As Reddit continues to protest the company's controversial decision to start charging for access to its API, some enterprising posters have devised a novel way to get back at the company's bottom line.
As The Verge reports, more than 8,000 subreddits "went dark" in protest of Reddit's API changes, which have already forced several popular third-party apps to shut down.
While more than half of those have reopened, a number of them are now classifying themselves as not safe for work (NSFW), which means that users must be logged into the mobile app when viewing it on smartphones. Per the new API rules that also means that third-party apps won't be able to show those subreddits at all.
Perhaps more saliently, it will also curtail Reddit's advertising revenue, because per the company's longstanding rules, ads cannot run on NSFW subreddits.
In response, Reddit started locking some of the moderators behind the protest out of their accounts, according to a follow-up report by The Verge, with Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt telling the publication that "moderators incorrectly marking a community as NSFW is a violation of both our Content Policy and Moderator Code of Conduct."
It's a notable escalation by the company squarely aimed at unpaid individuals that have worked tirelessly to make subreddits a more welcoming and civilized place for many years.
While most of the subreddits that made the switch to NSFW have begun allowing porn to be posted, not all of them have.
For instance, as The Verge's original report notes, the r/Videos subreddit — which is now made up exclusively of John Oliver content as a form of protest — changed its classification to NSFW. But fortunately, we have yet to see any Oliver-related porn on the subreddit.
The moderators of r/Videos also mocked Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's inflammatory comments, in which he likened the platform's mods to "landed gentry" that deserve to have their unpaid seats put up for a vote.
"Like many other protesting subreddits, we have received thinly-veiled threats from the admins who were unable to convince anyone in the team to take over the sub and demod the others," the post notes. "As landed gentry, that would be an absolute worst-case scenario for us, so we're reopening."
Interestingly enough, other reopened subreddits that haven't been demarcated as NSFW have also, as The Verge notes, loosened their rules to the point that people are posting porn on subs like r/iOS and r/simpsonsshitposting.
While some of the moderators behind the protest have already been reinstated as of Wednesday morning, the damage has clearly been done.
Reddit's API change debacle clearly isn't going away as fast as its CEO would like, and this latest stand by the moderators is a great reminder to Huffman that the unpaid people who actually make Reddit a worthwhile place to be won't go gentle into that good night.
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