Reddit's Terror Propaganda Investigation Misses the Mark

My Pirate Wires story on a terror-linked propaganda network on the platform prompted an internal investigation that contains numerous inaccuracies

My recent investigation for Pirate Wires (published February 20) exposed an extensive propaganda network based out of the r/Palestine subreddit that, among other activities, spreads content sourced from US-designated terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah by a group called Resistance News Network (RNN), whose main activity revolves around aggregating, translating and spreading posts from at least 12 separate terror organizations spanning dozens of channels (many of the terror groups operate multiple channels).

My report shows how RNN content is then spread by members of the r/Palestine network on various social platforms, including Reddit. It also shows how the r/Palestine network employs a command-and-control apparatus run out of a Discord server by the same name to coordinate activities across X, where it attempts to manipulate Community Notes, Wikipedia, where the network coordinates mass editing, Discord, Quora, and Reddit. Their machinations have tremendous downstream effects on platforms utilizing these data, including Google Search results, large language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini, and YouTube’s topical context panels presented alongside videos about sensitive topics such as the Holocaust.

In response to my report, Reddit launched an internal investigation into the claims. There were four main findings from the investigation. According to Reddit, the investigation:

• “[D]idn’t find any evidence of moderators posting or promoting terrorist propaganda on Reddit.”

• Found “four pieces of terrorist propaganda (none posted by the mods).”

• Found that “Moderator contributions in the communities we[they] investigated represented <1% of overall contributions, and this is less than the typical level of mods site-wide.”

• Found that “While the moderators' removal actions do include some political content, the takedowns were in line with respective subreddit rules, did not focus on Israel/Palestine issues, did not demonstrate a discernible bias, and did not display anomalies when compared with other mod teams.”

Regarding the investigation’s finding that there is no evidence of r/Palestine moderators promoting terrorist propaganda on Reddit, this is clearly inaccurate. At least six moderators from the r/Palestine propaganda network (some of whom moderate major subreddits like r/Documentaries and r/therewasanattempt) have posted terror-linked content.

On March 24, 2024, r/fight_disinformation moderator u/monaqur posted an image of the spokesman for the Houthis — a US-designated terror organization — that links to a post in RNN’s Telegram channel. (In case there was any doubt about the provenance of the post, u/monaqur titled it “Resistance News Network”.) This post remains live on Reddit as of time of writing. Other RNN-sourced posts by u/monaqur remain live on Reddit at the time of writing.

One of the most influential moderators in the r/Palestine network, u/Sabbah, has posted content from Samidoun (a US-designated terror entity highlighted by my investigation) on numerous occasions. At least two of those posts — the first of which includes a comment by u/Sabbah linking directly to Samidoun’s website — are still live on Reddit as of time of writing. (The first of those posts was included in my original investigation.)

Another moderator in the r/Palestine network, u/sum1tup, who moderates the r/Palestine subreddit itself, recruited Reddit users to an event organization by a group which promotes Samidoun. Moderator u/_makoccino_ posted content recruiting users to attend a Samidoun-linked event using with a digital flier that features the Samidoun logo. Those posts are live as of time of writing.

u/hunegypt, a moderator of r/Palestine and one of the most influential members of the network, has posted multiple pieces of content publicizing or glorifying US-designated foreign terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). This includes a congratulatory post in the r/Panarab subreddit, one of the major nodes of the r/Palestine network, about the birth of PFLP and its founder George Habash featuring a PFLP propaganda poster. That post is still live. hunegypt also posted content celebrating PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled, who hijacked two airplanes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including an American plane. The post reads, “Known for her role as the first female plane-hijacker, Leila became the female face of the Palestinian liberation resistance.” That post is still live.

Another r/Palestine moderator, u/isawasin, posted a celebration of PFLP founder George Habash’s birthday, captioned, “Happy birthday to the Palestinian revolutionary George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Rest In Power!” That post is still live. u/aanonymos, another moderator of r/Panarab, posted PFLP propaganda content in a post titled, ‘“Al-Hakim Taught Us America is the Head of the Snake,” a modern rendition of a classic PFLP song.’ That post is still live.

The second conclusion in Reddit’s investigation is that the internal investigation was able to find only four pieces of content. Pirate Wires has identified more than four-dozen pieces of content — text posts, comments, links, screenshots and other formats — boosting foreign terror organizations or directing Reddit users to access this material via RNN, including the posts mentioned above posted by r/Palestine network moderators. A small sample of content glorifying US-designated terror organizations, or taken from RNN, which aggregates content from these groups, includes:

• A post glorifying Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas that led the October 7 attacks. This post, which also appeared on RNN, is still live.

• A post showing a video of a Hezbollah operation targeting Israeli soldiers (including a violent explosion) under the title “Scenes from the operation PalestineResist of the Islamic Resistance targeting a gathering of ‘israeli’ enemy soldiers.” (“Islamic Resistance” is the recently revised slogan of Hezbollah.)

• A post sourced from RNN reporting Israeli military movement in Syria.

• A post in r/Panarab showing a photo of former Hamas leader and architect of October 7 attacks Yahaya Sinwar with the caption, “I will never forgot this guy and the way he fought to his last breath( what a warrior)”

• A post, cited in my original reporting, showing a screenshot of an RNN post quoting Houthi leader Mohammad Ali Al-Houthi celebrating attacks on the US military.

