Hmm, let me clarify.

Political affiliation should not determine the moderating habits of a news subreddit, but I have concerns that one's personal politics can inspire suppression of opinions that a mod simply disagrees with. However, that is just a concern, not a complaint.

What I wanted to know is if they considered the /r/news censorship a byproduct of simple "toxic" immaturity, or if they think the censorship was because of politics.

Unfortunately, I got an earful about how the political left is the only mindset guilty of censorship. I know that this is factually incorrect, as suppression of the media has come from both sides all over the world all throughout time.

The answer I was hoping to hear was "toxic immaturity," or to elaborate, "the problem was more to do with their moderation habits and bad choices than their politics." Hearing a mod here say that it was politically motivated, while he (looking at other subs he mods) is also a very politically motivated individual, makes me think that what happened in /r/news can happen here too.

That mod's response was a severe blow to my confidence in this subreddit.

Unfortunately, this sub got advertised very heavily during the /r/news exodus and got a substantial boost to its subscriber count. However, all those subscribers are of various political leanings, and all of them share the common objective of finding a proper news source. Therefore, these mods will find themselves under much heavier scrutiny from the influx of new subscribers now participating here. And unfortunately, it didn't take long for other defaults like /r/dataisbeautiful to question the capability of this sub's moderation team.

I wanted to give the mods to speak for themselves, and try to explain that their personal politics wouldn't get in the way of others' ability to participate in a news discussion. Unfortunately, the answer I got didn't alleviate my concern at all, it actually made it much worse.

I'm still going to hang out in here and try to discuss news accordingly when I get a good opportunity to voice myself. And I do hope it goes well. But I would be really disappointed to see "uncensored news" actually means "uncensored if we agree with it." So far, so good. But my confidence in it staying this way is not great.