Reddit’s automatic moderation tool is mistakenly flagging the word “Luigi” as potentially violent content, even when it has nothing to do with violence.
Earlier this week, a moderator from the r/popculture subreddit noticed that Reddit’s AutoModerator system had flagged a post about the video game Luigi’s Mansion 3. The reason? The post included the word “Luigi,” which triggered a warning instructing the moderator to “check for violence.”
PSA: the word “luigi” is now flagged by reddit for violence
byu/pumpkinspicecum inFreeLuigi
This unexpected moderation rule has confused users and moderators, especially since the name “Luigi” is not officially banned.
Reddit denies a sitewide ban on ‘Luigi’
A Reddit spokesperson, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, denied that there is a “sitewide filter” for the word “Luigi.” They also dismissed the idea that users are being asked to avoid discussing Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December.
However, despite this claim, some Reddit users have found their posts flagged simply for mentioning “Luigi.” The spokesperson explained that this happened because r/popculture was left with just one active moderator, which triggered Reddit’s automated moderation features. These features filter out keywords that could indicate harmful content, even if they are not necessarily linked to violations.
The last remaining moderator of r/popculture did not add “Luigi” to the list of flagged words—Reddit did. This suggests that the platform’s automated tools are making moderation decisions independently, raising concerns about how Reddit handles keyword filtering.
Fallout from the moderation issues
After discovering the issue, the r/popculture moderator posted about it on r/FreeLuigi, a subreddit that discusses the Mangione case. This community enforces strict moderation rules to comply with Reddit’s policies, such as banning violent content and only referring to Mangione by his initials. Despite this, its moderators fear that Reddit may still decide to shut it down.
Meanwhile, r/popculture, which has over 125,000 members, is shutting down entirely. The last remaining moderator announced the closure, blaming Reddit’s administrators for making it impossible to manage the community. In a post, they stated they were shutting down r/popculture because “Reddit admins are being complete [expletive] morons.” They also claimed that another moderator had been suspended and that Reddit had been unhelpful in resolving the issue.
<blockquote class="reddit-embed-bq" style="height:316px" data-embed-height="316"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/popculture/comments/1j5jngg/rpopculture_is_closed/">/r/popculture is closed</a><br> by<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/pumpkinspicecum/">u/pumpkinspicecum</a> in<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/popculture/">popculture</a></blockquote><script async="" src="https://embed.reddit.com/widgets.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>/r/popculture is closed
byu/pumpkinspicecum inpopculture
Reddit, however, has a different version of events. The company says the r/popculture moderator was suspended for approving posts that contained violent content, including images celebrating the shooter from the recent Donald Trump rally attack and posts calling for the assassination of the president. The moderator denies this, saying that the flagged content was simply a photo of the shooter without any praise or calls for violence.
Reddit also clarified that the automated moderation system is only a temporary measure for r/popculture and that moderators can still approve flagged content for posting.
New Reddit policy targets banned content
This issue comes as Reddit tightens its moderation policies. Earlier this week, the platform introduced a new rule to warn users who repeatedly upvote banned content. The company says this policy will apply to users who upvote restricted content multiple times within a specific timeframe, starting with violent content.
Reddit confirms that no users have been suspended under this new rule, but the change signals a shift towards stricter content enforcement.
As for the “Luigi” issue, it remains unclear whether Reddit will adjust its moderation system or continue the automated flagging. For now, it seems that even a harmless video game reference could be caught in Reddit’s evolving content moderation policies.
