Huge swathes of Reddit have been locked down after the website "removed" the person responsible for running its Ask Me Anything section.
Moderators on popular subreddits including /r/science, /r/gaming and /r/movies set their pages to private, denying anyone access. The moderators said the move was in response to "the removal of an administrator key to the AMA process".
That administrator, Victoria Taylor, was responsible for running Reddit's hugely popular Ask Me Anything section, which allowed members of the site to ask questions to some of the world's biggest names from Barack Obama to Edward Snowden, Bill Gates and astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Taylor took a key role in AMAs, from finding guests to transcribing their responses to questions. One Reddit moderator said the community had been "blindsided" by Taylor's removal, with the AMA section apparently impossible to run in her absence.
"Without her filling this role, we will be utterly overwhelmed," Reddit moderator /u/karmanaut wrote.
In a Reddit thread about her departure Taylor, who goes by /u/chooter on the site, said she felt "dazed" by what had happened and hoped to stay in the PR field.
Reddit is an independent entity owned by WIRED publisher Condé Nast's parent company, Advance Publications.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
