More than 8,000 subreddits were dark as of Tuesday afternoon, according to a tracker and live Twitch stream of the boycott.
WASHINGTON — Thousands of Reddit discussion forums have gone dark this week to protest a new policy that will charge some third-party apps to access data on the site, leading to worries about content moderation and accessibility.
“Reddit is killing third-party applications ,” other subreddits wrote in posts seen on the platform’s homepage. Reddit, a subsidiary of New York-based Advance Publications, says supporting large, high-usage third-party developers to access its data is too expensive. The company also notes that the new fees will only apply to eligible apps that require high usage limits, and the majority of API users will not have to pay for access.What is API? And how is Reddit changing access to third-party apps? In short, an API allows computer programs to communicate with each another.
Not all third-party apps will be charged, as the policy is based on usage levels, and noncommercial, accessibility-focused apps will also continue with free access, the company said. Reddit also noted that API access will remain free for moderator tools and bots. “While Reddit has promised that moderation tools will not be affected by changes to the API, many moderators rely on third party apps and access to data archives to effectively do their work,” Sarah Gilbert, postdoctoral associate at Cornell University and Citizens and Technology Lab research manager, said in a statement — later pointing to how risks of moderator burnout and essential retention.
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