Two of the biggest Reddit communities have reopened in the funniest way

The two huge subreddits, r/pics and r/gifs, now only allow posts about comedians and last week tonight Host John Oliver. Both have reopened after dark as part of Reddit’s ongoing protest, and after users on each subreddit voted, the new rules are now in place.

“As many of you know, we did a poll recently to decide the future of the subreddit,” r/gifs Moderator u/IronSentinel wrote, “The initiative was inspired by statements from Reddit’s CEO, who suggested that the wishes of the platform’s daily users were being eclipsed by moderators.” Moderators of thousands of subreddits have set their communities to private to protest upcoming API changes that will force beloved third-party apps to shut down, but CEO Steve Huffman has argued that not all users are in support. Are.

“It’s like a protest in a city that goes on too long, and the rest of the city’s citizens would like to go about their lives,” he told me in an interview on Thursday. When I pointed out that the top posts on r/all were about protests, they said that comments are not allowed in those posts. “If there were comments, I’m sure I can tell you what those comments would say. They would say “Stop it, it’s annoying.”

in an interview with nbc news, he also equated the moderators, who are unpaid volunteers, to the “Landed Gentry” – a characterization that struck a nerve with r/pix’s moderators. “We – the so-called ‘Landed Gentry’ – Definitely want to follow the wishes of the ‘Royal Court’, and they have told us that we need to run the subreddit the way its members want it to be,” u/pix-moderator wrote, “To that end, we felt that only reasonable To do was to ask directly how do you want to proceed from here.

Both r/photos (over 30 million customers) and r/gifs (over 21 million subscribers) offered users two options to vote: return the subreddit to normal, or allow only pictures or GIFs (respectively) featuring John Oliver. The results were conclusive:

is the spokesman for last week tonight with john oliver did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Over 4,000 subreddits are still dark, according to a tracker, but many have reopened in recent days. (During the peak of the protests, more than 8,000 went dark.) Some are reopening under pressure; Reddit sent a message to some moderators saying the company could help process a top mod removal request “if mods are hindering the reopening of the above list,” and a message to r/Apple The mod said they opened the community back because they feared it would happen otherwise forced reopen,

Moderators Express Concern Over Reddit’s “Bullying Behavior” In a post on r/ModCoord, “Volunteer moderators are the lifeblood of Reddit’s communities,” wrote u/damian. “Our dedication shapes the success of the platform. It’s important for Reddit to listen to our concerns and work with us to maintain the vibrant communities that make up Reddit. Until our voices are heard and our demands are met, we will continue our blackout – without any threat.” Over 170 users have commented to co-sign the post.