Reddit will soon exclusively be a hub for pictures of John Oliver if protesters get their way. Some of the biggest Reddit communities are now only allowing photos and videos of the comedian following votes from users. Thousands of Reddit communities – known as subreddits – became inaccessible earlier in June in a protest over changes to how the site is being run. Many have since reopened, although thousands remain inaccessible. And now some of the biggest subreddits that reopened – such as r/aww, r/pics and r/gifs – have held votes resulting in the communities being dedicated to Oliver.
A subreddit is the name given to a forum within the Reddit platform – effectively a community of people who gather to discuss a particular interest. Reddit users – or Redditors – will typically join a variety of subreddits rather than following individual users on other platforms and see posts from these communities in their feeds. These moderators may spend one or two hours per day ensuring that their subreddit does not get filled with off-topic comments, content that is banned, or illegal content, reports Technology News UK
Moderators of the r/pics subreddit said that while its rules now only allowed users to post pictures of John Oliver “looking sexy”, any picture of the comedian was allowed “because John Oliver is always sexy”. The comedian, who holds British and US citizenship, took the posts in his stride on Twitter, calling it “excellent work” and telling Redditors to “have at it” before posting a series of pictures that stretch the definition of the word “sexy”.
Users are protesting against Reddit introducing controversial charges to developers of third-party apps which are used to browse the social media platform. Reddit, which describes itself as “the front page of the internet”, has an official app, but it was developed in 2016, many years after the website was founded. As a result of this, third-party apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync and ReddPlanet were set up as a way for people to access the platform on their mobile devices. The proposed changes have led these apps to say they are shutting down as they will not be able to cover the costs, which has led to the protest. Over 7,000 subreddits shut down in protest against the changes, and an estimated 3,600 subreddits remain inaccessible.
