Last weekend Apollo, Sync, RIF, BaconReader and almost all the other “third-party apps” that allowed access to all Reddit content while having functions not available in the official company app they quit to function. We knew it would happen: in early June, Reddit executives announced that starting July 1, access to its “APIs” – the programming interfaces that, simplified, allow other applications to access Reddit data and then to build apps like Apollo and RIF – it would have stopped being free and would have actually started to be very expensive.
For example, Apollo developer Christian Selig estimated that he would have to pay more than 18.5 million euros a year to continue using the API as he did before. Given that most of the “third-party apps” were not developed for profit and were not profitable, the change essentially forced their developers to shut them down.
API-based “third-party apps” were loved by Reddit users because they allowed them to greatly customize their browsing experience and because Reddit didn’t have its own app until 2016, so for a decade users had to use override those developed by third parties. In particular, disabled people who for one reason or another find it difficult to read and see the contents on the company’s official app still relied heavily on it, as did the volunteers who act as moderators of the various subreddits (i.e. the thematic forums into which the platform is divided), who massively used external apps and bots to intervene more effectively and quickly to manage communities that often host hundreds of thousands of people.
To try to avoid the shutdown of these apps, the largest and most prolonged protest in Reddit’s history was held for over two weeks in June. Between June 10 and 12, eight thousand subreddits were made private, and thus virtually inaccessible, by their moderators, in a major effort to get company management to listen to the concerns and concerns of those parts of the community who moderate and animate. the platform for free for years.
Reddit has made some concessions to its users: it said it will exempt apps focused on disabled features from paying for APIs and promised to make its main app more accessible in the next couple of months. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has otherwise opted for a hardline approach, first comparing the moderators to a “landed gentry” with no legitimacy, as they are not democratically elected, and then threatening to remove them from their role if they do not reopened their subreddits to the public.
Between June 26 and 27, various moderators of large subreddits with millions of members that were still private, including r/firefox (dedicated to the well-known browser) and r/apple (dedicated to the tech company that makes iPhones and Macs), they told to the US newspaper dedicated to technology The Verge that they received a message from a Reddit employee informing them that they would lose their moderator status by the end of the week. “If you reply to let us know that you are interested in continuing to actively moderate this community, we will consider your request,” the message read. Historically, subreddit moderators are not imposed from above but are chosen among the most active users of the community, helping to shape the rules of conduct over months or years.
With other moderators, Reddit employees were more aggressive: The Verge he says some have received messages saying: “This community cannot continue to remain closed to its millions of members, and will not continue to be closed beyond the deadline we have communicated to you”.
Partly to prevent their communities from ending up being moderated by strangers, partly because the closure of subreddits in protest was initially scheduled for only 48 hours, most of the 8,000 forums that closed in June now have reopened to the public, although about two thousand are still inaccessible.
However, other creative forms of protest have developed among the large subreddits that have opened. r/firefox, for example, currently no longer accepts new content that talks about the browser: all the most recent posts are dedicated to red pandas instead. “All previously posted tech posts will remain available so people looking for answers to Firefox questions will find more, but as of now, and until Reddit admins appropriately address our concerns, the only new posts allowed will be those that contain the cute furry animals from which our subreddit indirectly received its name», wrote a moderator, referring to the fact that in English red pandas are also known as “fire foxes”. Moderators said that in the undefined future, browser-related posts will be allowed again.
The subreddits r/femalefashionadvice and r/malefashionadvice, dedicated to fashion advice, have started accepting only posts in which users pretend to be in the 19th century, thus asking for advice on corsets and garters or making jokes about how to dress for events described in Jane Austen’s books. Others changed their community category to “NSFW” (not suitable for under 18s), so that Reddit couldn’t monetize what they posted, since advertisers don’t normally want to be associated with that kind of content. In these cases, Reddit removed various moderators and called this type of protest “unacceptable”.
In response to Huffman’s allegations that average Reddit users were tired of the protests and just wanted to get back to normal, but were being challenged by moderators who wanted to continue protesting without being asked, some very large subreddits like r/r/pics, r/gifs, r/video er/aww they asked to their subscribers if they agree with a new rule: that of only publishing posts dedicated to the English comedian John Oliver, host of the popular show Last Week Tonight. Their communities voted overwhelmingly in favor of the new rules, and for days Reddit was flooded with photos, videos and gifs of John Oliver in the most absurd situations.
However, dozens of moderators expressed their concerns about Reddit’s “threatening behavior” in a post on r/ModCoord. “Voluntary moderators are the lifeblood of Reddit communities,” wrote user u/demmian. “Our dedication shapes the success of the platform. It’s imperative that Reddit listen to our concerns and work with us to maintain the vibrant communities that make Reddit what it is. Until our voices are heard and our demands are met, we will continue to protest.”
“The protests demonstrated how crucial the Reddit community is to the site and also revealed the limits of that community’s power,” wrote about The Verge reporter Jay Peters. Especially in the early days, when thousands of subreddits were closed to the public, it was evident how much Reddit depends on original content created by its users. “Reddit communities have grown because the platform has empowered moderators: unpaid users who have worked hard to build the helpful, wacky, and sometimes downright weird spaces that have made Reddit the institution it is. The company generally trusted those moderators to do good for their communities and interfered only in rare circumstances. But now, Reddit is reporting that he has always been able to take back control at will.”
