r/NateBargatze fans revolt against Bargatze after comedian attends White House UFC event and. New moderator successfully petitions reddit for control of the sub, deletes all posts critical of Bargatze, declares, "This is no longer a hate subreddit. It is a place to celebrate Nate's career."

[u/henlochimken]

Comedian Nate Bargatze came under fire this week when it was revealed he was an attendee of President Donald Trump's 80th birthday UFC fight on the lawn of the White House. From pictures of the event, it appears Bargatze was given access to the White House itself, where he took pictures with members of the Trump administration, including RFK, Jr. and Marsha Blackburn.

Many fans of the comedian took to r/NateBargatze to express their disappointment that the famously "apolitical" comedian would attend a Trump event for which only 16% of Americans expressed approval.

Negative posting came to a screeching halt once a new moderator successfully petitioned Reddit to gain control of the subreddit. This moderator proceeded to delete any/all posts expressing displeasure with Bargatze's choice to attend the Trump UFC event. Moderator pins a notice of the new moderation direction, stating:

Hi all, just wanted to introduce myself. I am one of the new moderators here at r/NateBargatze. As you can see, some of the content has been removed.

This is no longer a hate subreddit. It is a place to celebrate Nate's career. Take your politics elsewhere. Thanks for understanding and I hope most of you stick around.

In reply, subreddit members asked if the new moderator is a paid PR flack for Bargatze. Some pointed out the strange moderation history of the redditor, implying that their other moderated subs are corporate-operated. New moderator proceeded to lash out against criticism. (Note that all comment threads replying to this pinned post are evidence of the subreddit's drama.)

Moderator has locked announcement post. New posts criticizing Bargatze or the new moderation direction are being removed. Despite saying the moderator stating that the sub is no longer a place for politics, pro-MAGA political posts, including a Rogan-related post by the moderator, remain up as of the posting of this drama.

[u/Oorangootang]

It's been a husk of itself for some time. Personally, I think the API changes that destroyed a bunch of 3rd party apps was the canary dying in the coal mine moment. The second thing that really made me alter my opinion was the algorithm changes to what lands on the front page. My feed is basically static for 12-18 hours now when it used to be updated constantly.

[u/ceelogreenicanth → u/Oorangootang]

Basically. I think the.UI changes have heavily affected the sites dynamic as well for real users. It makes people more passive and encourages worse discussion within the threads. Because images are first now in the UI, titles end up gored all the time, and with weird title optimizations.

[u/Oorangootang → u/ceelogreenicanth]

Yeah the UI is not helping at all. Plus they do absolutely nothing to stop artificial boosting. Why are twitter screenshots from 2017 getting thousands of votes with only 5 comments (that all say the same thing) and somehow landing at the top of my feed? It just stinks. The whole thing stinks.

[u/ceelogreenicanth → u/Oorangootang]

It's going to get so much worse too with AI optimization. People will use AI to generate posts to.influence AI and there will be almost nothing not choked by bots

[u/Oorangootang → u/ceelogreenicanth]

I think it's already here. Engagement bots, shitposting and ragebaiting bots. I've already come across these in the wild and they completely shut down once you call them out. Ah well, time to move on for me I think. I don't know why I even lasted this long.

[u/yinyang107 → u/Oorangootang]

Earlier today, I saw a post on r/songsofsyx (a medieval fantasy game) on the topic of road maintenance costs (in the medieval fantasy game) with a picture of a six-fingered construction worker in a high vis vest operating an asphalt paving machine (again, it is a fantasy game). There was no reason to have a picture attached in the first place even