Reddit takes control of one of its biggest subreddits

As we mentioned earlier this week, Reddit is trying to do everything in control to take back control of the subreddits that have been closed down due to the API changes that they announced last month and implemented at the start of this month. Due to that reason, and as a protest, subreddits decided to go dark and close themselves down which meant that the traffic to Reddit was tanking all of a sudden. Now, Reddit has decided that enough is enough after already letting the mods of these subreddits know that they will be removed if the subreddit is not opened.

It is now reported that an “admin account u/ModCodeofConduct has taken sole charge of r/malefashionadvice, a community with more than 5.4 million subscribers” and it means that the subreddit will be controlled by reddit for the time being. Now, we are sure that this will mean the subreddit will lose a lot of subscribers and its engagement will be down as well.

Also, “u/ModCodeofConduct sought volunteers to take over the subreddit. The admin account has posted similar messages on other subreddits for which it’s the only current moderator, including r/AccidentalRenaissance (which has more than 925,000 subscribers) and r/ShittyLifeProTips (1.7 million subscribers)” as reported by Engadget who saw the notice.

A Reddit spokesperson even said that “We are, and have been, enforcing the moderator Code of Conduct. This is not new because of the protests,”. Under its guidelines, Reddit considers a public community that has indefinitely been made private to be “abandoned,” and it seeks “new mods who want to reinvigorate it.” Also adding that “we have a practice of reactivating private, high-subscriber communities that are being ‘camped’ on.”

Reddit even did an experiment where they introduced, or should I say, revived an old subreddit named r/places which is “a communal art project that allows each user to place a single pixel onto a large mosaic once every few minutes” but it didn’t go down well as expected. Reddit users started using expletives for u/spez and filled it. There is a message which says “Never forget what was stolen from you,” on the mosaic that directs viewers to the r/Save3rdPartyApps community.