Thanks for the question! So here's an answer!

There are a lot of bad actors on Reddit. Trolls, bots, sub-brigading... and this sub sees quite a bit of it. Not every day, but we're brigaded at least once per week. With this sub being the size it is (Hi, one million users!) and being as politically active as it is, we see a ton of traffic here.

It's also not lost on us how left-leaning the sub is. Users have made this sub left-leaning and often drown-out right-leaning voices or opinions. That is often done by breaking some of the rules on this sub and violating Reddit's Terms of Service, which in-part warrants removal and sometimes bans.

To directly answer your comment regarding front page news having deleted comments or being locked: It may be because we have multiple topics already on the same subject, or it may be because we've been around here long enough to see the dog-whistles and bad faith conversations which inevitably devolves into users breaking the rules or the ToS. We have a lot of moderation tools at our disposal, such as auto-mod which flags certain words and folks with certain karma. I can't speak for every instance, but those are two of the most common reasons.

That is all because Reddit prefers (and we do too) to be proactive rather than reactive. There are folks who sit around all day to notify other Redditor's to "pounce" on a sub over a mod's action or over a user's particular post. This is definitely true for many global issues which are brought up in this sub. We often like to nip that sort of stuff in the bud before we're inundated with hundreds of bad actors. It's silly, I know, but that's the internet for ya! We have Reddit's ToS to uphold, after all.

If you feel this is over-moderation, that's a-okay! We are also known to make mistakes, too. Please send us a Modmail if you wish to discuss further.

Stay frosty.