Three important Reddit communities are not focused on John Oliver. That said, it means that r/aww, r/pics, and r/videos are now operating largely as they did before the whole protest started.
Reddit Communities No Longer Focused On John Oliver
Three of the biggest communities in Reddit are no longer focused entirely on John Oliver in a form of protest against the social media platform, Reddit. The subreddits in question had made the switch in June in a bid to push back on Reddit’s API pricing that ultimately made some very popular third-party apps to shut down, but right now, they are operating pretty much as they did just before the protests.
One of the subreddits in question, r/aww (which has over 34 million subscribers), posted a very long explanation for the change. And while the r/aww community did vote “overwhelmingly” for the rule in regards to John Oliver, “it was never intended to be permanent,” a moderator in the post wrote, which as you should know was published in the early parts of this week. “More than a month has passed, and as things on the internet go, the passion for the protest has waned and people’s attention has shifted to other things.”
What a Reddit Community Moderator Has To Say About the New Development
The mod stated that the very change did however reduce traffic to the subreddit. “After an initial spike to normal levels when the subreddit reopened, overall subreddit traffic fell to between half and a third of normal, though the influx of subscribers paradoxically grew more than the number of people unsubscribing,” the mod reportedly wrote. However, they also added that “it’s unlikely that it had any significant effect on sitewide traffic, as other subreddits just filled the gaps in the endless feed of content most users consume.”
Two other big communities on the platform have switched back, too. r/pics (with over 30 million subscribers) had perhaps been the most visibly community tied to John Oliver: Oliver himself however posted a series of silly photos specifically for the community to make use of, and at one point in time, the moderators of r/pics invited Oliver over to join the mod team.
But sometimes just recently, r/pics took away any obvious trace of its own connections to John Oliver; the Wayback Machine also shows that r/pics were all about John Oliver as of Friday but however no longer on Saturday. I personally haven’t found an explanation from the moderation team regarding the change, and the team in question has not replied to my Reddit DM asking for a comment on the matter.
R/Videos Dropped Its John Oliver Rule Back In June
r/videos (with over 26 million subscribers) on the other hand actually dropped its John Oliver rule back in June as it was replaced by a new rule that all posts on the platform needed to contain profanity in the title after a community vote. The r/videos moderators in the early parts of this month, reverted the rules in question to what they were before the protests began. “For those who think our protest went on too long, you may want to remind yourselves why we did this in the first place,” a mod in a post about the decision wrote. “Reddit still has some issues to address.”
Other Communities Still Focused On John Oliver
r/gifs (with over 21 million subscribers) still remain focused on John Oliver, as per the community’s rules. However, the newest post that I can find on the subreddit is from nine days ago, and very much strangely, the second-newest post on the other hand is from a month ago. I have already asked the r/gifs moderators as to why there have been so few posts as of late.
Reddit API Pricing
Back in June, over 8,000 communities went dark in a bid to protest the API pricing, but in the weeks ever since then, many subreddits have opened back up (some even after feeling pressure from Reddit) and are now operating as they did before the whole fiasco. Many users on the other hand are still disgruntled, though, and have made their feelings known in July’s r/Place canvas.
Over 1,800 subreddits are however still private in protest, as per the Reddark tracker.
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