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Serial_Priest writes:

In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations in mid-2013, moderators at /r/technology configured filters to automatically censor posts containing "politicized" words, based on findings by creq. This censorship appears to be ongoing. The banned words include NSA, Comcast, Anonymous, CISPA, SOPA, Swartz, FCC, net neutrality, GHCQ, EFF, ACLU, and others.

The admins claim they simply configured their bots to delete "politicized" posts. Yet their filters (which were not announced or explained) effectively precluded meaningful discussion of contemporary issues. Could this reflect willing government collaboration by Reddit's admins, or might they have been served with an NSL to force compliance?

News coverage of the censorship: http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-technology-ban ned-words/ [dailydot.com]
A fuller list of banned words: http://pastebin.com/P9pc5qUc [pastebin.com]
The reddit user who detected the censorship: http://www.reddit.com/r/undelete/comments/22yewf/i _have_identified_a_list_of_keywords_that_are/ [reddit.com]

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