There has been a lot of speculation over the years as to whether he's secretly working under the table for Reddit, especially in the context of his statements about knowing Reddit's CEO u/spez personally. Nothing definitive though. I personally think that Reddit are keeping him around because he is doing a lot of work for free that they would otherwise have to hire and pay people to do. Also, the fact that he's keeping a secret blacklist database of Reddit wrongthinkers means that he gets to break international privacy laws, instead of Reddit themselves. Thus, if anyone ever ends up asking any pointed questions - about this nut who falsely claims to be "a retired scientist" doing supposed "research" on Reddit, while profiling Redditors without any prior notice or consent - Reddit can always decide to throw Bardfinn under the bus then, while they still get off the hook scot-free. Reddit can throw their hands up and lie that they didn't know what the League of Extraordinary Trolls were doing on their site, when they knew all along exactly what was happening.