Why Are Thousands of Subreddits Going Dark?
2023-06-17
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1Reddit is a social media website where people with common interests can have conversations by posting comments, videos and images.
2Posts are grouped into communities, called subreddits, based on different subjects.
3Thousands of popular Reddit communities, including groups about technology, gaming, and music, locked out their users recently in protest.
4People who organize the communities, called moderators, are protesting the company's plan to charge for access to its data.
5Starting next month, Reddit said third-party app developers, people who make apps but do not work for Reddit, will have to pay for its application programming interface (API).
6It is a programming system that permits a data provider and end-user to communicate with each other.
7Reddit plans to charge developers that require higher usage limits $0.24 for every 1,000 API calls or less than $1 per user every month.
8One such third-party app is the Apollo app.
9It is popular among Reddit users as a way to get content from the official Reddit page.
10Apollo said that with their current usage, the charges would cost more than $20 million a year.
11And the developer added that the costly charges have "made it impossible" to continue offering the service.
12Christian Selig, the creator of the Apollo app for Reddit, said that the service will close on June 30.
13One of the reasons that Reddit is making the change is generative artificial intelligence (AI).
14Generative AI can create new content, like images, videos, music, text, or other forms of data.
15Conversations on Reddit have a lot of data that can be used to train generative AI tools such as ChatGPT.
16While some of this data can be collected in an unstructured way, Reddit's API makes it easier for companies to directly find and collect the data.
17Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman told The New York Times in April that Reddit's data "is really valuable."
18And he said he does not want to "give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free."
19Thousands of subreddits, including r/Music, r/gaming, r/science, and r/todayilearned, are protesting the move.
20They all have more than 30 million followers.
21Unlike most other social media services, Reddit is heavily dependent on community moderators who police their subreddits for free to deal with offensive or illegal content.
22And the moderators planned a blackout during which their pages will go private.
23That means millions of users will be left without access to those communities.
24Huffman noted the anger among many moderators of Reddit communities.
25But he said the company cannot let companies use large amounts of its data for free and Reddit needs to be able to support itself.
26I'm Gregory Stachel.
1Reddit is a social media website where people with common interests can have conversations by posting comments, videos and images. Posts are grouped into communities, called subreddits, based on different subjects. 2Thousands of popular Reddit communities, including groups about technology, gaming, and music, locked out their users recently in protest. People who organize the communities, called moderators, are protesting the company's plan to charge for access to its data. 3Starting next month, Reddit said third-party app developers, people who make apps but do not work for Reddit, will have to pay for its application programming interface (API). It is a programming system that permits a data provider and end-user to communicate with each other. 4Costly to developers 5Reddit plans to charge developers that require higher usage limits $0.24 for every 1,000 API calls or less than $1 per user every month. 6One such third-party app is the Apollo app. It is popular among Reddit users as a way to get content from the official Reddit page. 7Apollo said that with their current usage, the charges would cost more than $20 million a year. And the developer added that the costly charges have "made it impossible" to continue offering the service. 8Christian Selig, the creator of the Apollo app for Reddit, said that the service will close on June 30. 9Why is Reddit making the change? 10One of the reasons that Reddit is making the change is generative artificial intelligence (AI). Generative AI can create new content, like images, videos, music, text, or other forms of data. 11Conversations on Reddit have a lot of data that can be used to train generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. While some of this data can be collected in an unstructured way, Reddit's API makes it easier for companies to directly find and collect the data. 12Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman told The New York Times in April that Reddit's data "is really valuable." And he said he does not want to "give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free." 13Who is affected by the Reddit blackout? 14Thousands of subreddits, including r/Music, r/gaming, r/science, and r/todayilearned, are protesting the move. They all have more than 30 million followers. 15Unlike most other social media services, Reddit is heavily dependent on community moderators who police their subreddits for free to deal with offensive or illegal content. 16And the moderators planned a blackout during which their pages will go private. That means millions of users will be left without access to those communities. 17Huffman noted the anger among many moderators of Reddit communities. But he said the company cannot let companies use large amounts of its data for free and Reddit needs to be able to support itself. 18I'm Gregory Stachel. 19Reuters reported this story. Gregory Stachel adapted it for VOA Learning English. 20______________________________________________________________ 21Words in This Story 22access - n. a way of being able to use or get something 23app - n. a computer program that performs a special function 24interface - n. a system that controls the way information is shown to a computer user and the way the user is able to work with the computer 25generate - v. to produce (something) or cause (something) to be produced 26blackout - n. a situation in which some kind of information are deliberately kept from the public 27substitute - n. a person or thing that takes the place of someone or something else 28_____________________________________________________________ 29What do you think of this story? 30We want to hear from you. We have a new comment system. Here is how it works: 31Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here.