The biggest unofficial WNBA fan forum on Reddit just made it nearly impossible to type the name of one of the league's own players.
On Sophie Cunningham's 30th birthday, users trying to post a simple "Happy Birthday Sophie" on r/WNBA ran straight into an automated brick wall. The community doesn't allow "Sophie" in post titles. Same goes for "Cunningham," "sc," "scunningham," "soph," and a handful of other variations. The Indiana Fever guard's name had effectively been filtered out of the main discussion space.
One user pushed back in a private message to the moderators, asking the obvious: Why ban talk about an actual WNBA player?
The reply was blunt. "We filter content based on Sophi because it tend to bring out trolls and people that aren't fans of the W," a mod wrote. When the user kept pressing, the response got sharper: "We have chosen to filter content. If you want to post freely about Sophie you can go to different sub... You aren't even a contributor to this sub, so I suggest you go back to the other WNBA subs. This is our decision. If you keep messaging about this you will be banned."
Screenshots of the exchange spread fast. Conservative media and sports accounts on X framed it as straight-up erasure. Outlets from the New York Post to OutKick and the Mirror ran with versions of the story, calling it a name ban on Cunningham's birthday.
