The 'canary' that was on the front page of reddit was removed in 2014. This indicates a FISA warrant or some other secret US government action occured. Then in 2015 reddit comes out with a new more aggressive content policy or whatever it's called then it goes downhill faster than normal. Twitter files and uncommon sense dictate governmental interference plays a key role in modern reddit, and the chinese purchase of a third of reddit stock comes after all this as well. The governments and companies in the US and seemingly everywhere else love their chinese money/bribes/authoritarianism.