Reddit removes mods as subreddits continue protesting unpopular API changes

It’s been over a week and a half since the 48-hour Reddit “Blackout” began, and some of the platform’s biggest subreddits continue to protest the company’s plans to charge exorbitant rates to third-party developers for API access.Reddit CEO Steve Huffman downplayed the protests early last week, claiming it was a vocal minority of users and had an insignificant effect on the company. However, by the end of the week, Reddit’s tone noticeably changed. The company began sending messages to mods of popular communities taking part in the protest, basically threatening to remove their moderator designations if they didn’t re-open their subreddits.That ultimatum seems to have worked, somewhat. And Reddit has now even followed through on removing mods from some subreddits still taking part in the protest.The protest, which initially started with around 3,000 subreddits pledging to go private, making their content either read-only or completely blocked from view, quickly grew to over 8,000 subreddits at its peak. Although there’s around 3,000 subreddits that are still private, including some rather large communities, many began opening up over the past few days.But, that doesn’t mean the actions against Reddit’s API decisions are over. Some subreddits have discovered new, creative ways to protest.For example, r/steam, the subreddit dedicated to the video game platform Steam, has decided to change up what type of content gets posted now that they’ve been forced to open. The subreddit is now entirely filled with posts about actual steam…as in water in its gas form. Users are now posting…Reddit removes mods as subreddits continue protesting unpopular API changes