By requiring admin approval for the changes, Reddit is taking away a lever many communities used to protest the company’s API pricing changes last year. By going private, the community becomes inaccessible to the public, making the platform less usable for the average visitor. And that’s part of the reason behind the change.

Reddit has just changed the rules so moderators of subreddits must get admin approval to switch from public to private, as originally reported by The Verge. This is being seen by many as an attempt to curb sitewide protests,

Reddit has said that if a community is less than 30 days old or has fewer than 5,000 members, requests to change its type will be approved instantly. For all other communities, an administrator will respond within 24 hours. The company also reassured users that it has enough human support to handle these requests 24/7 throughout the year.