[MagnumOpus]

These positions are unpaid volunteer positions. Moderating more than a handful large subs is a full-time job.

There is a good chance that a proportion of these people willing to do an unpaid full time job that can direct the attention of a billion pairs of eyeballs have ulterior motives, or are indeed paid by third parties (companies, political parties, governments) to promote or censor certain news/memes/opinions.

[Zooper]

It's not a good chance at this point, it's the height of naivety and ignorance to assume that this isn't actively occurring. There's absolutely no incentive for it not to occur and there's significant incentive for it to occur.