The drama with Reddit's API pricing is not dying down any time soon and it has taken a turn for the better. In response to Reddit's revised moderator policy, the mods have conducted a poll to give the forum's members a choice, and the majority have spoken.
John Oliver as the Subject
Over 8,000 communities participated in the protest in the form of a blackout but since then, a lot of subreddits have reopened. Three of the biggest ones, r/pics, r/gifs, and r/aww, have finally turned public, but you'll only see a particular type of content, which is all about John Oliver.
As a response to the protests, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman was going to implement the moderator removal policy, where users will be able to remove moderators who are making decisions that they don't like. So, moderators gave users the chance to vote for a decision.
As mentioned in The Verge, r/gifs moderator u/IronSentinel said that the initiative was "prompted by statements from Reddit's CEO, who suggested that the desires of the platform's everyday users were being eclipsed by those of moderators."
So, all three subreddits added two options in the polls. One is the choice to return to normal while the other is only allowing content that featured John Oliver. The forums all had users vote for John Oliver-related content by a landslide.
This negates Huffman's statement saying that not all users were in support of the forums going dark in protest, wherein he referred to the moderators as a "landed gentry." Moderators called the company the "royal court" and gave users a choice, just as Reddit claimed they wanted.
The subreddit r/pics, which has over 30 million members, shows the results of the polls with 2,329 votes saying the forum should return to normal, while a vast 37,331 voted to "only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy."
Getting hot in here
by u/theeMaskedKitten in pics
With r/aww, which has more than 34 million members, had 2,691 votes for the "return to normal" option, while 48,506 votes went to the "adorable content featuring John Oliver, Chiijohn, and anything else that closely resembles them" option. As for r/gifs, which has more than 21 million followers, showed the results of 1,841 members wanting to return to normal, while 13,696 wanted to only feature GIFs that only had John Oliver as the subject. Oliver was apparently amused by the efforts based on his tweet.
Dear Reddit, excellent work. Attn: r/pics — have at it...
— John Oliver (@iamjohnoliver) June 17, 2023
Huffman Got What He Wanted, Technically
The new policy regarding the removal of moderators who weren't doing right by the subreddit members was brought by the CEO's vision of a democratic social networking site, implying that members were no longer happy with the protests as it disrupts the Reddit experience.
According to NBC News, Huffman believes that the participating subreddits will end their protests soon, and he was right. However, it's probably not in the way that he had hoped, especially since the move has been meant to mock the Reddit co-founder.
