Some of Reddit Inc’s most popular forums are dropping like flies as more and more moderators set their subreddits to private, locking users out from reading or posting to them.

The movement; which redditors have dubbed as Blackout 2015, AMAgeddon, and Victoria’s Secret; began with r/IAmA yesterday after Reddit’s official  “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) organizer Victoria Taylor was “unexpectedly let go” from the company.

Taylor served as an official contact for Reddit’s AMAs, and with her abrupt removal from the company, the moderators of several subreddits found themselves unable to reach out to some of the high-profile celebrities that were scheduled to conduct an AMA this week.

Reddit user Karmanaut, one of the lead moderators of r/IAmA, explained that without Victoria “we need to figure out a different way for it to work.”

One user pointed out that setting r/IAmA to private “makes reddit seem more unstable than firing an employee who did those tasks,” and Karmanaut’s response highlights why user-generated content is risky business for companies.

“My concern isn’t really with how Reddit looks,” Karmanaut said. “I am not an employee of Reddit and I’m not responsible for Reddit’s public image.”

The last straw

What first began as damage control to prevent AMAs from getting out of hand quickly spun out into a revolt against Reddit’s admins.

The moderators of some of the most popular subreddits locked down their forums in protests against what they see as a growing disconnect between Reddit and its users, and many have pointed to Taylor’s removal from the company as “the last straw” in what had already been a serious problem with the way the site is run.

“As much as Victoria is loved, this reaction is not all a result of her departure,” wrote Gilgamesh-, moderator of several of the subreddits that are now private. “There is a feeling among many of the moderators of reddit that the admins do not respect the work that is put in by the thousands of unpaid volunteers who maintain the communities of the 9,656 active subreddits, which they feel is expressed by, among other things, the lack of communication between them and the admins, and their disregard of the thousands of mods who keep reddit’s communities going.”

Many of Reddit’s users have rallied around the moderators’ cause, and some of the popular subreddits that have not gone private, such as r/Pics, are filled with posts criticizing the site and its administrators.

The Admins’ response

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, also known by his Reddit username “kn0thing,” responded to some of the site’s users regarding the shutdown.

Ohanian wrote:

Your message was received loud and clear. The communication between Reddit and the moderators needs to improve dramatically. We will work closely with you all going forward to ensure events like today don’t happen again. At this point, however, the blackout has served its purpose, and now it’s time to get Reddit functioning again. I know many of you are still upset. We will continue to work through these issues with you all, but redditors don’t deserve to be punished any further over an issue that is ultimately between Reddit and the moderators.

Ohanian explained that Reddit’s two main priorities now are “get the blacked out subreddits back online” and “work out a plan for going forward.”

His comments did not receive the most positive response.

Aside from a few hundred downvotes, several Reddit users criticized Ohanian’s post for being full of vague corporate speak that still did not address the issue.

“Translation: ‘We didn’t take moderators and users seriously, and underestimated how much we could take the Reddit community for granted. We’re scared now for our company and profits,’ wrote Reddit user alfonso238.

Other users voiced similar opinions, again suggesting that Ohanian and Reddit’s other administrators are more concerned with profit than with the state of the community.

“The community took the subreddits offline and you still don’t get it,” wrote Reddit user Seized7x. “You give this extremely vague ‘We will work closely with you all going forward to ensure events like today don’t happen again.’ Of course you will, but you won’t outline or promise anything. You want your money makers online ASAP, but you won’t make any promises.”

Will Reddit be the next Digg?

Reddit has seen several controversies that divided the community over the last year, including the recent censorship of subreddits like r/FatPeopleHate, but the current subreddit blackout has users more united than previously.

Before Reddit became the juggernaut that it is today, its primary competitor was Digg Inc, another link aggregator that allowed users to vote on content. Digg released a site-wide update in 2010 called Digg v4, and the update was such a fiasco that it all but killed the company, driving off thousands of users, most of whom settled on Reddit.

Many redditors have been vocal about their disappointment in the direction of the site for some time, and a few alternative communities have already started to gain popularity, especially Voat.co. In fact, Voat has become so popular that the site is having trouble coping with the new traffic.

While Reddit is larger now than Digg ever was, the administrators need to tread carefully if they do not want to see history repeat itself.

Screenshots via Reddit.com