>Are the IAI people mods on this subreddit or are connected to them?

Nope.

> They lock threads and silence people left and right under the guise of broad meaningless rules that can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.

The rules are extremely straightforward if you bother to read them. Most people who complain about the rules either seem to not have read them, or disagree with their intent. The latter is fine, but irrelevant; if you don't like this subreddit you're welcome to find another philosophy su reddit.

> Removing comments is questionable at best, but locking threads to prevent further criticism when it’s not going in a favorable direction to the article is simply unwarranted. The amount of censorship in this subreddit is beyond astounding considering this is a philosophy subreddit. Wtf is going on here?

It isn't "censorship" to remove rulebreaking comments, or at least not in any problematic sense. The rules are there to promote good discussion because anyone who has been on other subreddits or forums without any rules will notice the quality of comments is awful.

> When someone says something they don’t like, it’s gone in an instant.

This simply isn't true. If you just comment and say "This is shit" then it will be removed, yes, but that's because it doesn't meet CR2.

> There was some unwarranted criticism towards a Tate piece but the mods just silenced the whole thread and removed everything. This is beyond disgusting and a serious abuse of power. Even though I liked the piece very much, the censorship and the silencing of people and their opinions is alarming.

When the majority of a thread is filled with rulebreaking comments and is likely to continue to be such we lock the thread. The moderators are volunteers and aren't going to waste their lives removing hundreds of godawful rulebreaking comments.

>Why can’t people talk about what they dislike and like, people have died throughout all of history to fight censorship like this, yet these mods are extremely abusive with their power. It’s a distasteful abuse of power, in a subreddit where difference of opinion and skepticism should be encouraged, not silenced. Locking whole threads and preventing people from commenting or posting is extremely backwards. It’s not a good sign for a philosophy subreddit to be like that.

If you're looking for a subreddit without any rules I recommend going elsewhere, because that is not going to change here.