• A post in the r/Panarab, sourced from RNN, showing former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar with the first comment detailing its provenance, “per resistance news network on telegram: ‘And for red freedom there is a door… Knocked upon by every blood-stained hand.’”

(Note: All the above posts were live at time of writing, which is weeks after the investigation concluded.)

Each of the posts listed above was easily found using Reddit’s search bar, and has been reported to Reddit by users, in some cases multiple times. Despite this, the majority of the posts listed above, as well as posts not listed (for sake of space) in this report, have not been actioned by Reddit despite their ban on RNN links described in their investigation findings post.

In addition to serious legal issues they present, these posts clearly violate Reddit's own policies. According to Reddit:

“The Reddit Rules explicitly prohibits content that glorifies, incites or calls for violence or physical harm, including content that promotes or supports the activities of terrorist or designated terrorist organizations. Violative content includes: propaganda material posted by terrorists or designated terrorist organizations and their supporters, expressions of affiliation or support for terrorists or designated terrorist organizations, and glorification of terrorist acts. It also includes content that solicits or incites a person or group to participate, commit, or contribute to terrorist activities.”

The Reddit investigation also found that “Moderator contributions in the communities we investigated represented <1% of overall contributions, and this is less than the typical level of mods site-wide.” What this finding does not speak to is the extent to which r/Palestine network moderators were approving highly political or even radical content in major subreddits that have nothing to do with the Mideast.

My original investigation focused on how the r/Palestine network infiltrated major subreddits like r/Documentaries (20 million members), with eight out of 14 non-bot moderators belonging to the network. In the subreddit, I reported, there is“a steady through-line of anti-Israel or pro-Palestine propaganda on a cycle that separates them by mere days — in some cases, no more than a single day. No other topic or theme on r/Documentaries receives this persistent and intensive focus.” This was not addressed by the investigation. Nor were numerous other examples of major subreddits that had been infiltrated by the network, like r/therewasanattempt, whose page banner is a bull’s eye in the colors of the Palestinian flag, the words “Free Palestine” around it, and a map of Israel at its center.

Finally, on the investigation’s findings concerning “moderators’ removal actions” (or, in simpler language, censorship of users not aligned with r/Palestine ideologies), the investigation found that “Moderators across the ideological spectrum are sometimes relying on bots to preemptively ban users.” However, the investigation provided no quantification of the extent to which this is happening in either the r/Palestine network or across other subreddits. It also made no mention of any other subreddits where Reddit found this to be happening.

A Reddit admin also appears to have spoken to one of the r/Palestine network moderators featured in my story, u/BlueberryBubblyBuzz (aka u/Kumquat_conniption), about the investigation while it was underway. According to the mod, the admin informed them of the timing of the investigation.

In response to questions I submitted concerning the investigation team, a Reddit spokesperson responded, saying, “We have a number of internal teams that work together to investigate and review reports. We also consulted with a third party organization as part of our investigation.”

Asked whether Reddits consider Resistance News Network to be a legitimate source of information or if RNN-sourced posts or comments violative, Reddit said, “Yes, they are violative – that’s why we banned links to the Resistance News Network as a result of our investigation following your story.”

Reddit also responded, saying, “We are always listening to feedback from our community and investigating reports we receive. Much of this content was already discovered and actioned.”

On the question of how the company defines terror-related content, Reddit said:

Reddit’s definition includes (but is not limited to): “Content that promotes or supports the activities of terrorists or designated terrorist organizations. Violative content includes: propaganda material posted by terrorists or designated terrorist organizations and their supporters, expressions of affiliation or support for terrorists or designated terrorist organizations, and glorification of terrorist acts. It also includes content that solicits or incites a person or group to participate, commit, or contribute to terrorist activities.”

As noted above, we would also include content sourced from FTOs, even if not violating on its face – which is why we have banned content from the RNN.

Reddit Makes a Policy Change

In addition to the investigation, Reddit also seems to have made a significant change to its trust and safety policy. On March 5, the company posted an update to r/RedditSafety titled, “Warning users that upvote violent content.”

The policy update states:

Today we are rolling out a new (sort of) enforcement action across the site. Historically, the only person actioned for posting violating content was the user who posted the content. The Reddit ecosystem relies on engaged users to downvote bad content and report potentially violative content. This not only minimizes the distribution of the bad content, but it also ensures that the bad content is more likely to be removed. On the other hand, upvoting bad or violating content interferes with this system.

So, starting today, users who, within a certain timeframe, upvote several pieces of content banned for violating our policies will begin to receive a warning. We have done this in the past for quarantined communities and found that it did help to reduce exposure to bad content, so we are experimenting with this sitewide. This will begin with users who are upvoting violent content, but we may consider expanding this in the future. In addition, while this is currently “warn only,” we will consider adding additional actions down the road.

Update: A number of users and moderators in the r/Palestine network identified in my story and above have been suspended. These include:

• u/monaqur (mod of r/fight_disinformation and r/FreedomOfPalestine)

• u/isawasin (mod of r/israelexposed and r/palestineisrael1)

• u/k1m0c (mod of r/BoycottIsrael)

• u/aanonymos (mod of r/Panarab)

• u/GDtayab (participant in r/Palestine)

• u/AcademicCollar8404 (participant in r/Palestine)

• u/petergriffin_yaoi (mentioned in the original article; participant in r/TrueAnon)