Reddit Takes Over /malefashionadvice And Other Subreddits To Silence Protests

From the “This won’t end well” department comes news that Reddit has taken over one of the biggest subreddits that went private to protest the API changes that Steve Huffman has implemented:

As we reported last week, the moderators of r/malefashionadvice, a subreddit with than 5 million subscribers, had taken the community private and were pushing its users toward Discord and Substack instead. At the time, the moderators expected to be removed after receiving a message from a Reddit admin (employee), ModCodeofConduct, telling them they would be replaced if they didn’t reopen.

Three former moderators of r/malefashionadvice tell The Verge that they were removed from the subreddit on Thursday. “We more or less have been expecting the removal for the past few days,” one former mod, who asked to go by “Walker,” says in an email to The Verge. Now, the community’s modlist currently has just one moderator: ModCodeofConduct. Though despite the subreddit’s “restricted” status, somebody was able to make a post on Thursday that encourages community members to join the Discord.

The fact that this subreddit has encourages people to move to Discord is bad news for Reddit. This platform relies on user generated content and the free work of the moderators. Remove those and Reddit is nothing.

What’s worse for Reddit is that they’ve taken over these subreddits as well:

Thus you can same result. Which is people leaving Reddit for other platforms. It’s almost as if Reddit is on an Elon Musk style suicide mission to make money at any cost. Even if it results in self destruction.

Great plan Steve. Glad it’s working out so well for you.

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