It would appear there’s currently a battle on /r/place between pro-spez users, anti-spez users and admins as the guillotine is being perpetually drawn and erased
Video in action hosted here
https://www.reddit.com/r/place/comments/154wiwk/admins_clearly_messing_with_things/
No, it’s exclusively admins using admin tools. Check the pixels for the usernames that placed them.