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Comment by Algent | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't be surprised if so many big subreddits being dark is causing issues around denied API calls.

As for the forced reopening, beside the conspiracy this is something that could happen. It's a private company, moderator on strike are a loss of business, they would be 100% in their right to remove all the "traitors" (I'm not saying this would be a smart move, simply that if they really plan to go down this self destructive path it's the best time to do this and prove potential investor they still have control).

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> It's a private company, moderator on strike are a loss of business, they would be 100% in their right to

Legally, of course. Morally, it is completely unacceptable. This isn't "oh they're jerks"; this is "the system is broken".

A meatspace analogy:

You host a weekly gathering at a restaurant. You decide to temporarily boycott the restaurant to protest some behavior of theirs -- your actions are a loss of business, _so the restaurant decides to host your weekly gathering without you_.

We'd never accept that in the real world, but for some reason we do online -- we fall back to the legal argument that It's A Private Business (which is true) and completely ignore that Reddit doesn't own the community, that the community doesn't _belong_ to Reddit. They own the platform (the restaurant); they don't own the community.

Oh I completely agree this would be the most stupid thing they could do. I wrote it because this is something I can picture happening at some point (I do expect the protest to multiply), you say they don't own the community but I'm pretty sure they think they can control it.

where the hell are they going to fine thousands of willing users to become mods of thousands of communities, overnight?

I think there are millions of folks on Reddit who would jump at the chance to be a petty dictator of a subreddit.

That's easy.

Less if you add "competent" to the qualifications list :)

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