Reddit administration is growing increasingly unhappy with many communities remaining “blacked out” almost two weeks later. On June 12th, thousands of subreddits went dark in protest of the changes made by Reddit regarding the use of its API, which is now a paid service. Developers of popular apps voiced their complaints about the platform’s exorbitant fees if they wanted their apps to continue functioning, and the Reddit community rallied behind them.
Despite the protest originally being planned for a (optional) duration of 48 hours starting on June 12th, many of the communities that went dark remained inactive. It became evident that Reddit not only had no intention of reversing its decision but also displayed a negative attitude towards developers and volunteer moderators.
Now, Reddit is taking a stronger stance and pushing for an end to these blackouts. According to a moderator from the r/DIY subreddit, which focuses on do-it-yourself tutorials, a Reddit administrator contacted them with a message stating, “Communities are expected to reopen.” This passive-aggressive message suggests the possibility that protesting moderators may face suspension from the platform.
In response to this pressure, the community ended up reopening to the public yesterday, Thursday. The moderators took this action out of fear that Reddit might replace them with individuals who “don’t care about the subreddit as much as we do,” as expressed by another r/DIY moderator.
Furthermore, the reopening of the subreddit brought about significant changes in the community guidelines, aligning them more closely with Reddit’s general requirements and eliminating subreddit-specific rules that were created to improve content quality. For instance, rules that defined what constituted spam (now more lenient) and required users to conduct basic research before posting were among those removed.
Similarly, another Reddit administrator contacted the moderators of r/harrypotter, another community that had gone dark, to inform them that “keeping the community closed is not an option.” This occurred despite the fact that the users of the subreddit had voted in favor of the blackout.
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