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by 130e13a 1117 days ago
they're actively trying to make the site more "family-friendly" (i.e., advertiser-friendly), since they have their IPO coming up later this year.
3 comments

once reddit get's bought, it's on a trajectory to irrelevance, because nobody will buy that cesspit w/o a massive "betterment agenda".
And yet they still have porn subreddits. Also I've bern hearing about that "upcoming IPO" for like 5 years now and it still doesn't happen.
Not on /r/all anymore though. Reddit is probably aware that removing those parts in one stroke is likely going to spawn a competitor that might eventually overtake Reddit and has chosen to kill them slowly instead with more and more restrictions.
I think the general direction you're describing is correct, but it might also be that occasionally someone at reddit looks at the front page of voat and thinks "let's not become that".
Voat and and similar sites came into existence because of the moderation on reddit, not the other way around.
If anything, reddit's moderation policies were an attempt to curtail the channification brought by edgelord subreddits like "fat people hate", "jailbait" and eventually "The Donald". Going down that route is an entirely plausible decision but it not only alienates most normies (not to mention the demographics typically on the receiving hand of the hate and harassment embraced by these groups) but also makes a site much less appealing to advertisers or investors.

Of course Voat promoting itself as a "free speech alternative to reddit" predictably led to it mostly attracting those affected by the reddit moderation policies, which led to them becoming exactly what reddit wanted to avoid and predictably failing eventually.