Many Reddit communities, also known as subreddits, are making changes to their rules, from relaxing them, and completely changing the community format to even introducing ridiculous rules such as removing posts with the letter ‘k’ in it.
Despite these protests, Reddit seems adamant about carrying on with their policy, stating that hosting third-party apps is too expensive and has been accused of removing moderators from communities that are continuing their protests.
According to a report by TechCrunch, some of the protesting methods include:
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r/Wellthatsucks showcases posts on vacuum cleaners. -
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r/Nofans is only posting passive PC coolers. -
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r/Interestingasfuck removed a lot of all rules apart from asking members to not break site-wide rules. -
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r/Memes is only posting medieval / landed gentry memes. -
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r/PokemonGo is reportedly only posting images of John Oliver, Pikachu, and Spark. -
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r/Steam members are only posting about actual steam and steam engines
Some of the largest communities on the platform such as r/aww (34.1 million members), r/pics (30 million members) and r/gifs (21.1 million members) have decided to only post memes and gifs of John Oliver. A move that was supported by the actor & comedian on Twitter. Other communities such as r/Showerthoughts, with 27.5 million members, has chosen to remain private.
For context, third-party apps have been using Reddit’s open API to collect data or even create apps. Major apps had initially stated that they would leave the platform on the eve of the implementation of the new policy, however, Hoffman has stated that the company is in talks with these apps.