Reddit blackout: Why are thousands of communities going dark for two days?

COMMUNITIES on Reddit are going dark for the next two days in protest of a costly rule change.

Tens of millions of users are set to have their usual Reddit experience disrupted.

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Some of the platform’s main subreddits for gaming and music, which have nearly 70million members combined, have decided to go offline with no new posts.

It is a boycott led by Reddit’s communities against a new rule that could see some of the platform’s top third-party apps forced to shut down over additional charges.

Some communities have said they will return after 48 hours, but others have indicated that they may not come back until Reddit rolls back on its plan.

The social media platform announced in April that it would start charging for developers to access its API – which stands for application programming interface.

The API is what lets third parties access information on the platform, and has been free since Reddit’s inception in 2005.

Whenever you use a Reddit app, such as Infinity or Joey, you are essentially asking the platform’s API for permission to look at the posts, comments and profiles you want to see.

Developers of apps that are compatible with Reddit need this to keep their platform’s up and running.

But now Reddit is following Twitter in charging for its API access – with charges set to be introduced from 19 June.

While Reddit launched in 2005, it didn’t release its own app until 2016.

This means that users were forced to rely on third-party apps in the early stages, which many grew accustomed to.

Now, under the new rule, third-party app developers are forced to shoulder additional charges.

Reddit has not publicly revealed its pricing details.

Although Twitter stamped a $5,000 (£3,970) price tag on the monthly subscription for its API Pro plan.

However, the makers of the popular third-party app Apollo have claimed they would be charged more than $20m (£15.9m) a year at their current rate of API usage, according to Sky News.

“The price [Reddit] gave was $0.24 for 1,000 API calls,” said a post on Apollo’s own subreddit.

A “call” is when a third-party app has to asked Reddit’s API for permission to let its users view Reddit posts outside of the platform.

“With my current usage [that] would cost almost $2m per month, or over $20m per year,” they said.

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