This is the best malicious compliance so far, still reddit could 'force' them to remove the approval restriction.
But subreddits like pics doing the john oliver thing are completely missing the point, reddit dont care if they do that, it's still getting thousands of views and upvotes because its 'cool and funny', its such a 'we did it reddit' moment. Just stop using reddit, let the subreddits go to shit with no moderation, make a sticky linking to alternatives.
I'm not sure if I buy this. /r/videos was the first sub to go dark early and hasn't been brought back. If the admin were really going in and forcing subs to open you'd think they'd start with the sub that started everything and actually got coverage. Not some random subs.
If I were Reddit, I'd first target subs who aren't able to fight back well. Then, after I've proved that I'm serious and not bluffing, I'll go after bigger subs. This is why many subs are allowing submissions again. In their sticky posts, they often mention that Reddit isn't bluffing.