Many popular subreddits are temporarily going dark to protest a change in Reddit’s API policy. Most of them will be off the site for 48 hours, but some are going out for a month, with a handful turning off permanently until the issue is resolved.
Some of these subreddits may be ones you follow, so it’s good to be informed why it’s happening.
Major Subreddits Are Going Dark
A Reddit protest is taking place from the 12th of June to the 13th. This protest, organized by a Reddit user named u/toptomcat through r/Save3rdPartyApps, is in response to Reddit’s decision to attach a price to third-party apps for calling to their API.
If you’re unsure what an API is, a quick detour will help with context.
Third-party apps, such as Apollo, Reddit Is Fun, BeaconReader, and others, rely on making calls to the Reddit API to remain functional. In the protest post, it said that the price attached to the API is beyond what’s affordable for the developers behind these third-party apps.
Some of the subreddits going dark are:
Combined, they have more than 150 million subscribers. You can also see the growing list of subreddits that will join the protest in the r/ModCoord subreddit.
In short: there are a lot of subreddits going dark. If you’re an active Redditor, there’s a good chance that one of the subreddits you follow is on that list already, making this a pretty significant protest.
As the protest post states, you can do your part by staying off Reddit on June 12th and 13th and talking about the protest on the other social platforms you regularly use. Even if you are not a user of those third-party apps, many are, and your support could help them, as well as the developers of these free apps.
Why Are These Protests Happening?
If the price hike doesn’t prevent developers from accessing Reddit’s APIs but simply allows them to make a bit of money from it—where’s the harm?
The price hike would read less aggressively if it weren’t for such an excessive amount. As the protest post states, many developers simply don’t have that type of money and will render the third-party apps dead.
These third-party apps allow users on mobile to access old Reddit, which is considered much better than Reddit’s new version by a significant portion of the user base, as well as customize their feeds and utilize the features from Reddit’s Enhancement Suite. In addition, many Reddit moderators rely on third-party features to effectively moderate the subreddits they work on.
API price hikes seem to be becoming a habit among popular social media platforms, with Twitter increasing API access prices after they were previously free. Developers complained about Twitter’s API prices, listed as $42,000 per month, which have been said to have priced out pretty much everyone.
With price hikes like this becoming commonplace from platforms, it is no wonder that developers are fighting back with protests. Social media companies have not exactly been short of controversy with the way they run platforms—users and developers alike have become more jaded with them as time’s gone on. Protests are a natural way to combat price hikes that people deem unfair, but whether they will work is difficult to say.
It’s worth mentioning that protests on social media have, in the past, led to companies backtracking. In 2009, Facebook backtracked on its proposed data policy change after many users protested, as reported by The Guardian.
While not a protest, Twitter backtracked on banning the promotion of other social media platforms after users voted against the ban in a poll by Elon Musk, as reported by Dexerto. Finally, Mashable reported on OnlyFans backtracking from banning sexually explicit content after the user base plummeted after its original announcement.
The point is—users speaking out can and does have an effect. Social media platforms are more likely to backtrack if a significant portion of a user base expresses displeasure at a policy change. It’s the same principle with these Reddit protests; if there’s enough user base drop on the planned days or enough significant subreddits go dark, a backtrack will be Reddit’s best way out of the situation.
Give Your Support for a Freely Accessible Reddit
Protests on Reddit will last throughout the 12th and 13th of June, with many users participating. If you believe in the message behind the protest, you can participate too by staying off the platform on the scheduled days and talking about it on other socials you frequent.
Many would argue that Reddit is the best social media platform, which is why the decision of the company to lock out developers and third-party app functionality behind massive prices is disappointing.
