As 2024 comes to an end, it must be admitted that there are very few websites in the world that keep the ‘forum’ culture alive, and Reddit is one of them. In this sense, the famous platform, whose survival is critical for those who love forum culture, has been experiencing very difficult days in recent days. Here are the latest details and what you need to know…
Reddit moderation has been stripped of its powers!
Reddit, one of the most popular forum sites on the internet, is making a dramatic change to the way communities are managed on the platform. Starting today, moderators of subforums, called subreddits, will first have to get approval from Reddit administrators to change the visibility settings of their communities.
The new content policy includes the ability for communities to change their ‘Public’ or ‘Private’ status, as well as the ability to edit ‘Safe at work’ (SFW) or ‘Not safe at work’ (NSFW) tags.
Laura Nestler, Reddit’s VP of Community, explained the rationale for the change in a statement on the platform under the username Go_JasonWaterfalls: “The ability to change community type settings on the fly was being used to disrupt the platform and violate our rules. We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health. We cannot allow actions that intentionally cause harm.”
This radical change comes after massive protests last year against changes to Reddit’s API pricing policy. At the time, thousands of subreddits had put themselves into stealth status in protest against the platform’s decisions. This action severely impacted the platform’s usability by limiting Reddit users’ access to content.
Nestler emphasized that the new policy is not intended to prevent protests altogether, but to protect users’ expectations: “We allow protest. We want to hear from you when you think Reddit is making decisions that are not in the best interests of your communities. But if a protest becomes harmful to our users and the platform itself, we will intervene.”
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