What just happened? The chaos at Reddit stemming from the platform's API pricing changes is continuing. The latest protest has seen several popular subreddits that previously prohibited the posting of pornographic material start allowing users to post Not Safe For Work content.
Last week saw almost 8,500 subreddits go dark (private/restricted) in protest against the platform's decision to update its API, which requires some third-party app developers to pay millions of dollars to continue accessing the site.
About 5,000 of those subreddits have now reopened, but some volunteer moderators are continuing to let their dissatisfaction be known by labeling subreddits as NSFW, meaning users must be at least 18 years old to access them and mobile users need to log into the Reddit app.
Some of the communities that have, at the time of writing, switched to NSFW include r/interestingasfuck, r/TIHI (Thanks, I Hate It), r/mildlyinteresting, and r/videos. In the case of r/videos, it only allows posts featuring John Oliver (not sexually explicit ones, presumably), something other subreddits are also doing.
The move is going to affect Reddit as NSFW subreddits are not eligible for advertising, meaning the company won't be able to monetize them – the API changes were all about money, naturally.
The Verge reports that Reddit removed moderator teams that manage those subreddits that switched to NSFW – the moderator boxes are empty in those communities that have been punished - though the r/mildlyinteresting mods said their accounts were soon reinstated, and by a different Reddit admin than the one who removed them and imposed a seven-day ban, which has now been dropped. Other communities that lost their mods are still without them.
Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told the publication that "Moderators incorrectly marking a community as NSFW is a violation of both our Content Policy and Moderator Code of Conduct."
Some of the new NSFW subreddits have gone back to being safe for work, though it's unclear whether this was through choice or if they were forced by the platform.
Reddit announced new API changes in April that allow it to limit the number of API requests made by third-party clients: about $12,000 per 50 million requests. Christian Selig, the creator of the popular iOS Reddit app Apollo, said the 7 billion API requests per month it makes would mean he'd have to pay $20 million per year. As such, Apollo is shutting down on June 30.