Hacker News Reader

I'm really not sure the big subs would suffer all that much. Many of them are already modded by a clique of mods and are large enough that there's not really any community to be had there anyway. It would be pretty terrible for the small communities that were reddit's most valuable part

View on HN

Replacing a few mods that moderate many large communities with paid mods is ripping the door wide open to lawsuits

What damages would who experience?

Defamation for starters. See Neibich v. Reddit and Berger v. Reddit. So far section 230 has shielded them from much of these but the law has been targeted over the last couple years. So far the Supreme Court hasn’t addressed questions on the scope of section 230. I’m guessing the thinking goes if section 230 scope is narrowed and moderators are on the company payroll that could move them from a content provider (not liable) to more of a newspaper publishing articles (liable).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com