3500 Reddit forums to “go dark” in protest to a new policy regarding third-party apps like Apollo being restricted.
Reddit communities “will be going dark” in protest of third-party app charges.
The chat forum giant will see a protest on Monday (12.06.23) in opposition to their decision to the social network’s move to monetise access to users’ personal data as more than 3,500 subreddits have united together and plan on going on “private” meaning that people without access will be unable to see content posted on feeds like r/todayilearned, r/funny and r/gaming.
Moderators said in a group statement: “On June 12th, many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy. Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed since many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app. This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.”
The proposed ‘API’ policy allows other companies to use Reddit user data in their own business practices and is expected to end the viability of third-party Reddit apps like Apollo, which allows people to search the site with an editable interface.
In April, Steve Huffman, the site’s CEO, told the New York Times: “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable, but we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies.”
3500 Reddit forums to ‘go dark’ in protest to new policy
