In my opinion, the Reddit Blackout was essentially moderators acting as a personal army for app developer.
Even goes the ancient rules of redditquitte
Ask people to Troll others on Reddit, in real life, or on other blogs/sites. We aren’t your personal army.
There’s a difference between rallying others to troll someone, and shutting down a subreddit you own. The mods weren’t forcing anyone to “participate”, they simply stopped providing a free service.