So I don’t want to defend u/spez in any way shape or form, but my understanding is that there was a time in Reddit’s history where one could just add mods to subreddits. As such, anyone being a mod at around that point in time might have been without their consent.

There’s so much to dislike about current reddit’s leadership, I think this point (which I’ve seen everywhere from ars to macrumours) is unnecessary noise (as fun as the schadenfreud can be).