Reddit blackout: why your favourite subreddits are unavailable

Today (June 12), Reddit users will have noticed that many of the social media site’s subreddits are either missing, set to private, or in read-only mode. That’s because many subreddit moderators are participating in a site-wide blackout — here’s why, who’s taking part, and when the blackout is expected to end.

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Earlier in the month, Reddit announced that from July it will start charging third-party developers significant fees to access its Application Programming Interface (API) — which third-party Reddit apps, custom extensions, and moderation/accessibility tools rely on to run.

Since the announcement, unofficial Reddit apps like Apollo and Reddit Is Fun have confirmed that they will be closing later this month, as they cannot afford the fees Reddit is proposing.

As reported by Apollo creator Christian Selig, the upcoming changes would see him paying annual costs of £16million ($20million), which he, and other developers shutting down, say they cannot afford.

As a result, many of Reddit’s subreddit communities are taking part in a blackout — meaning they will be going into an unreadable private mode, or preventing any new content from being submitted.

When will the Reddit blackout end?

While some moderators have indicated their blackout will last 48 hours (June 12-14), others have suggested the protest will remain indefinitely if Reddit leadership does not address their concerns.

“Closed Indefinitely for Reddit API Policy Change Protest,” reads a pop-up barring r/music, one of the site’s biggest subreddits with over 32million subscribers.

“/r/aww has gone private due to Reddit’s decision to effectively kill 3rd party applications with their API costs,” reads another subreddit with over 30million subscribers. “If or when /r/aww returns will depend on Reddit’s continued responses to the situation.”

This means that while some subreddits will make their return on June 15, others will likely maintain their blackout unless Reddit announces a walkback or compromise on its API pricing.

Which subreddits are taking part?

The blackout has been joined by all manner of subreddits, ranging from communities with a few thousand members to most of the site’s largest pages. As we detailed last week, that includes many game-specific subreddits, though moderators for all manner of hobbies have signed up for the protest.

Reddit’s biggest subreddit, r/funny, has also signed up for the blackout, labelling the site’s pricing changes as “exorbitant” and locking down its community, which is just shy of 50million subscribers.

A list of protesting subreddits can be found here. While the post names many subreddits taking part, it’s an incomplete list — meaning even more communities are likely to be shutting down for two days.

So far, Reddit has not announced any plans to walk back its controversial API pricing,  though we’ll update this page if anything changes.

In other gaming news, Starfield fans were treated to a host of new information last night — including a look at its sci-fi cities, combat styles and alien telepathy, along with the return of Oblivion‘s scariest character.

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