Reddit changes policy to severely limits moderators' ability to switch their communities from public to private

[joelr]

New Reddit policy changes have quietly rolled out that severely limit the ability of subreddit moderators to switch their communities from public to private without admin approval.

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The change had sparked concerns that Reddit aims to prevent large-scale protests like those seen last year when over 8,000 subreddits went private in response to controversial Reddit API pricing changes.

What’s the motive behind Reddit policy changes?

The company has not provided an explicit reason for the Reddit policy changes but did direct inquiries to a post on r/modnews by Reddit’s VP of community, u/JasonWaterfalls. They cited the potential for platform disruption as a key factor, noting that “the ability to instantly change Community Type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules”.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Just another reason to host your own community.

Reddit is just like Facebook, it's rented space.

I have a group on Facebook with more than 45,000 members. If Facebook decides to close it down or discontinue groups, it's just my loss. I have to deal with it. That's it.

They can't close down my forum, though.

 

[Heatman]

Just another reason to host your own community.

Reddit is just like Facebook, it's rented space.

I have a group on Facebook with more than 45,000 members. If Facebook decides to close it down or discontinue groups, it's just my loss. I have to deal with it. That's it.

They can't close down my forum, though.

This!

They can terminate all your efforts within seconds and they are never going to inform before hand. The description "Rented Space" vividly makes it clear on what it is.

If you want more control over the longevity of your community, it's better to start it out on forums and run it on your terms.