Four days after the start of the platform-wide protests, Reddit's CEO is going on the offensive. In several interviews on Thursday, Steve Huffman assured that his company would stick to the criticised plans for access via the API and announced rule changes that could replace recalcitrant moderators. That, in turn, is a red line for protesters. If Reddit does indeed do this, the conflict is likely to escalate further. Reddit says that the effects of the protest are not significant and most of the platform is working normally, with data to back up their claim.
Blackout only partially over
As part of the protest, most of the so-called subreddits were switched to non-public by the unpaid moderators on Monday and Tuesday to send a signal against the high prices that Reddit wants to charge for API access as early as July. Third-party applications rely on the API and because of the high costs associated with it and the particularly short notice of the prices, most are discontinuing the service. This also makes the mods' work in moderating the communities more difficult, because many tools that are helpful for this are not available in the official app. In the meantime, large parts of the platform are accessible again, but several thousand subreddits remain closed, including many particularly popular ones.