Reddit Experiences Backlash Over Controversial Reason
The online discussion forum, Reddit, is currently facing significant backlash from its users, moderators, and third-party apps, resulting in widespread protests. In a 48-hour protest against the company’s new API pricing policy, thousands of subreddits went private, causing a massive outage on Monday. As a result, frustrated users are still unable to access most of the popular communities. The new API pricing policy has been dubbed a “third-party app killer,” prompting Reddit users and moderators to take drastic measures. Let’s delve into what exactly this policy entails and why it has sparked such a strong reaction.
What made the subreddits go dark?
On April 18, 2023, Reddit announced that it would begin charging third parties for its application programming interface (API)—a software framework that allows a data provider and an end user to communicate with each other. The company plans to use it from July 1.
As a result, Reddit charges developers who require higher usage limits $0.24 for every 1,000 API requests. Apollo, a third-party Reddit app for iOS, said that at their current usage, payments would cost more than $20 million a year.
Why is Reddit changing its API policy?
According to Reddit, one of the main reasons is generative artificial intelligence. The platform’s discussion forums have a lot of information that can be used to train tools like ChatGPT, a Microsoft-backed OpenAI viral chatbot. While some of this data may be collected in an unstructured way, Reddit’s API makes it easy to find and connect businesses directly.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in an interview with the New York Times in April that “Reddit data is really valuable” and he doesn’t “need to give all that value to some of the biggest companies in the world for free.”
When will the subreddit blackout end and who will it affect?
Thousands of subreddits – forums devoted to a specific Reddit topic – are resisting the change, and most of their moderators have planned a 48-hour blackout during which the pages will go private, meaning millions of users will be without access.
Subreddits such as r/Music, r/gaming, r/science and r/todayilearned – all with over 30 million subscribers – participate. Some people who like r/Music are going to protest indefinitely.
Unlike most other social media platforms, Reddit relies heavily on community moderators, “or mods,” who moderate their subreddits for free to weed out offensive or illegal content.
Will Reddit change its policy?
Huffman noted the frustration among many Reddit community moderators on Friday, but said the company can no longer support commercial entities that require large-scale data usage because it needs to be a “self-sustaining business.”
