Reddit, the “front page of the internet,” is making front-page news today, as many of the site’s moderators have made their communities private or restricted to protest recent changes to the platform.
Many of the platform’s largest subreddits, including r/pics, r/gaming and r/music, are preventing users from viewing or posting in an effort to draw attention to announced changes that would charge third-party apps to access Reddit’s content — a move third-party developers say would put their applications out of business.
The changes, slated to begin on July 1, will charge external applications for accessing Reddit’s content — a service that has been free of charge until now.
Apollo will close down on June 30th. Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue. Thank you so, so much for all the support over the years. ❤️ <a href=”https://t.co/HOJaLMW8fx”>https://t.co/HOJaLMW8fx</a>
—@ChristianSelig
Christian Selig, the Halifax-based developer behind the iOS app Apollo, which offers users an alternative viewing experience to the official Reddit app, announced in a tweet Thursday that his app would be forced to shut down at the end of this month because of the changes.
Several Canadian subreddits have also joined the protest, including r/Canada, r/OnGuardForThee and many province- and city-focused spaces.
However, other communities remain active and open for users, including r/politics, r/news and r/worldnews.
The blackout also was also the cause behind a general Reddit outage this morning, during which all content on the site was inaccessible — a Reddit spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that “a significant number of subreddits shifting to private caused some expected stability issues.”
More to come
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