Popular subreddits welcome pornographic content to protest Reddit’s API changes

While most of the subreddits that went dark to protest the website’s API changes are now live and active again, some moderators haven’t finished protesting the changes on the platform. As ledge According to the report, several popular subreddits that historically prohibited porn have started allowing users to post NSFW or Not Safe for Work content. These communities include r/InterestingSufk, r/TIHI (Thanks, I Hate It), r/MildlyInteresting, and r/Video.

For example, in the case of r/TIHI, a pasted post says that the subreddit is removing a rule that prohibits extreme NSFW content and will now welcome them, as long as they are legal under US law. . A similar post on r/interestingasfuck lists a smaller and less restrictive set of new rules, including labeling whether a post is NSFW or not and prohibiting sexual content with minors. By allowing their subreddits to be filled with posts that are not considered safe for work, the moderators have ensured that Reddit cannot monetize them. The NSFW subreddit hasn’t been eligible for ad targeting in years, and the website also doesn’t allow ads for adult-oriented products.

Reddit’s response to the situation has been swift — administrators have reportedly removed entire moderating teams for communities that have labeled themselves NSFW. If you take a look at the r/interestingasfuck and r/TIHI subreddits, you’ll notice that their moderator boxes are empty, save for a note that says “This subreddit is unmoderated. Head over to r/redditrequest to make a request.” Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told ledge: “Moderators wrongly flagging a community as NSFW is a violation of both our content policy and the moderator code of conduct.”

The other subreddits mentioned now have a full moderating team and no longer have explicit posts. It is unclear whether Mod himself decided to return to regular programming or whether he was forced to do so. Several r/mild interest moderators told the publication that although it is true that they were locked out of their subreddits by Reddit admins, they were reinstated by a different administrator. Said that the admin has also withdrawn the seven-day suspension given to him.

All of these incidents stemmed from Reddit’s decision to start charging for access to its API. Reddit was originally targeting companies scraping websites for content used to train large language models for AI, but its decision also affects thousands of third-party clients and apps, Including those with moderation tools. Thousands of communities protested the move by making their subreddits private and inaccessible.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, however, was unfazed by the protests and told npr: “It is a small group that is very troubled, and there is no way to escape it. We made a business decision that upset them. he also told nbc news that it plans to allow ordinary users to more easily vote moderators based on their decisions. A company representative echoed that sentiment in a post on the website, saying: “If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will create new, open and accessible spaces to keep these spaces open and accessible to users.” Will invite active moderators”