Reddit has told moderators who are keeping their communities private to protest new rules that they will be replaced, according to a new report.
The Verge reported that moderators who are “actively moderating” their online communities, known as subreddits, will not be removed. Reddit sent out a message to protesting moderators that said:
“After sending a modmail message on June 27, 2023, your mod team indicated that you do not want to reopen the [name of subreddit] community. This is a courtesy notice to let you know that you will lose moderator status in the community,” Reddit officials wrote. “If you reply to let us know you’re interested in actively moderating this community, we will take your request into consideration.”
At least two moderators of subreddits confirmed the message to The Verge.
“We see no reason to reopen as I don’t think we’re the bad guys here,” yoasif, an r/firefox moderator who received the message, told The Verge in an email. “Reddit has had a chance to reconcile with the protest for weeks now, and they haven’t.”
The subreddit r/firefox has already changed from private to public — though they made the community about red pandas, not the Mozilla web browser. “Those who know the subreddit and have been here for a long time know that it has been actively moderated for years in order to maintain a positive environment,” the moderators wrote in a post. “We don’t wish to let the subreddit fall into the hands of someone who would undo the good work we have done or would even foster an anti-Mozilla community here.”
“All legacy technical posts will remain available so that searching for help related to the browser is still available, but henceforth and until the reddit admins appropriately reply to our concerns, the only new submissions allowed will be ones that contain the cuddly fuzzy little animals from which the subreddit indirectly received its name: the red panda! Also known as fire foxes.” At some point down the line, browser-related posts will be allowed again, the moderators said.
Reddit, which draws more than 1 billion unique visitors per month, relies on unpaid volunteers to run smaller platforms known as subreddits.
But the moderators aren’t happy. Mods of more than 9,000 subreddits joined a protest over a new pricing policy set by Reddit. The protest was to last 48 hours, but many moderators have kept it up.
Top officials at Reddit removed moderator teams managing subreddits that switched the labeling on their communities to Not Safe For Work (NSFW), on which ads are prohibited.
The ramped-up protest led to lots of nudity on otherwise mild subreddits, including r/pokemongo and r/Formula1. So Reddit 86ed the entire moderator team for one subreddit, r/mildlyinteresting, which boasts 11 million members, but later reinstated them, The Verge reported.
“Moderators incorrectly marking a community as NSFW is a violation of both our Content Policy and Moderator Code of Conduct,” Reddit spokesman Tim Rathschmidt told The Verge.
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