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The problem with Reddit's business model is that it relies on massive amounts of volunteer labor (subreddit moderators). Moderators are unpaid, so these positions will be filled by people who value power and status over money, i.e. progressive activists.
In theory, this is solved by people who don't like the mods of one subreddit making their own subreddit with their own mods. In practice, mods of the largest subreddits, being progressive activists, will demand that site ownership take down dissenting subreddits. Site ownership can't afford to piss off the moderator class too much, because then they lose their massive source of unpaid labor, as very nearly happened before. This inevitably degenerates into the situation we find ourselves in now, where major subreddits simply lock any potentially controversial thread and ban anyone who complains about it.
How exactly do you know their political alignment and level of engagement?
It's an old canard, but I always thought it had unimpeachable logic:
The more time a person can spend powermodding on Reddit, the less likely it is that they have a job, and the less likely it is that they have a job, the more likely they are to be poor, and the more likely they are to be poor, the more likely they are to be leftist.
TL;DR: conservatives have less time for Internet drama because conservatives go to work for 8 hours a day.
It's not a PROOF of their ideological bent, but it's a constraining of their probability density in a leftwards direction.
t. Monarchist neoreactionary phoneposting from his directly taxpayer funded job
You're ignoring a big factor - age. Young people have time to moderate, older people don't. Young people tend to lean more progressive than older people, so age replicates the claimed political dominance of the left without relying on claims of progressive activists going after moderation positions on Reddit.
It could help counter a progressive sway among the general group of moderators. Would probably have other issues though.
When did "keyboard warriors" enter the equation? We're talking about moderators.
No, not necessarily. Even as people age, they don't necessarily become as conservative as their parents or grandparents at the equivalent age. So in 50 years, a 75-year-old is much more likely to be pro-trans than a 75-year-old today.
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