TheQuartering [3/24/2021]
It seems several sub-reddits are going private.
The world of Reddit is on fire. A number of subreddits have gone private in response to a new rule instituted by Reddit. The saga behind the decision that r/TikTokCringe and other subreddits have taken to go private is long and complex, but it began with what Reddit claims was the doxxing of one of their employees. Those who have turned their pages private have done so in protest over Reddit’s actions in the aftermath of that doxxing.
TikTok Cringe was one of many subreddits to go private in recent days in response to the banning of a Reddit moderator who posted an article that mentioned Reddit employee Aimee Knight (née Challenor). Aimee was not mentioned in the context of Reddit, and she was not the focus of the article, but the moderator was automatically banned anyway before eventually being reinstated.
In response, the subreddit on U.K. politics decided to make its page private in order to protect its users from being banned by Reddit’s administrators.
“It later became apparent that Reddit has hired this individual as an Reddit admin, and were banning people from discussing her past to protect their employee from harassment,” the subreddit moderators wrote after making the page private.
After r/ukpolitics went private, dozens of other popular subreddits went private as well. The U.K. politics moderators also asked other Reddit users not to mention Aimee’s name or ask too many questions about why their page was now private for fear of causing more bans.
As it turns out, the decision to ban the U.K. politics moderator had major ramifications for the entire Reddit platform.