Restricted Mode (as Protest Tactic)

Restricted mode is a community setting in which anyone can view a subreddit's content but only approved users may post or comment, effectively making the community read-only. Although it has ordinary uses, it also became a distinct protest lever during the 2023 API dispute, when Reddit pressured moderators to reopen communities that had gone fully private and many teams responded with softer but still disruptive measures framed as malicious compliance.

These measures included switching communities to restricted or read-only mode, tagging large subreddits as NSFW to strip them of advertising revenue, or permitting only off-topic content, such as the widely reported votes in r/pics, r/gifs and r/aww to allow only images of comedian John Oliver. Reddit administrators pushed back, removing some moderation teams that NSFW-tagged their communities and warning others, though several were later reinstated. The episode showed how routine community-visibility controls can be repurposed into deliberate, attention-grabbing acts of resistance.