Reddit protests see r/Place experiment immediately hijacked with grotesque graffiti

Reddit users have hijacked a collaborative experiment launched by the company within minutes of its launch.

The third edition of Reddit Place – a 1-million-pixel online canvas that allows any user to choose the colour of an individual pixel – launched on Thursday amid ongoing protests against the platform’s management.

Communities, or sub-Reddits, quickly organised to post explicit messages aimed at Reddit’s chief executive on various sections of the canvas.

In the centre of r/Place, a giant sign appeared within minutes reading, “Fuck Spez”, referring to Reddit CEO Steve ‘Spez’ Huffman.

Other sections included graffiti scrawled with the same message, while another featured the text “Never forget what was stolen from us” – referring to the third-party apps that shut down in the wake of API changes to the site.

Reddit was forced to push back the experiment several times in efforts to avoid coinciding with the worst of the protests, which at one stage saw thousands of high profile sub-Reddits go dark.

Reddit acknowledged the timing of the latest social experiment, adding the tagline: “Right place, wrong time.”

The Independent has reached out to Reddit for further comment on the latest protests.

Reddit Place is set to continue for the next four days, allowing users to contribute to its evolving creation.

Previous editions featured flags, cartoon characters, popular memes and even works of art.

One nihilistic group called The Black Void was able to take over vast swathes of the 2017 Reddit Place Canvas with black pixels.

The original concept of Reddit Place was intended to “enable humans to communicate and collaborate in ways they have never been able to before”, according to creator Josh Wardle, who went on to create the popular word game Wordle.

“My hope is that the success and collaborative nature of projects like Place will encourage other internet companies to take some more risks when exploring ways that their users can interact,” he said at the time.