A multitude of sub-communities on Reddit, including prominent crypto-related subreddits, have collectively agreed to temporarily make their content private for a period of 48 hours. This protest is in response to new company policies that restrict the usage of third-party applications on the platform.
The unified action aims to express dissent and raise awareness about the perceived limitations imposed by these policies. As a way of expressing their dissatisfaction, a large number of subreddits, including popular ones like r/gaming, r/aww, r/Music, r/todayilearned, and r/pics, have decided to go offline for a while.
Several popular crypto-focused communities have also joined in, including subreddits such as r/Bitcoin, r/CryptoCurrency, and r/cardano as the protest now involves a total of 3,489 subreddits. Between them, these communities boast tens of millions of members.
Motive Behind The Ongoing Reddit Protest
The majority of these communities expressed their concerns regarding the social media platform’s decision to develop native moderator tools, as it directly affects the community’s ability to utilize third-party tools that are widely relied upon for content moderation and interactions.
In April, the social media platform made an announcement regarding its intention to make changes to the Reddit Data application programming interface (API).
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This API, which has been in existence for seven years, serves as a platform for developers to create tools and utilities that facilitate activities such as moderation and other functions. The proposed modifications aimed to redefine how users engage with the Reddit Data API.
A post from the subreddit r/Save3rdPartyApps stated:
Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed since many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app.
In response to this upcoming change, many communities have chosen to either go private or switch to read-only mode from June 12 to June 14 as a form of protest.
The planned changes to the social media platform’s policies will result in significant fees for “premium access,” which could have a detrimental impact on popular third-party applications like Apollo.
Apollo offers users a customizable interface for browsing the site. According to Christian Selig, the developer of Apollo, these new fees imposed by Reddit would require the app to charge approximately $5 (£4) per user per month just to cover the expenses.
Apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync, and ReddPlanet were initially created as alternatives for users to access the social media platform on their mobile devices. These third-party apps were established before the platform launched its official mobile app in 2016.
As part of its preparations for an initial public offering (IPO), the platform has introduced a new policy requiring developers to pay $12,000 for every 50 million API requests. For the developer of Apollo, this means an estimated annual cost of $20 million to utilize Reddit’s APIs.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has supported the platform’s decision by emphasizing the importance of being a “self-sustaining business.” He acknowledged the need for the platform to establish a sustainable financial model that ensures its long-term viability and growth.
He said:
We respect it when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private.
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