Technology

1928 readers

7 users here now

Rumors, happenings, and innovations in the technology sphere. If it's technological news, it probably belongs here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

180

Reddit mods are organizing blackouts to protest against API changes (www.reddit.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

179 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Some of the planned blackouts will be temporary, others plan to shut their subreddits down indefinitely in protest.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is why the protest is limited to 48 hours at first, because that's the known "safe" duration. See what happened to r/news a couple years ago.

The two-day blackout isn't the goal, and it isn't the end. Should things reach the 14th with no sign of Reddit choosing to fix what they've broken, we'll use the community and buzz we've built between then and now as a tool for further action.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, the strategy makes sense, I wish them well, I'm not just optimistic about the results.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Neither am I. I think they are going about it the right way. I just think Reddit is intent on Digg-ing themselves a grave and I don't even think they understand the consequences of their actions. I'm sure they did some math on losing 3rd party app users, but I think they severely miscalculated on the moderator and accessibility fronts.

In the U.S., Section 504 requires web services to provide "individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate." For now, Reddit has complied with that because third party applications using the free API constitute an equal opportunity (actually, it's a better opportunity - even better). However Reddit's website and first-party application do not work with screen readers. If Reddit goes through with this, I fully expect them to be sued. I wouldn't be too surprised if they weren't even aware of this, because the relevant communities have quietly used third-party access since ever.