Reminds me of Google trying to force everyone with any kind of Google account to use Google+. If you had an account on YouTube, it’d convert that to a Google account, automatically create a Google+ account for it, and start posting your activities to it by itself. I know a ton of people who had active Google+ accounts they didn’t even know about.
Influence is the currency of power. As a power mod of the most visible subreddits she would’ve had a lot of influence over information served to millions of people. She was involved in the silicon valley tech bubble and all of her siblings had careers in tech as well.