Planned Protest Causes Reddit Outage
Reddit has gone offline due to a planned protest against the company’s new policy, which will render third-party apps unenforceable. Many Reddit communities turned “private,” with others going dark, in one of the largest protests on the site to date. The protest centres on Reddit’s new API pricing policy. It will lead to an increase in developer costs, which could prove cost-prohibitive and cause large numbers of third-party Reddit app operators to shut down. The new policy is set to take effect on 1 July 2023. AsumeTech has received numerous comments about the outage, with Twitter awash with complaints.
Technical Issues and Cause of Reddit Outage
Despite initially showing an all-clear status for its website in the face of user reports that the Reddit homepage wouldn’t load, Reddit updated its status page to reflect the outage soon after. When attempting to load the site, a message will display saying, “Something went wrong. Just don’t panic,” with a pop-up stating, “Sorry, we couldn’t load posts for this page.” Reddit’s Status page is aware of the problem loading content and is working to resolve the issues. The cause or ETA to a resolution hasn’t yet been given.
A Reddit representative has confirmed the outage resulted from the planned protest, in which a large number of subreddits turning private were expected to cause issues and lead to stability problems. “A significant number of subreddits shifting to private caused some expected stability issues, and we’ve been working on resolving the anticipated issue,” said Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt.
The Impact of Reddit’s New API Pricing Policy
The primary cause of the protest is Reddit’s new API pricing policy, which will hike developer costs. Some of the largest third-party Reddit app operators are likely to be unable to absorb the resulting costs and may go out of business. Last week, Reddit’s CEO, known as u/spez on the platform, conducted an AMA session on the site, in which he addressed community concerns around the subject. However, he failed to indicate that the policy decision would be revisited despite the widespread backlash. The AMA also saw the executive criticise the developer of one of Reddit’s most popular third-party apps, Apollo, further angering its users.
Impact on Accessibility-Focused Communities
Aside from the concerns of developers, some of Reddit’s accessibility-focused communities have expressed concerns that the shutdown of their preferred third-party apps will impede their ability to access Reddit suitably. Reddit has stated that some accessible apps would be exempt from the new API policy when it takes effect on 1 July 2023.
Large Communities Involved in Protest
Over 5,000 subreddits signed up to participate in the protest, including many of Reddit’s biggest groups such as r/aww, r/videos, r/Futurology, r/LifeHacks, r/bestof, r/gaming, r/Music, r/Pics, r/todayilearned, r/art, r/DIY, r/gadgets, r/sports, r/mildlyinteresting and others. Some communities, such as r/iPhone, decided to remain private indefinitely, while others switched their forums to private visibility just for the protest period affecting their visibility within and outside Reddit search engines.
Resolution of Outage
Reddit’s status page is monitoring the site, stating, “We’re observing improvements across the site and expect issues to recover for most users. We will continue to closely monitor the situation.” The ongoing situation will undoubtedly be a hot topic across social media platforms in the coming days.
Updated, 6/12/23, 11:31 PM ET with Reddit comment; story has been updated at other indicated times to reflect current status.
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from Technology - Asume Tech https://asumetech.com/reddit-faces-outage-as-communities-go-dark-in-protest-of-controversial-policy/
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