A major Nintendo Switch Sub-Reddit has faced a bout of corruption scandals, ranging from abuse of power to attaining game codes from developers without meeting FTC guidelines.

In a Reddit post, the moderators of /r/NintendoSwitch came out to bring into light a few issues plaguing the Sub-Reddit, as well as, to introduce a few measures made to prevent the incident from ever happening again.

Greetings,

We, the moderation team, are writing to you, the community, to bring a few matters to your attention:

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I. Statement from the Moderators

It has been a turbulent weekend for the moderation team. We’re not going to mince words, let’s cut right to chase:

• Over the course of the last 2 months, a subset of mods have been creating gameplay preview videos for our YouTube channel. While many of these videos were created with purchased copies of games, a few videos were created using game codes provided directly from developers (free of charge).
• Late last week the moderation team became aware that these codes were sent in response to direct inquiries to the developers from certain members of the mod team. Furthermore, when codes were provided, the disclosures that were placed on these videos did not adequately meet FTC guidelines.
• Reddit admins were notified of the incident and could not determine whether or not a Reddit site rule was broken, citing this as a “grey area”. They allowed us to investigate the matter internally while monitoring the situation.
• There was no evidence of favorable actions being made as a result of codes being given to the team
• The YouTube Hands-On Program has been permanently closed and all hands-on videos have been taken down. Our YouTube channel will now solely consist of VODs of our charity livestream broadcasts that occur on our Twitch channel.

This is absolutely, undeniably wrong and we acknowledge that this is a massive breach of trust.

Moving forward we are doubling down on our efforts to serve this community in an appropriate manner, one that is free of controversy and shady dealings. We will continue to contact developers to bring interesting AMAs to the subreddit for the community, as well as working with developers who are engaging with the community directly (i.e. bug fix, feedback, update threads, etc.)

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II. Mod Team Structure and Changes

Over the course of the weekend, through the investigations and discussions that took place among the moderation team, several further concerns regarding the moderation team and its structure were brought forth and addressed:

• Several members on the moderation team held “positions of seniority” over the rest of the moderation team. This team collaborated and discussed moderation and sub matters separate from team’s normal internal communication channels.
• This was toxic and not helpful for the unity or cohesiveness of the team.
• In line with most subreddits, we’ve restructured the team to create a flat hierarchy. This includes a random reshuffling of the moderator list.
• During the restructuring effort several moderators voluntarily parted ways with the team on positive terms, some have been asked to leave, and others given a second chance. Those involved in the issues represented a minority of the overall team and not all moderators who have left the team were involved. In the interest of avoiding a witchhunt we will not be naming names of those involved and ask that you do not make assumptions based on changes to the moderation team.
• Rule 1 is, as always, in effect.

So what does this all mean?

As iterated previously, the moderation team is more committed than ever to helping this community stay healthy, helpful, and growing. We acknowledge that actions taken by members of this team bring forth a potential level of mistrust, but we are committed to earning back that goodwill.

While we wish all the best for the Sub-Reddit and the Moderators going forward, Nintendo fans who wish to participate in Reddit discussion can also head on to /r/Nintendo to discuss a whole variety of topics, not limited to Nintendo Switch.