“We mostly stopped reporting stuff, because we don’t have feedback,” he says. And asantos3 says that the company itself has repeatedly ignored reports of harassment from him and other moderators. He says his duties have led to him being doxxed-with personal details including his Instagram and LinkedIn profiles posted online- and threatened. Asantos3 spoke on the condition that he would be identified only by his Reddit handle. As part of his duties, he deletes comments that contain racism, homophobia, sexism and other policy violations, and sends reports to Reddit about hate speech coming from smaller satellite groups like r/Portugeses. The response was disappointing but predictable for asantos3, who has served as a volunteer content moderator for six years. Within minutes, he received an automated response: “After investigating, we’ve found that the reported content doesn’t violate Reddit’s Content Policy.”

So, asantos3, who moderates the much larger and more mainstream group r/Portugal, quickly sent a report to Reddit staffers with a link to the thread.