The Reddit moderator rebellion earlier this year doesn’t seem to have fazed CEO Steve Huffman, who says that AI moderation is part of the solution.
Huffman says that he stands by the company’s decision to charge for API access despite the fact that it was massively unpopular, and led to the demise of the leading Reddit app, Apollo …
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The Narwhal for Reddit app now has confirmed pricing, after surveying the views of users. The developer says that thoughts of tiered subscriptions have been abandoned, and that the app will instead have a single plan costing $3.99 per month.
This is the same as Now for Reddit, which also considered multiple tiers – while Android app Relay is going with usage-based pricing …
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Reddit moderators who participated in protests against the company’s API charges say that they have been replaced by individuals who lack subject matter expertise.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 …
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A form of Reddit verification is currently being tested, in the form of an “official” label for some accounts confirmed as authentic.
For now at least, verification is only available to organizations, and not individuals, and the current test is extremely limited …
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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 …
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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.
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If you’re finding lots of your Reddit chats missing, that is a feature, not a bug, says the site. The company did actually announce the plan, but in a very low-key way …
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Reddit NSFW protestors – moderators who applied the Not Safe For Work flag to their subreddits to prevent monetization – have now been given a “final warning” to remove the label …
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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 …
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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.
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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.
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There’s no sign of any letup in the Reddit controversy. After the company threatened protesting moderators, it’s now facing pushback from moderators with disabilities …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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…
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“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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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Reddit is going dark in protest at Reddit’s new API pricing, after third-party app Apollo was faced with an unaffordable bill of $20M per year. Dozens of the biggest subreddits plan to go private for two days, with hundreds of others joining in.
In other app news, Elon Musk’s claim that Twitter advertisers have returned appears to be misleading …
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Following Twitter’s move to shut down third-party apps earlier this year, it looks like Reddit may be the next platform to kill off (or drastically reduce) popular third-party clients. In a new Reddit thread, Apollo developer Christian Selig has shared details about what Reddit is saying it will cost to use the updated API.
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