The moderators of hundreds of Reddit forums, known as subreddits, closed access to their groups Monday in protest of the company’s plan to charge for access to the data third-party developers need to run apps on. to run the site.
Many said the new pricing scheme could kill some of the most popular third-party apps that many users rely on to browse and interact with the site. Others said the allegations had created uncertainty about the tools moderators use to manage discussions. An estimated 57 million people visit the platform every day.
Reddit announced in April that it would charge some large-scale users for access to its application programming interface, or API, the method by which third-party entities download and process the social network’s huge selection of memes, gifs, videos, and conversations. wires.
Reddit said it no longer wanted to give away such a valuable asset to companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft, which have used Reddit’s data to develop artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley see as the next big thing.
“Reddit must be a self-sustaining company, and to do that we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require massive data usage,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in an “Ask Me Anything” discussion Friday. on the website.
But the allegations have sparked a major backlash from volunteer moderators from the site’s diverse communities, who said they would be closing access to their groups for at least 48 hours starting Monday in what they called a coordinated protest.
Moderators from some of Reddit’s most popular subreddits — including r/funny, with more than 40 million members, and r/gaming, r/Music, and r/science, each with more than 30 million members — joined the protest by their pages to private and post messages denouncing the new terms and prices.
Moderators from much smaller groups had also darkened as part of the demonstration.
For a brief period on Monday, the protest made it difficult for some users to access Reddit, as “a significant number of subreddits going private caused some expected stability issues,” a Reddit spokesperson said, adding that the issues were resolved.
The developers of several popular apps said they would have to shut them down due to the new pricing system.
Apollo, an iOS app widely acclaimed within the mobile developer community for its design interface and extensive features, is set to close on June 30, according to a post on Reddit by its developer, Christian Selig. He said that under the new pricing schedule, Apollo would have to pay $20 million annually.
“I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have that kind of money or even know how to take it off a credit card,” he wrote.
At least three other Reddit apps — Reef is Fun for Reddit, ReddPlanet and Sync — also announced plans to shut down on June 30, citing what they called unreasonable costs, tech news site The Verge reported.
The moderators of r/blind, a hub for blind and low vision users with more than 20,000 members, said the charges could threaten third-party apps that translate Reddit text into speech and allow blind and low vision users to participate in discussions about the website.
Noah Carver, one of the r/blind moderators, said in a statement on behalf of his group: “The proposed changes to Reddit’s API will not only isolate blind users from a social network used by millions, disconnect us from of the wider world; they will also largely decimate communities for the blind — and disabled people in general — who have thrived on Reddit despite the company’s perceived indifference.
Since its founding in 2005, Reddit has been known for embracing freedom of speech, freedom of code and freedom of data, allowing users to build tools and apps around the site, said Sarah Gilbert, a Cornell University postdoctoral fellow who studies content moderation. and data ethics. She is also a moderator of the r/AskHistorians subreddit, which joined the protest.
Ms. Gilbert said the pricing plan could undermine the platform’s volunteer-driven culture, setting it apart from other social media sites.
“It’s not just about people being unhappy that they can’t have their favorite app anymore,” she said in an interview. “It’s about the loss of community or the fear of losing community.”
Tim Rathschmidt, a Reddit spokesperson, said the company has reached out to several Reddit communities to “clear up any confusion around our Data API terms, platform-wide policies, community support resources and timing for new moderator tools.”
He said Reddit spends millions of dollars on internet hosting costs and “needs to be paid fairly to continue supporting common third-party apps.”
“Our prices are based on usage levels that we measure to be comparable to our own costs,” he wrote in an email.
Mr. Rathschmidt added that some apps are more efficient and require significantly fewer API calls and that “Apollo is clearly less efficient than other third-party apps.”
“The vast majority of API users don’t have to pay for access; not all third-party app usage requires paid access,” he wrote, adding that access is “free for moderator tools and bots.”
In response to accessibility concerns raised by groups like r/blind, Mr. Rathschmidt said the company had offered waivers from the new pricing to non-commercial apps that address accessibility issues. Several of those developers have signed agreements with Reddit, he said.
