https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/reddit-place-protest-spez-b2379039.html
Protests see explicit grafitti appear on r/Place within minutes of launching
I don't quite get how a "collective art piece" could get "hijacked". If it can be hijacked than it's only collective and collaborative for the ones that Reddit likes.
Of course this is the only way they could present it, but as far as I'm concerned the cool thing about r/place, in principle, is that you can see the chaos of the world, with opposite views, opinions, goals, tastes, interests sharing the same space, the same place, and interacting with each other.
I'd much rather see swastikas alongside sickles and hammers, stickmen being murdered alongside unicorns, dirty jokes alongside the Mona Lisa, than this corporate PR stunt.
I think it also shows that the protests have been somehow successful. Sure, Reddit won't fail, but if they decided to do another r/Place it's only because they know how loved it is by the community and hope to make people forget about the disaster.