“We are not closing discussions or unilaterally reopening communities,” reads a line from a “Reddit API Fact Sheet” the company shared with The edge.
In our interview, Huffman told us that he sees Reddit as a “democratic living organism created by its users”.
“Occasionally there are protests in cities. And I think that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now. We, even if we disagree, appreciate that users care enough to protest on Reddit, protest on Reddit and then our platform is really resilient enough to survive these things,” he told my colleague Jay Peters.
“Dissent, debate, and discussions are fundamental parts of Reddit. We respect our communities’ ability to protest, as long as mods follow our code of conduct for moderators,” another section of the factsheet reads.
While browsing various subreddit threads prior to the blackout, it was quite common to find Redditors suggesting that Huffman just remove the moderators from the most popular subreddits and reopen them. There were even accusations that it had already happened to r/AdviceAnimals and r/tumblr, but it’s not clear to me if that’s just the typical moderator drama that happens on Reddit from time to time.
Reddit says now though, that it can remove inactive moderators and that “we are stepping in to reshuffle mod teams so that active mods are empowered to make decisions for their community.” The pro-blackout r/AdviceAnimals moderator who was removed was accused by their fellow mod of being inactive for a year.
And in theory, the mod ejection rule could serve as a pretext to force a subreddit, replacing mods with new ones that don’t want to protest. “If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but at least one mod that wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team. new Mod Code of Conduct post is reading.
While many subreddits are still dark, Reddit writes that more than 80 percent of the top 5,000 communities (by daily active users) are open, “and we expect that to continue to be the case.”
We’ll have more of our interview with Huffman soon.
Update, 7:31 PM ET: Added that the mod’s code of conduct can serve as a pretext to force a subreddit.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.