A controversy is once again brewing on Reddit over moderator protection of its pedophile users. One Reddit user is accusing moderators of AskReddit, the catch-all subreddit that you're automatically subscribed to upon registering, of banning people who "out" admitted pedophiles.

The full post is kind of convoluted, but here is the gist: user A claims that he or she was banned from AskReddit after noting that user B has admitted to pedophilia in past posts, in a thread in which user B was defending the rights of pedophiles in the work place (#reddit). According to screenshots posted by user A — whose user name is "CoonTown" (#reddit), by the way — he or she was banned because "pointing out [that] someone is a pedophile is likely to cause them to suffer the wrath of the hivemind."

The banned user, and others in subsequent comments in the thread, are accusing Reddit of having a double standard when it comes to the protection of its posters. They allege that Reddit's moderators condone the common practice of male users bullying female posters by digging through their post histories in order to re-post nudes from Reddit's many "gonewild" subreddits in non-related threads. One moderator, at least, acknowledges the double standard but nonetheless wipes it away.

"Look at it this way: you're in a thread, and you see that someone's posted nudie pics if [sic] the chick they replied to. You have one of two thoughts - a) "that's pretty creepy", or b) "nice tits". But if you see that someone has shown that another person is a kiddy fiddler, you're going to be angry. Now, while you may not, other people will want to punish that person."

This is just a few moderators of one subreddit, albeit one that reaches nearly 20 million people per month. The story, though legitimate, could be a minor one. Nonetheless, it speaks to a problem at Reddit's core that the site has been unable to completely destroy: that its libertarianism is so deeply poisoned by misogyny that freedom from harassment is more urgent for child pornographers than women.