Last week around 7,000 of Reddit's biggest and most active subreddits went private in protest of the company's decision to ban third-party apps from accessing Reddit API. 

The move from Reddit to charge third-party apps for access to their API was in part inspired by Elon Musk's similar decision at Twitter, and come during a time when Reddit is preparing to take the website public. 

The protest from Reddit moderators – who think Reddit is being greedy – was to announce a 48-hour "blackout." Since last week, many of the subreddits that went dark in protest have now been made public, but one front in the war between CEO and Mod has been users turning r/pics into a shrine to late-night talk show host, John Oliver.