I disagree. If they cannot follow basic instructions to get into a system, and we are talking very low bar here, they probably are not going to be able to successfully operate any kind of discussion forum.

Are people just now discovering that Reddit has run on full censorship for a long time?

For a non-technical user, or even a neophyte, the mere act of finding a Usenet news server is difficult.

This might be a good thing. All that is required is a little research and gumption. Filtering out those without that means a higher grade of users.