As Reddit Crushes Protests, Its User Traffic Returns To Normal

Traffic to Reddit appears to be returning to normal despite the ongoing protests, which the social media platform has been trying to crush. 

On Thursday, internet traffic provider SimilarWeb told PCMag that both user visits and time spent on Reddit has “recovered to near-normal levels” since the initial protests began. 

“It seems that users have either found new content or the content that they were seeking is available again after mods opened up subreddits again,” a SimilarWeb spokesperson said. 

(SimilarWeb)

The company also provided a spreadsheet that showed for this past Sunday and Monday (June 18th and 19th) user visits to Reddit reached 56 million. That’s  up from 52 million during June 13th, which was the second day of the protest. In addition, the average time spent over Reddit is now exceeding eight minutes, an increase from the seven minutes and 17 seconds during the first day of the protest. 

SimilarWeb previously noticed(Opens in a new window) a dip in user traffic and time spent on Reddit during the height of the protest. Back on June 12th, over 8,400 subreddits went private for 48 hours, preventing users from accessing them or posting comments. 

The ensuing “blackout” denied everyone access to numerous Reddit pages, which can also appear in Google search results. During this period, user traffic to the site was down about 7% while time spent dropped by about 16%, according to SimilarWeb. 

Following the 48 hour blackout, numerous subreddits then planned to continue protesting either by remaining private or coming up with new ways to fight back. This included permitting users to post nudes and other not safe for work (NSFW) content in an effort to derail Reddit’s advertising revenue.

But since then, the social media platform has taken drastic steps to shut down the protests. The company has threatened subreddits to reopen and even resorted to removing entire teams of volunteer moderators for allowing NSFW content over their subreddits. 

“It’s not OK to show people NSFW content when they don’t want to see it,” a Reddit spokesperson told PCMag yesterday. “In line with our Moderator Code of Conduct(Opens in a new window), we’ll remove moderators and restrict communities where moderators are engaging in malicious conduct, like allowing rule-violating behavior or encouraging the submission of sexually-explicit content in previously safe-for-work spaces.”

The protest occurs as Reddit is preparing to charge access to its API, which risks killing several third-party apps and tools, including Apollo. It hasn’t helped that Reddit’s own CEO Steve Huffman said he would respect the protests only to backtrack. In an interview with NBC News last week, he called out the volunteer moderators behind the protesting subreddits the “landed gentry(Opens in a new window),” and threatened to create new rules to boot them out.

Despite the crackdown, some subreddits and volunteer moderators continue to protest. Around 2,600 subreddits remain dark, according(Opens in a new window) to one tracking service. Meanwhile, some moderators are exploring(Opens in a new window) other forms of protest to annoy Reddit while staying within the platform’s rules.