A new Reddit update is sparking mass protests from users and moderators belonging to communities across the popular social media platform. Many subreddits, including some of Reddit's most popular gaming communities, are going private and blocking new posts as a demonstration against the new policy.
Reddit is one of the most popular places on the internet for people to gather and discuss various interests, niches, and virtually anything else imaginable. It's a major hub for all interests, but especially for gaming as many of Reddit's gaming subreddits are the most popular on the platform. Users of Reddit are passionate about the site, sometimes to a concerning extent, which is why it may be surprising to some that many users are threatening to leave the site en masse right now.
The controversy was sparked by an announcement on April 18th concerning a change to Reddit's policy about its API. For those without programming knowledge, API (Application Programming Interface) is essential code for a program that can be used by any developer who has access to connect the program that uses the API to something else. Up until 2023, the API for the website has been free to access, which is great for the independent communities that use the API to do things like assist in moderation or add accessibility features for users who have trouble with Reddit's first-party app. Reddit has announced that it will now be charging for access to this API, and the result is the ongoing "Reddit Blackout." This isn't the first time a subreddit has shut down as the result of a Reddit policy protest.
The official post from an administrator of the site goes into lengthy detail about the change, but the response in the replies are overwhelmingly negative. Developers of third-party apps like Apollo say this change will effectively kill everything third-party by pricing out developers who make little-to-no money off of work to programs that help many Reddit users. The announcement post also mentions that this API change shouldn't affect tools used by subreddit moderators to help with community moderation, but in practice, many are doubting how truthful that is. Subreddit moderators under Reddit's funny alien logo all work voluntarily to ensure proper content within each community.
Thousands of subreddits have now gone dark in protest of this new change, meaning they're now private and users will be unable to post new content. For many subreddits, this blackout is planned to last 48 hours, but for many others, it is stated that this blackout will be indefinite until Reddit announces an acceptable change to this new policy. Three days ago, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman doubled down on the change by stating it as an attempt to make the website a "self-sustaining business." Twitter also recently began charging for API usage and World of Warcraft removed its Twitter integration as a result.
Source: Reddit