The war drums have already starting beating after Reddit announced a new policy change.
Moderators will now need Reddit’s permission to turn subreddits private or not-safe-for-work (NSFW).
There were site-wide protests last year when Reddit decided to increase API access costs; and moderators took it upon themselves to make thousands of forums private or read-only.
What Is the New Policy?
Reddit’s VP of community, who uses the handle Go_JasonWaterfalls, made the announcement in a post and it’s already receiving criticism.
He explains that “updating Community Type settings” will now require moderators to submit a request. “This applies to Public/Restricted/Private and SFW/NSFW changes,” he writes. He adds that temporarily going restricted is exempt from the new rule, which means that moderators can continue to instantly restrict posts and/or comments for up to 7 days using Temporary Events without submitting a request.
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He also states that if a community has fewer than 5,000 members or is under 30 days old, the request will be automatically approved. For other requests, he promises admins will respond in “under 24 hours, seven days a week and 365 days a year.”
Shutting Down a Protest Tactic
The move is largely being seen as a way to head off protests like the one that took place last year, says Ars Technica. Reddit’s post makes no qualms about this, pointing the finger squarely at those who took action.
“When a public community goes private, all redditors (even members of that community) lose access to the community and its content. Outside of extenuating circumstances, communities should honor the expectations they set – public communities should remain accessible to all; private communities should remain private. The same principle applies to SFW and NSFW spaces.” -Reddit’s VP of community.
Like a teacher scolding their students, Go_JasonWaterfalls continues: “Historically, moderators have been able to change Community Type at will. But the ability to instantly change Community Type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules. We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health, and we cannot allow actions that deliberately cause harm.”
Redditors Rebelling
The post already has more than 500 responses, including accusations of the site ignoring its moderators’ needs.
One commenter suggested that this is a blatant attempt to appease shareholders. baltinerdist writes: “Look, this is a not-quite-public platform. We don’t own it, you do. Well, more specifically, your stockholders do. And they are not going to want to see the share price go down the next time there is a major disruption instigated by the users. So the only way to prevent that is to take power away from the users. We all know this.”
However, this policy does see their power to protest curtailed. The climbing number of comments on this would suggest that Redditors are not happy, and may well think of other tactics to continue making their voice heard.
