Thousands of Subreddits Pledge to Remain Dark to Protest Reddit API Change
The protest against Reddit’s controversial effort to charge access to its API was expected to end today. But it looks like thousands of subreddits will remain dark in an effort to pressure Reddit to abandon its plan.
The protest started on Monday, and culminated in over 8,400 subreddits going private, preventing millions of users from accessing or posting to the platform’s most popular forum pages, such as r/nba, r/science, and r/videos.
The protest was supposed to last 48 hours, but as of Wednesday morning, around 6,500 subreddits remained private, according(Opens in a new window) to Reddark, which is tracking the protests. Participating subreddits include r/aww, r/funny, and r/music — all of which have tens of millions of followers.
“If or when /r/aww(Opens in a new window) returns will depend on Reddit's continued responses to the situation,” the subreddit posted on its page, which continues to block access. Others such as r/video and r/nba mention they’ve gone private “indefinitely” to protest the API change.
Reddit didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But CEO Steve Huffman sent a memo to employees telling them the ongoing blackout “will pass,” as other Reddit protests have, The Verge reports(Opens in a new window).
“We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as much,” Huffman said. “We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor.”
The memo apparently prompted one forum moderator to call on(Opens in a new window) the protesting subreddits to remain dark indefinitely. “300+ subs have already announced that they are in it for the long haul, prepared to remain private or otherwise inaccessible indefinitely until Reddit
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