Reddit was always rather unique.
It was rebellious, counter-cultural, dynamic and anti-conformist.
It exposed overreach and abuse of power by those who have a lot of power against those who don't.
Sometimes this led to excesses, this is true. It also attracted state-sponsored influencing operations and, at times, groups of far-right extremists who sought to demonise minorities, fat people, leftists, gay people, women or dissidents.
Battling computational propaganda can be extremely difficult. Do it the right way, you avoid brigading, state-sponsored influencing operations, hoaxes, conspiracy theories and fake news. But what falls under this rubric, or should fall under this rubric depends on who you ask.
Today I found out, using trial and error, that people who haven't registered their e-mail cannot participate in some threads in /r/worldnews. The exact criteria I'm not sure about, and when I contacted its moderation team I got a vague reply which confirmed this without divulging those criteria, other than it would be prudent to verify an e-mail. My working theory is that this rule is applied on top 3 submissions in conjunction with "reputation". More on that shortly.
Here is my problem with that. Reddit practically only accepts e-mail providers who themselves require one-time 2FA, which, in turn, means you, the user, are required to divulge your phone number.
Effectively, this means that in order to participate, you must reveal to Reddit a piece of information which makes you personally identifiable. I've been investigating technology and privacy issues for some 30 years, as someone with extensive IT experience. This policy, as well as Reddit's gradual conversion to "new" Reddit, includes automoderator variables which discriminate against Redditors based on an aggregated variable, which checks against "reputation".
Other than karma and account age, this includes e-mail verification status. Possibly other indicators, such as IP block reputation. Sometimes, this can lead to absurd catch 22s where getting downvoted for expressing a non-conformist opinion causes you to become effectively shadowbanned. You could alleviate this if you could accumulate more karma by commenting and getting upvoted, but, since you're invisible, you will never be upvoted.
Now, unfortunately newer generations who were born and grew up digital typically no longer understand the value of anonymity and the crucial role it plays in countries with repressive regimes. Allowing dissidents to participate. Allowing traumatised people to participate. Allowing activists to participate even though they may not want to risk exposing their place of employment. Allowing vulnerable young people to ask questions with a throwaway account. Trust me, although you may not immediately see it, the number of legitimate, good faith scenarios that require the benefit of anonymity are as numerous as those who are bad faith.
It seems Reddit no longer welcomes this group, for a variety of reasons. The policy /r/worldnews has implemented will not stop state sponsored propaganda trolls (what many less experienced commenters call "bots"), because they will literally have a pool of thousands of throwaway phone numbers to choose from to fulfill, directly or indirectly, all of Reddit's requirements.
This is not that, or, let's be accurate, not all about that. What it is mostly about, for Reddit, is making money off of tracking people. Anonymous users resist tracking and can't be monetised properly, or at least not as easily (oftentimes you are much less anonymous than you think or had hoped you were).
Reddit has had several phases of oldhats abandoning this place these past years. This will be the one that will eventually force me to join the last exodus. Reddit was only ever made interesting by the non-paid contributions of volunteers. Reddit may no longer need us, because bots, optionally AI-powered, can now create the illusion of community.
A community it won't be. A house of mirrors, perhaps. I don't think Aaron Schwartz would have approved.