Reddit management threatened to take away the moderator's authority if it did not stop protesting and made a fuss, while the CEO praised Elon Mask for messing up Twitter and firing his employees, and the official app review 5 Star ratings are also suspected of manipulation



On April 18, 2023, the online bulletin board Reddit

revealed that it would change multiple terms. Among them, some users and developers who are responsible for the operation of Reddit are repulsed by the change in which APIs that have been provided free of charge will be charged. In addition, it became clear that Reddit's CEO Steve Huffman threatened the moderators who made the subreddit private, ``If you do not stop protesting, you will be stripped of your authority,'' and the conflict between Reddit and users is It's getting deeper and deeper.

Here's the note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don't reopen - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/16/23763538/reddit-blackout-api-protest-mod-replacement-threat

The new API places limits on the number of API requests made by third-party clients and charges for API usage. At the beginning of the announcement, the pricing of the API was not clarified, but in June it turned out that the usage fee was $ 0.24 (about 34 yen) per 1000 requests. Due to this pricing, Reddit's most popular third-party application 'Apollo' protested that 'the new API will cost $ 20 million (about 2.8 billion yen) per year', the day before the charge We have announced that we will end the service on June 30th.

Many communities on Reddit protested these changes to the API Terms, so Reddit has announced an exemption from the API pricing terms, which is ``non-commercial and meets accessibility needs''. ”, which does not apply to commercial third-party apps such as Apollo.

Reddit received a lot of criticism not only from app developers, but also from subreddit moderators, so on June 9, 2023, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman personally announced an AMA (Ask Me Anything: Any questions for me? ) is implemented. Mr. Huffman argued that ``Reddit is always open to dialogue with third-party app developers,'' but he could not convince users, but rather resulted in fueling the fire.

Reddit is on fire due to API charging, CEO responds to the question 'Do you have any questions?' Plan access block of - GIGAZINE



As part of these protests, several subreddits blocked new posts, and made the subreddits private for 48 hours from June 12 to June 14, 2023, blocking external access. It was conducted. Some subreddits have also appeared that express their intention to 'block indefinitely' and 'block until Reddit changes the API policy', not just for 48 hours. In fact, some subreddits are still closed beyond 48 hours.



Reddit's server was

down for 3 hours around June 12, 2023, probably due to the deprivation of over 7,000 subreddits during this period. Subreddits such as r / music with 32 million users and r / videos with 26 million users participate in the activities, and the protests are intensifying, but Mr. Huffman said, `` Private We have sent a message to employees that ' is just noise ' and ' no significant impact on revenue due to protests has been confirmed ', and the management side has instructed them to act calmly.

Mr. Huffman says that the impact of deprivation is small, but according to Internet analysis company Similarweb, the number of accesses to Reddit per day was about 57 million before the protest, but in June after the protest It fell below 55 million on the 13th, showing a decrease of about 6.6%. Also, the time users spent browsing the platform decreased from an average of about 8 minutes 31 seconds to about 7 minutes 17 seconds, which seems to have set the lowest record in the past three years.

In addition, according to information shared by r/Apple moderator @aaronp613, citing Reddit's code of conduct for moderators, ``moderators have a duty to run the community, and reopening a private subreddit. Moderators who do not agree will be removed from the team.' Regarding this, some Reddit users said, ``In an interview with Mr. Huffman published on June 16, 2023, Mr. Huffman said, ``We will not force the community to reopen,'' and this warning. contradicts this,” he protested. He accused the warning of being a threat. On the other hand, Reddit spokesperson Tim Rasschmidt said, 'We're not threatening anyone. We're just telling you how things work. Reddit users want to enjoy Reddit, moderators want to moderate, I We want moderators who want to moderate to be able to do so. '




In the same interview, Mr. Huffman took issue with third-party apps that had built their business on their own business, saying, ``How much profit did they make using our API? I didn't know. This is my responsibility. Reddit is not a charity.' He stressed that taking the subreddit private wouldn't make him rethink the price change.

While these protests are taking place, some subreddits are reporting that 'manually deleted posts are reappearing.' There are theories that a rollback occurred due to a problem with the server or that it was the effect of deprivation, and the Reddit rules established for some countries ``Reddit does not post You can process and modify it as you like.'



While criticism of Reddit and Mr. Huffman is being carried out, there are also indications such as 'Reddit's official app has recently exploded with suspicious 5-star reviews.' A column that ironically evaluates Twitter's Elon Mask CEO, who tried to unify the official application by restricting the API in the same way as Reddit, ``Looks like a strategic genius compared to Mr. Huffman'' has also appeared . It is also reported that Mr. Huffman also referred to Mr. Mask and left a comment that ``I learned excellent business from Mr. Mask.Aggressive cost reduction and personnel reduction deserve praise.'' From this comment, we can see the possibility of drastic reforms in Reddit's internal system, but the personnel reductions that Reddit has made so far have been modest. 90 people, about 5% of the total, were dismissed.'

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