Reddit protest updates: news on the apps shutting down and Reddit’s fights with mods

Reddit protest updates: news on the apps shutting down and Reddit’s fights with mods

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Changes to the Reddit API have forced beloved apps like Apollo to shut down, and following the protests, mods are feeling threatened by Reddit.

It happened: popular third-party Reddit apps like Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader have shut down due to the company’s planned API changes.

Ever since Apollo for Reddit developer Christian Selig revealed he’d be on the hook for $20 million per year due to the changes, Redditors have been furious over how the updates might affect third-party apps. More than 8,000 of Reddit’s communities went dark as a part of a coordinated protest.

Though Reddit announced it would exempt accessibility-focused apps from the pricing changes, things looked grim for other developers. On June 8th, Selig announced he would have to shut down Apollo, and soon after, other developers said they’d be shutting down their apps, too.

As the protests have gone on, Reddit has pushed moderators to reopen. While some have returned with their own spins on the protest, Reddit has told some mods of at least one community that it “will not” stay private and warned moderators of some closed ones that it will remove them — and it seems like Reddit’s efforts may have worked.

That said, the company is bringing back its r/Place collaborative project on July 20th, and some users are already thinking about how to use the canvas to share their unhappiness toward Reddit.

Here’s our coverage of the changes and unrest on Reddit.