Why Is Reddit Unavailable? All About The 2023 Reddit Blackout Protest In Five Minutes

For the past 24 hours, over 8,000 Reddit communities have remained dark to protest an unpopular change introduced by the site threatening to kill third-party apps used to browse it. The protest, joined by giant subreddits such as /r/funny, /r/Music and /r/gaming will last for another day, while some subreddits are planning to stay on lockdown indefinitely until Reddit gives in to its community's demands. Learn why the Reddit user base is staging a massive blackout and when it will end in our brief explainer.

What Is Happening on Reddit?

On June 12th and 13th, 2023, a massive blackout is taking place on Reddit as over 8,000 subreddits have gone into lockdown to protest unpopular changes that will likely kill third-party apps used to browse Reddit, such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun and Nahrwal. The 48-hour protest was announced on June 2nd and began on June 12th, with some communities planning to stay private indefinitely until Reddit gives in to the demands.

Why Are Subreddits Protesting?

Reddit communities are protesting the changes to the API pricing policy announced by Reddit on May 31st. Most notably, Reddit now plans to enforce charges for access to its API (application programming interface). What it means is that entities that send lots of requests to Reddit (such as 3rd-party apps used to browse the site) will now have to pay Reddit $12,000 per 50 million requests. The new changes will go into effect on June 19th, giving the parties relying on API access very little time to prepare.

Popular third-party apps Apollo and Reddit Is Fun first raised the alarm, with Apollo's developer Christian Selig writing that the announced price "was unreasonable and not based in reality," and that the apps will likely have to shut down under the new conditions.

Much of Reddit's community sided with Selig and developers of other apps, threatening to stage a massive blackout in mid-June unless Reddit reverts or makes adjustments to the policy.

On June 8th, Selig announced that he will be shutting down the app on June 30th, criticizing Reddit's decisions and voicing his support for the protest. On June 12th, as over 8,000 communities went dark, Reddit's CEO Steve "Spez" Huffman doubled down on the previously announced changes, angering the Reddit community even further.

Which Subreddits Participate In the Protest?

Over 8,800 subreddits announced that they will be joining the two-day blackout, and currently over 8,400 of them are set to private or restricted. The list of notable Reddit communities taking part in the action includes:

• /r/funny
• /r/aww
• /r/gaming
• /r/Music
• /r/Pics
• /r/science
• /r/todayilearned

The combined subscriber count of the participating communities exceeds 2.7 billion. You can find the constantly updated list of participating communities here.

How Can I Access Reddit During the Blackout?

During the blackout period, the only way to access the restricted communities is to be granted direct access by their moderators.

When Will the Protest End?

The protest is scheduled to last for 48 hours, ending on June 14th. However, some subreddits participating in the blackout have stated they plan to continue it indefinitely until demands are met.

Blackout Protest in Memes

Expectedly, the massive protest found a reflection in memes on Reddit and beyond. Popular memes subreddit /r/dankmemes in particular restricted posts to memes about the API policy exclusively.

For the full history of the 2023 Reddit API pricing blackout, be sure to check out GotFunnyPictures's encyclopedia entry for more information.