Reddit

Reddit moderators who participated in protests against the company’s API charges say that they have been replaced by individuals who lack subject matter expertise. They say this is leading to dangerous advice being posted and going unchallenged in subreddits ranging from food canning to 3D printing of firearms …

Reddit protests have been continuing, despite threats by the company to take over subreddits which refuse to end them. The company has now carried out its threat against one of the biggest subreddits – a move which seems set to backfire.

Additionally, a fun crowdsourced art project on Reddit is now being used to post messages protesting against the company’s decision to charge extortionate amounts for API access …

Reddit recently implemented significant changes to its API, which resulted in many third-party apps giving up on the platform. And now that the official Reddit app is pretty much the only way to access the social network on the phone, the company wants to push users to pay for its Premium tier.

This week, the Reddit iOS app was updated with an ugly new icon. And if you don’t like it, you’ll need to pay to change it.

When your business model is selling eyeballs to advertisers, it’s hard to imagine anything dumber than blocking access to your own site and telling users to go outside instead, yet somehow Twitter rate limits are a real thing.

But analysis suggests that this may be even dumber than we thought, as it appears to be a Twitter bug that created the “emergency” that saw the rate limits introduced in the first place …

Apollo is probably one of the most popular Reddit clients on Apple platforms. However, due to the latest changes announced by Reddit, most third-party clients are being shut down – and Apollo is one of them. With its last-ever update, Apollo has added an option that lets current subscribers reject a refund when the app is removed from the App Store. At the same time, users can download a special set of wallpapers.

Despite site-stopping protests by mods and users, Reddit leadership chose to brute force its way through any reasonable way of continuing third-party app support. Instead, the company hopes its luxury-priced API will be its secret shortcut to an overvalued IPO. As a result, Reddit’s official iOS app is being torpedo’d in the App Store.

Reddit threatened multiple moderators of subreddits, after they made the decision to remain closed as a continuing protest against the upcoming API charges that killed the popular third-party app Apollo.

Effectively, they have been told that the subreddit will be taken away from them unless they re-open. Additionally, Reddit is forcing rule changes that are likely to reduce the quality of posts …

The Reddit API backlash continues, with moderators finding a new way to protest: They’ve come up with a simple way to demonetize their subreddits, to ensure the company cannot profit from them.

The latest development has seen moderators removed, and then reinstated, with the company refusing to explain the U-turn …

While CEO Steve Huffman may be dismissive of the thousands of subreddits going dark to protest his planned API changes, new Reddit usage metrics show that the protests had a definite effect.

Analytics data shows that daily visits dropped steadily as the protest unfolded, and average session length fell to the lowest level in three years …

The situation surrounding Reddit’s changes to its API continues to get even weirder. Earlier this year, a ransomware group used a sophisticated phishing attack to steal 80GB of data from Reddit. Now, ransomware group BlackCat is claiming responsibility for that hack and threatening to release that information if Reddit doesn’t reverse its API changes and pay a $4.5 million ransom…

“Anyone else feel like it’s getting hot in here?” That’s what Reddit CEO Steve Huffman would ask if he was remotely aware of the dumpster fire that he continues to fuel around the community he helped build. Instead, the former cofounder and current tyrant has a new plan of attack: Cross him and you’re fired… from moderating… for free… for years.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is continuing his damage control tour, this time via a new interview with The Verge. Despite a large number of subreddits still offline in protest over Reddit’s changes to third-party apps, Huffman is once again doubling down on that decision.

This time, his argument is that the Reddit API – which has been used by third-party apps successfully for years – “was never designed to support third-party apps.”

I’ll save my full opinion on this for the “9to5Mac’s Take” section below… but I’ll give you the gist of it here: “bullshit.”

Reddit CEO u/spez is back from a trip to the landfill with a fresh supply of trash to burn in the company’s ongoing garage fire.

Yesterday we saw the iPhone subreddit kick off the planned protest early that wants Reddit to reconsider its API changes. Today thousands of subreddits have also gone dark, joining the cause. In what may be related to the number of non-functional subreddits, it appears Reddit’s whole platform is now down.

Following Reddit announcing its new API costs for developers that are killing third-party apps like Apollo, one of the most popular Apple-related subreddits has announced it will be starting its protest early. Going further, the mods have shared that it won’t just be limited to a few days, they plan for the iPhone subreddit to go dark until “a reasonable resolution is proposed.”

UGH. We’ve been tracking the negative effect that Reddit’s decision to begin charging for access to its API has had on third-party clients including Apollo. Now the developer of the awesome iPhone and iPad app has announced that API change is forcing Apollo to go offline completely.