Hundreds of subreddits of all sizes and topics—including some of the big ones—will temporarily go dark beginning on June 12 in protest of changes to Reddit's API that they say will make it effectively impossible for third-party apps to operate.
Reddit first announced its plans for new Developer Terms in April, saying that while the release of its data API in 2008 enabled the creation of "thousands of fantastic applications" including moderation tools and bots of various sorts, it's time for changes to be made. "Expansive access to data has impact, and as a platform with one of the largest corpora of human-to-human conversations online, spanning the past 18 years, we have an obligation to our communities to be responsible stewards of this content," Reddit chief technology officer Chris Slowe wrote.
