Reddit has been going through something of a tough time lately. After announcing new changes to its API that will force AI companies to pay to train on Reddit's data (while also shutting down many beloved third-party Reddit apps), many Reddit users launched a protest, with popular channels going completely dark.
Now, though, the protest has entered a new phase. The John Oliver phase.
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"Since neither we nor Reddit would be here without you, it was only fair to let you determine what r/GIFs should include," the subreddit wrote. "And you overwhelmingly chose to feature only GIFs of John Oliver."
The channel, which has more than 21 million members, clocked more than 13,000 votes to exclusively feature John Oliver content. The fourth largest channel on Reddit, r/aww, a subreddit with 34.1 million members, posted a similar poll, with identical results. The ninth-largest subreddit on the social media site, r/pics, with 30 million members, did the same thing.
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Oliver, the host of the Emmy-winning HBO show "Last Week Tonight," took notice. And fully approved.
"Dear Reddit," Oliver tweeted, posting a long thread of photos for Reddit users to take advantage of, "excellent work. Attn: r/pics — have at it..."
Even as thousands of subreddits remain dark, more are hopping on the John Oliver train, with r/Videos and r/Piracy allowing only those posts which feature the British comedian.
The protests, thus far, don't seem to be accomplishing much in the way of moving Reddit to change its policy.
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The company's CEO, Steve Huffman, confirmed that Reddit won't be budging on this issue in June 15 interview with The Verge.
"We’ve had blackouts in previous times where there’s a little more room for movement," Huffman said. "But the core of this one is the API pricing change. That’s our business decision. And we’re not undoing that business decision."
The API changes went into effect June 19.
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