The version of Reddit we’ll see in the next few days might be a shell in itself. Hundreds of subreddits have pledged to go dark, and thousands plan to follow suit.
The protests are happening because of API changes that will force many third-party apps, such as Apollo and reef is fun for Reddit, to shut down. There was already frustration in the community as developers started reacting to the changes, but Reddit CEO Steve Huffman’s comments over the past few days haven’t calmed things down.
In a Reddit AMA on Friday, Huffman was met with seemingly universal ire. There were a lot of f-bombs from commentators. a lot by people called it a coward. If there are any positive comments, I haven’t found them.
Before r/videos went private today it was mods wrote that Huffman’s AMA appearance was “a collage of inappropriate comments” and that Reddit’s CEO appeared to have deliberately misinterpreted a conversation the company had with Apollo developer Christian Selig. . However, Selig has posted a recording proving the “threat”. was cleared up as a misunderstanding while they were still calling.
Mods, developers, and have all said that Huffman and other leaders are “liars,” accusing them of ignoring big questions even though they had the most votes, and only the easy ones to answer. According to this post on r/ModCoordwill the protest end when Reddit addresses issues with the API that keep third-party apps, accessibility for the blind, and “parity in access to NSFW content” out.
The biggest complaints are about how Reddit’s leadership may or may not have communicated the details of API pricing changes or inbound restrictions, such as those prohibiting third-party apps from displaying NSFW content that is already viewable on the site. ReddPlanet developer Tony Lupeski said it was a “blatant lie”. that Reddit leadership kept dialogue open with affected third-party developers, as Huffman wrote. “That’s not an answer and you know it,” said the user Anacharsis to the same Huffman replied.
When moderator asked Merari01 why the site hadn’t made sure to research the new changes with users and moderators, Huffman said the company “began sharing this information in April.” Some comments pointed to the earlier announcement did not contain pricing information And details omitted such as banning third-party apps that display NSFW content.
An user pointed to a post on r/History list times Reddit promises had been fulfilled.
Since the AMA, some subreddits have escalated their response. At r/iPhone, the moderators posted early this morning that their original plan was to go dark for only 48 hours, but Huffman’s behavior changed his mind:
The protest was originally scheduled to last 48 hours. However, after a chaotic AMA held by Reddit’s CEO, it has become clear to us that Reddit has no intention of acting in good faith. When the CEO is willing to lie and spread defamatory claims about another third-party developer, then try to double by defaming them again in an AMA, despite the developer being proven a liar through audio recording, then we knew what we were dealing with.
Many of the subreddits that are shutting down say they will only do so for 48 hours. But some are poised to close indefinitely, including r/Music, a standard subscription for new accounts and one of the largest subreddits on the site. Mods from that community put it right in the title of the post announcing his participationwhich says it will close from June 12 “Until Reddit takes back their API policy change.”
r/iPhonewhich has 3.8 million users echoed r/Music’s sentiment by saying, “in the (somewhat unlikely) scenario that Reddit’s leadership experiences a change of course that will see the reversal [of] the recent API policy change, we will reopen the subreddit. r/Gaming says the shutdown begins on the 12th and is set to private “for 48 hours or more”.
At the time of publication, a pinned bot post on the r/ModCoord subs message about the protest says nearly 4,500 communities pledge to go after dark while red darksays a site that tracks the protesting subreddits more than 200 have already done so.
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