Reddit Assumes Control of Major Protest Subreddit After Dismissing Moderators

For over a month, protests on Reddit have been ongoing due to the company’s changes in API pricing. During this time, numerous third-party applications ceased their operations, citing the excessively high costs for API requests. In a show of support for these app developers, many subreddit moderators made their subreddits private for 48 hours, preventing any viewing, posting, or commenting. Unfortunately, this pressure tactic did not yield the desired results, and certain subreddits decided to remain inaccessible for an indefinite period. One such subreddit participating in the protest was r/malefashionadvice, but yesterday it resurfaced after Reddit took control of the subreddit and removed the moderators.

According to a report by The Verge, moderators at r/malefashionadvice made the subreddit private last week and began urging its 5.4 million members to join the Discord server and Substack. At the time, the moderators also received a message from a Reddit administrator (a Reddit employee) warning that if the subreddit was not published, they would be replaced. However, they continued their protest and the r/malefashion advice was kept dark.

Reddit takes action against moderators

Moderators told The Verge that Reddit removed them yesterday. “We’ve more or less been waiting for the removal for the past few days,” one Moderator said. When the subreddit went live, it only had one Moderator listed, ModCodeofConduct, the same Reddit admin who posted the warning message.

Although the subreddit has seen the light of day, it is still restricted, meaning that while people can view posts and comment, only certain people have the privilege to post. Yesterday there is only one new message asking users to join the r/malefashionadvice Discord.

Discord has emerged as one of the main alternatives for those who are unhappy with the current direction of Reddit. The MFA (malefashionadvice) Discord has gained 3000 new members since last week and now has a total of 5000 members.

Since r/malefashionadvice was brought back, the biggest protest subreddit is r/streetwear, which still remains private with its community of around 4 million members.