Hundreds of reddit forum moderators, known as subreddits, Monday protested the company’s plans to charge outside developers access to data needed to run apps on the site. , blocked access to the group.
Many said the new pricing could wipe out some of the most popular third-party apps that many people rely on to browse and comment on the site. Some say the accusations have created uncertainty about the tools moderators use to manage discussions. An estimated 57 million people visit the platform daily.
Reddit announced in April that it would start charging some of its largest users for access to its application programming interface (API). An API is a way for external entities to download and process the vast number of memes, GIFs, videos, and conversations of social networks. thread.
Reddit gives such a valuable asset to companies like Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft that use Reddit data to develop artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley see as the next big thing. He said he didn’t want to transfer any more.
“Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize for-profit entities that require large-scale data usage,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said Friday. mentioned in the article.Please ask me anything” discussion on the site.
However, the accusations sparked a major backlash among volunteer moderators from the site’s diverse community, who announced they would block access to the group for at least 48 hours starting Monday in what they described as a coordinated protest.
moderator of Some of the Most Popular on Reddit Subreddit — includes r/funnywith over 40 million members, r/game, r/music and R/ScienceEach has more than 30 million members, who joined the protest by setting their pages to private and posting messages denouncing the new terms and pricing.
Hosts of many small groups also blacked out as part of the demonstration.
A Reddit spokesperson said the protests made it difficult for some users to access Reddit because “a significant number of subreddits have gone private and caused expected stability issues.” He added that the issue had been resolved.
Developers of some popular apps said they would have to shut down their apps because of the new pricing structure.
Apollo, an iOS app widely praised within the mobile developer community for its design interface and rich functionality, is set to shut down on June 30th. Post on Reddit By developer Christian Selig. He said Apollo would have to pay $20 million a year under the new pricing structure.
“Needless to say, I don’t have that kind of money and I don’t even know how to top up my credit card,” he wrote.
At least three other Reddit apps (rif is fun for Reddit, ReddPlanet, and Sync) have also announced plans to shut down on June 30, citing unreasonable costs, the technology news site reported. The Verge report.
moderator of r/blindsThe group, a hub for the visually impaired with more than 20,000 members, is accused of using a third party that translates Reddit text into speech and allows blind people to participate in discussions on the site. said that apps made by it could be threatened.
Noah Carver, one of the R/Blind moderators, said in a statement on behalf of his group: world; and it would also greatly disrupt the blind, and disabled, community in general that has thrived on Reddit despite the company’s perceived indifference. “
Since its founding in 2005, Reddit has been known for respecting freedom of speech, freedom of code, and freedom of data, according to Sarah Gilbert, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University who studies content moderation. , which allows users to build tools and apps on the site and data ethics.She is also the moderator of r/ ask a historian subreddit, participated in protests.
Gilbert said the pricing plan could undermine the platform’s volunteer-driven culture that sets it apart from other social media sites.
“It’s not just that people are unhappy because they can’t use their favorite apps,” she said in an interview. “It’s about loss of community, or fear of loss of community.”
Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said the company has been in touch with various Reddit communities to “clarify any confusion regarding the timing of the Data API terms, platform-wide policies, community support resources and new moderator tools.” said.
He said Reddit spends millions on internet hosting and “needs a fair payout to continue supporting popular third-party apps.”
“Our pricing is based on usage levels that we measure to be comparable to our own costs,” he said in an email.
Rathschmidt added that some apps are more efficient and require significantly fewer API calls, adding that “Apollo is noticeably less efficient than other third-party apps.”
“Most API users do not need to pay for access. I was.
