Links from Newsweek have been banned from one of the biggest traffic-driving sections of Reddit due to concerns about paid spamming, BuzzFeed News has learned.

Earlier this month, moderators of /r/news decided to classify all submitted links to Newsweek.com as spam due to what a source says was a coordinated effort to promote content from that site. The /r/news subreddit has more than 15.5 million subscribers and is the 15th-largest community on Reddit.

The source, a longtime Redditor with knowledge of /r/news moderation practices, said moderators concluded that links were being submitted at high volume by influential Reddit accounts in order to drive traffic to Newsweek.com.

“In the case of Newsweek, it appears that they recruited high-volume/high-karma posters to post their articles,” said the source. (Reddit users earn “karma” points by participating on the site.)

The source said publishers and other entities sometimes pay influential Reddit users to submit their links with the goal of generating traffic. The source asked not to be identified in order to maintain their status within the Reddit community.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Newsweek Media Group said it’s aware Newsweek links have in some cases been classified as spam on Reddit, but said it does “not engage in any form of paid promotion on this platform.”

“We are aware of some instances of Reddit users submitting links without engagement or comment causing them to qualify as spam. We are in active discussions to address this so that we can ensure all of our writers are aware of the latest guidelines when posting content,” the statement said.

Even with the /r/news ban, BuzzFeed News has identified several Reddit accounts that continue to submit Newsweek links to subreddits such as /r/politics at high volume. These accounts appear to exist only to share Newsweek content. The owners of these accounts did not respond to private messages sent via Reddit.

The partial Reddit ban for Newsweek comes as the company is already under scrutiny for its audience development practices. BuzzFeed News recently reported that several of its International Business Times editions were buying traffic and engaging in ad fraud. The company admitted to buying traffic but denied it engages in ad fraud. (The report did not accuse Newsweek.com of buying traffic or engaging in ad fraud.)

In the wake of that report, NMG’s chairman, finance director, and top advertising sales executive resigned, and NBC News reported that the company “lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad commitments.” An ad platform issued a press release to publicly call out NMG. “You lied, you cheated, and you destroyed the trust that your organization held in all of our eyes,” said the release from Brandzooka. In a statement issued after this story was published, NMG said, "We do not have any direct commercial relationship with Brandzooka nor have we heard of this brand."

NMG also fired top editors and reporters at Newsweek after the site reported on a recent raid of the NMG offices by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which took place as part of an ongoing investigation.

Growth in Reddit traffic to Newsweek