What's going on with r/programming?

I was checking if Relay still works for me (it does), and happened to see this post at the top of my feed calling out bots on programming: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/14trtla/the_ai_bots_have_arrived_at_rprogramming/

First off, I was surprised that programming was allowing posts again; last I checked it was restricted. Judging by timestamps, it looks like it opened up 2 days ago.

The weird thing is that most posts since reopening have negative scores and no comments. example with several 0 karma posts.

Is this a continuing protest by r/programming users? Are they calling out bots and astroturfing with a scorched earth approach? I haven't checked the 0 karma posts closely to see if they are all bots, but that would make sense since not all posts are zeroed.

Have been avoiding reddit in general so I'm out of the loop.