They did last year as well. I recall there being some racy stuff that was being blocked out by black boxes placed by the admins, and people were able to track admin and mod accounts (like spez) that were placing pixels instantly with no cooldown. People were pissed then already, and the admin/mod response was basically “get wrecked we too smort lulz”
Place even last year was blatantly a ploy to give reddit more free and controllable content.