Reddit blackout: More than three thousand groups ‘strike’ due to the platform’s new policy

Reddit has officially begun its strike. Millions of users of the popular platform will not be able to access communities in the coming days as moderators have revolted against the platform due to the latest policy on high prices for accessing Reddit’s API.

It is expected that more than three thousand subreddit groups will not operate for at least 48 hours, although many moderators have announced that they will not operate for longer. Some of the largest subreddits, including r/apple, r/videos, r/sports, and r/MildlyInteresting, have already blocked public access to their pages.

If you now enter any of these subreddits, you will encounter a notice ‘This is a private community. We stand in solidarity with many people who need access to the API, including bot developers, individuals with greater accessibility needs (r/blind), and users of third-party applications (Apollo and Sync)’.

Namely, there are four types of communities on Reddit; public, restricted, private, and premium. When a subreddit is private, the only way to view it is if a moderator grants you direct access, which moderators are currently refusing due to the so-called ‘blackout’.

Starting July 1, Reddit wants to charge third-party application developers such as Apollo and Sync, which are designed to help users navigate the site, for collecting data such as user posts and reader comments.

Application developers claim that the API fees are too high. From Apollo, for example, they claim they are forced to pay Reddit $20 million annually, so starting July 1, they will be forced to cease operations.

A company spokesperson stated that Reddit spends millions on hosting its content and that ‘it needs to be fairly compensated to continue supporting third-party applications’.

Over the weekend, Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman, broke his silence on the outrage brought by the platform’s new policy, stating that ‘Reddit needs to be self-sustaining, and to achieve that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require high data usage’.

In addition to charging third parties for data, Reddit plans to eliminate around 90 jobs and reduce hiring. The company currently has about two thousand permanent employees.