Reddit demands moderators to remove NSFW labels, or else

Several communities on Reddit have used the NSFW (not safe for work) designation in some form to protest Reddit’s new API pricing, which has forced Reddit to shut down apps like Apollo and Riff. Did, as well as a recent pattern has emerged. Behaviour towards its unpaid volunteer moderators who they find “threatening”. subreddits, including r/photos And r/militaryhad made the NSFW switch, pointing to the language of the Reddit websites to justify the change.

The moderators of the r/Military community said they changed their label to NSFW because “military content has the potential to contain violent content” and argued that “this subreddit should already be NSFW, but we didn’t change it until recently.” never thought about” ,” according to a public post on Thursday,

However, Reddit has sent a message to the mods of those subreddits saying that they must “immediately correct” their NSFW labeling, claiming that each community “has not historically been considered NSFW and does not comply with our current policies”. They will be considered under If the designation is not corrected, any moderators involved in that decision will be removed. Those mods may be “subject to additional actions”, such as losing the ability to join future moderator teams.

Going NSFW Takes an Age Gate and That Means the Subreddit not eligible for advertisingCausing friction for users, and potentially affecting Reddit’s ability to monetize the channel.

As of Thursday evening, r/PICS had removed the NSFW designation, along with r/military.

in an email to ledgeA moderator of the Military subreddit said the mods decided to revert the NSFW designation because the community is a helpful resource for veterans facing mental health crises. The mod said that if Reddit removed the team, it could put the community at risk.

Reddit did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As for the previous story, spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said that “a community incorrectly flagged by moderators as NSFW is a violation of both of our policies.” content policy And moderator code of conduct,

Here’s the message from Reddit, as shared r/PICS by Moderator,

This is a final warning for falsely labeling your community NSFW which is a violation of Mod Code of Conduct Rule 2. Your subreddit has not historically been considered NSFW and will not be considered so under our current policies.

Please fix the NSFW labeling on your subreddit immediately. Failure to do so will result in action being taken against your moderator team by the end of this week. This means that the moderator involved in this activity will be removed from this mod team. Moderators may also be subject to additional actions, for example, losing the ability to join mod teams in the future.

Finally, if you suddenly begin posting or approving sexually explicit material in your community to justify the NSFW label, we will immediately and permanently remove the moderators participating in this action. will be suspended from

in rule 2 moderator code of conduct says that mediators should “set fair and reasonable expectations.” Last month, Reddit admin account ModCodeofConduct said that switching from Safe for Work to NSFW was “not acceptable” in protest, and some communities hit back after Reddit felt the pressure.

In the case of r/PICS, it began focusing entirely on posts about comedian John Oliver after a community vote, and the moderator changed that on Monday. to NSFW because they felt that the subreddit’s content was infringing The Reddit wiki page is titled “Reddit Content Policy”. That page defines NSFW as the following: “Content that contains nudity, pornography, or profanity that a reasonable audience would not want to see while accessing it in a public or formal setting, such as the workplace, is classified as NSFW.” Must be tagged.”

However, as seen in screenshots of messages between r/PICS and Reddit ledgeReddit said that the wiki page is out of date (the last edit was made four years ago) and pointed to a different page, also titled reddit content policy, which doesn’t define the rules for NSFW. Rule 6 is probably the closest: “Ensure people have predictable experiences on Reddit by appropriately labeling content and communities, especially content that is graphic, sexually-explicit, or offensive.”

On r/PICS, the rules clearly state that “no explicit profanity or gore” is allowed, and from what I’ve seen, posts in the community follow that rule. r/PICS on Wednesdays too argued that Visible marking of ” r/photos Because NSFW is key to setting appropriate expectations.”

moderator of r/cyberpunkgame posted a on Wednesday About a message on Reddit regarding the NSFW designation of the community, so I asked if they too had received this new message. The moderator wrote to me in a Reddit DM, “We haven’t received that message, but we are in support of communities that have done this.” “This is a worrying development, and something that hits close to home cyberpunk fan. Reddit’s activities are on par with the most dystopian companies seen in Night City.”