Update June 11, 2023: We have decided to join the protest. Read the announcement here.

On April 18, 2023, Reddit announced it would begin charging for access to its API. Reddit faces real challenges from free access to its API. Reddit data has been used to train large language models that underpin AI technologies, such as ChatGPT and Bard, which matters to us at AskHistorians because technologies like these make it quick and easy to violate our rules on plagiarism, makes it harder for us to moderate, and could erode the trust you have in the information you read here. Further, access to archives that include user-deleted data violates your privacy.

However, make no mistake, we need API access to keep our community running. We use the API in a number of ways, both through direct access and through use of archives of data that were collected using the API, most importantly, Pushshift. For example, we use API supported tools to:

• Find answers to previously asked questions, including answers to questions that were deleted by the question-asker
• Help flairs track down old answers they remember writing but can’t locate
• Proactively identify new contributors to the community
• Monitor the health of the subreddit and track how many questions get answers.
• Moderate via mobile (when we do)
• Generate user profiles
• Automate posting themes, trivia, and other special events
• Semiautomate /u/gankom’s massive Sunday Digest efforts
• Send the newsletter

Admins have promised minimal disruption; however, over the years they’ve made a number of promises to support moderators that they did not, or could not follow up on, and at times even reneged on:

• In 2015, in response to widespread protests on the sub, the admins promised they would build tools and improve communication with mods.
• In 2019 the admins promised that chat would always be an opt-in feature. However, a year later an unmoderated chat feature was made a default feature on most subs
• In 2020, in response to moderators protesting racism on Reddit, admin promised to support mods in combating hate
• In 2021, again, in response to protests, Reddit’s admin promised a feature to report malicious interference by subreddits promoting Covid denial.

Reddit’s admin has certainly made progress. In 2020 they updated the content policy to ban hate and in 2021 they banned and quarantined communities promoting covid denial. But while the company has updated their policies, they have not sufficiently invested in moderation support.

Reddit admins have had 8 years to build a stronger infrastructure to support moderators but have not.

API access isn’t just about making life easier for mods. It helps us keep our communities safe by providing important context about users, such as whether or not they have a history of posting rule-violating content or engaging in harmful behavior. The ability to search for removed and deleted data allows moderators to more quickly respond to spam, bigotry, and harassment. On AskHistorians, we’ve used it to help identify accounts that spam ChatGPT generated content that violates our rules. If we want to mod on our phones, third party apps offer the most robust mod tools. Further, third party apps are particularly important for moderators and users who rely on screen readers, as the official Reddit app is inaccessible to the visually impaired.

Mods need API access because Reddit doesn’t support their needs.

We are highly concerned about the downstream impacts of this decision. Reddit is built on volunteer moderation labour that costs other companies millions of dollars per year. While some tools we rely on may not be technically impacted, and some may return after successful negotiations, the ecosystem of API supported tools is vast and varied, and the tools themselves require volunteer labour to maintain. Changes like these, particularly the poor communication surrounding them, and cobbled responses as domino after domino falls, year after year, risk making r/AskHistorians a worse place both for moderators and for users—there will likely be more spam, fewer posts helpfully directing users to previous answers to their questions, and our ability to effectively address trolling, and JAQing off will slow down.

Without the moderators who develop, nurture, and protect Reddit’s diverse communities, Reddit risks losing what makes it so special. We love what we do here at AskHistorians. If Reddit’s admins don’t reach a reasonable compromise, we will protest in response to these uncertainties.