Over 300 subreddits with millions of users to go dark indefinitely after Reddit CEO’s internal memo goes public

Thousands of Reddit communities protested against the API changes by making subreddits private from Monday to Wednesday. Now, they are gearing up for an indefinite blackout.

By: Tech Desk
New Delhi | June 15, 2023 03:34 PM IST

3 min read

Reddit Blackout | Reddit News | Reddit protests

It looks users won't be able to access popular subreddits in the coming days. (Express Photo)

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After Reddit CEO Steve Huffman’s internal memo telling employees to ‘ignore the temporary blackout’ went public, more than 300 subreddits like r/aww, r/videos, r/futurology and r/music have decided to go dark indefinitely.

On Monday, more than 8000 communities with millions of members decided to protest against Reddit’s API pricing by making the pages private till June 14. While Huffman said that the protesting subreddits constitute only a small part of the online community and that it did not have a significant impact on the company’s revenue, a tweet suggested that the blackout impacted a large portion of Reddit’s activity.

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Subreddits like r/Android, r/GooglePixel and r/AndroidApps which are some of Reddit’s largest communities centred around the Android operating system have also decided to extend the blackout till June 20 and are showing readiness to join other subreddits in the indefinite blackout.

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Why are Reddit communities protesting?

After generative AI took over the internet, Reddit decided to capitalise on it and charge API users who wanted to use the data on the website to train AI tools. Last month, Reddit announced that it would start charging API fees, following which third-party Reddit app Apollo developer Christian Selig estimated that it would cost him roughly $20 million per year to keep the app alive.

With Reddit not ready to change its stance on the issue, third-party Reddit clients like Apollo, Sync, Redplant and Rif have decided to shut down at the end of the month, but others are still negotiating with the company to bring down their operational costs.

Soon after, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman shared an internal memo with the company employees saying ‘there’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well.’ It remains to be seen if Reddit will take over communities that are protesting against the change and make them public again or make some changes to its API pricing.

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