I find it very dubious to conflate running a hosting service with piracy, even if piracy was all over it.
All of the people who need to be in jail to protect us from them seem to never go, and they are busy busting people like these guys and Ross Ulbricht who were actually advancing use of technology.
They have done this for years, unfortunately. Admins are the weak spot in Reddit, not the jannies (ironically). My sympathies!
Are people just now discovering that Reddit has run on full censorship for a long time?
Reddit is just going to demod everyone who wants to keep it closed and hand the sub over to whatever compliant stooges they can find. It's what they did to /r/drones.
It's going to be difficult to jam outside of the cities. I imagine people are going to set up private wired networks in their neighborhoods, or use Wi-Fi mesh. The good news is that at that point, laws against piracy will be totally moot.
Bet it happens for political reasons. First rule of suppressing revolutions is to cut communications.
Probably a plea deal. Plead guilty to a few charges and others are considered closed. If you do not have the millions required to litigate this mess, it is probably the safest option.