A popular Subreddit, r/art, has been shut down after a mod mistook an artist’s work for AI art and banned him. It’s claimed that when confronted with evidence the art was genuine, instead of owning up to their mistake, the mod doubled down. As expected, this caused plenty of drama and controversy that led to more people being banned from the subreddit. The forum will not reopen until the mods feel like they have received the support from the site’s admins that they have requested.
Why did the r/art subreddit shut down?
Last week, an artist called Ben Moran posted a piece on r/art titled Elaine (which was originally posted to DeviantArt, but is currently offline). Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, a mod accused the artist of using AI to create his work and suspended him from the page. After the artist complained on Twitter, he was permanently banned from the subreddit.
Numerous people then messaged the moderators asking about the decision, leading to further bans that included a mod from another community that offered to help. Now the subreddit has been marked private as the mods “have been brigaded for the past week, with no significant help or response from the admins.”
The subreddit will not reopen until the mods feel like they have received that help and response from the admins. Some are not expecting r/art to be reopened at all, but only time will tell. This isn’t the first time subreddits have gone private, although this is a very different reason: they’ve previously been taken offline in protest against censorship and after suffering technical difficulties.
