Reddit prevents mods from making subreddits permanently private or NSFW
The message board platform Reddit has changed the level of control subreddit group moderators have over how their communities are classified. In a post on the Reddit modnews community, the company’s vice president of community, Laura Nestler, said the changes are described in detailwhich now prevents moderators from changing a group’s rating to Private or NSFW (Not Safe for Work) without permission from Reddit.
There are exceptions: moderators can make such a change on a temporary basis for seven days without submitting a request, and changes are automatically approved for subreddits with fewer than 5,000 members or that have been in existence for less than 30 days. The post describes some other applications. cases for exceptions, such as a moderator who wants to take a break or quit, or a public group that wants to recruit members before going private.
Nestler said in the post that Reddit will respond to requests within 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As for why Reddit is making this change, Nestler said that communities should adhere to the expectations set in their original privacy settings, but acknowledged that a major reason is that locking out the public from subreddit spaces has been used as a tool to protest throughout the site.
“The ability to instantly change community type settings has been used to destroy and violate the platform our rules. We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health, and we cannot allow actions that intentionally cause harm,” Nestler said.
Last year, moderators used the tactic to protest a price increase in Reddit’s API, which is making popular subreddits dark to the public. Nestler said in the post that protest is still allowed on Reddit, but moderators must provide feedback to the company and be involved in the decision-making process through avenues such as the Reddit Mod Council or the Partner Communities program. “But if a protest crosses the line and harms Redditors and Reddit, we will intervene,” Nestler said.
The post received immediate backlash; A response from CouncilOfStrongs with 233 votes replied: “Don’t lie to us, please. Something you can ignore because it has no impact cannot be a protest.”
Nestler used the platform to keep answering Unpleasant individual messages after the first message about the changes.
Reddit is one of the largest message board groups on the internet. Statista estimates that Reddit will grow to approx 53 million active US users per month next year, up from 49 million in the second quarter of 2024.
