The r/antiwork subreddit forum has temporarily gone private following a rough interview between Fox News personality Jesse Watters and one of the subreddit’s moderators, Mashable reported. Other mods said they’re dealing with “cleanup from ongoing brigading,” or attacks by other subreddits, “and will be back soon.”
Members of the forum felt that the interview didn’t reflect well on them, as it focused more on the moderator personally rather than the movement itself. “This person had the chance to prove to the world the problems with the current work culture yet just said ‘laziness is a virtue,'” one commenter stated.
The subreddit’s catch-phrase is “Unemployment for all, not just the rich.” It has more than 1.7 million users and was the fastest-growing non-default reddit across the site as of this writing. Growth doubled in the last three months alone, as workers tired of COVID-19 pandemic conditions and low wages.
While it originally started as an anti-capitalism forum, the subreddit is now used to discuss workers’ rights, talk about bad bosses, air grievances and more. Previously, the site has been implicated in a hack on business receipt printers to insert pro-labor messages.
“Most of the posts on r/antiwork are from retail and fast food workers, nurses, teachers, and other essential workers who are being screwed over during the pandemic,” said another user on Twitter, according to The Independent. “But then… [this moderator] goes on TV and sets the entire thing back by a decade.”
