Reddit pressures protesting moderators to open private communities

Reddit is pressuring moderators who set their subreddits to privacy to reopen their communities this week. This was reported by The Verge.

The company gave moderators until Thursday afternoon to lay out plans for the opening. At the same time, it stated that subreddits cannot remain closed. Reddit didn’t specify the consequences for not complying with its requests, but it appears to be the last stage of the warning.

Reddit has been pushing for weeks to restore protesting communities, telling them it will replace “inactive moderation,” “mods vandalizing communities,” and “subreddit squatters” to active moderators.

While many subreddits have reopened as normal, some have switched from private, which prevents users from seeing any posts in the community, to restricted, where content can be viewed but only certain users are allowed to post or comment on it.

Previously, subreddits and moderators announced a protest due to the increase in API cost by Reddit. The participants of the action decided to become private – some of them temporarily, and some – indefinitely. At peak times, more than 8,000 subreddits were in the shadows.