moderator of r/popculture claimed that the mod team did not add 'Luigi' to the list of keywords, but rather Reddit did.

Consequences

The r/popculture community has since shut down due to issues with Reddit's administration. The moderator who reported the 'Luigi' issue announced that they were shutting down the community, citing Reddit's unhelpful response to the situation.

The 'Luigi' issue comes as Reddit announces a new crackdown on banned content. The company will begin warning users who upvote content that is banned on the platform, with the goal of reducing the spread of violent or hateful content.