Numerous Reddit users continue to report the inability to access thousands of subreddits due to the shutdown performed by moderators. Although the measure was initially for only 48 hours, there are many moderators who extended it indefinitely.
Popular subreddits such as r/music, r/videos and r/nba remained closed. The protest was sparked by Reddit’s intention to impose charges for access to its API. The annoyance is generated not so much by the decision to charge a fee, but by the excessive amount that developers would be charged.
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The pricing announcement was made in April, but specific rates were only released on June 1. The values will be effective as of July 1, which does not offer much room for companies to adjust.
What is the reason for the Reddit protests?
After the announcement of the API charge, complaints were heard because it is a decision that also affects third-party applications. That is, any type of service that uses Reddit’s tools or APIs to access information will be charged a fee.
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In fact, those users who log in to Reddit through third-party apps will also be affected. The goal of this is to monetize the platform for all those researchers who use it for training in artificial intelligence.
The Reddit outage that was to be held for 48 hours in protest of this policy change was extended indefinitely. It is for this reason that many subreddits still remain inaccessible. Even during the start of the outage, the Reddit website itself was inaccessible. Many subreddits went from public to private at the same time, which is why the servers experienced problems. Some of them have millions of subscribers, but remain private despite the fact that the initial 48 hours of protest have passed.
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A solution does not seem to be in sight, as the popular content platform sent a message to the moderators participating in the protest, urging them to return to work. If not, they were informed that they will look for replacements in order to reopen the subreddits. “If there are mods here who are willing to work to reopen this community, we are willing to work with you to process a top mod removal request.”
Reddit’s CEO, with optimism
At the moment, there is no news on whether the protests will continue or if the subreddits will be accessible soon. For his part, Reddit CEO Mike Huffman spoke to the social network’s employees and informed them that they should continue working as usual. He added that the outage the platform is experiencing has not affected Reddit’ s revenue and that this protest, like others, will come to an end soon. He made no reference to whether any type of action will be taken in the event that the protest continues, beyond the request to the moderators to resume their work in the forums.
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