This is absolute bullshit.

I used to be a mod on /r/soccer, and there were strict rules around duplicates, and on keeping things related to football news and OC. It's the most popular sport in the world, and when you've got enough subscribers to fill multiple stadiums, just "posting anything football" doesn't scale. You also end up with a huge amount of content about the most popular teams, and when there's a long-tail of fans from other leagues/countries you isolate a lot of people.

I can happily say that in the time I was a mod there were no questionable decisions. The mods went out of their way to verify decisions, discuss them with others, and reverse any bans if the user acknowledged that they'd broken rules. What the mods got in return was:

• Probably 5-10 death threats a day. No hyperbole.
• A handful of script kiddies that tried to spam the sub with offensive content, CP, and stuff that obviously breaks the rules.
• One stalking attempt on a mod that resulted in the police getting involved, a potential arrest, and a kid getting kicked out of school.
• Several people getting pissy, starting their own subs, and then realising that keeping things on topic and stopping people posting "Paul Pogba skills compilation 2015-2020 Despacito Remix" several times a day is quite tricky...

Funny enough, pretty much every decision was made by reports. Four reports triggered a message in modmail, and we just followed what users had reported..