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Dear redditors,
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Steve aka u/spez. I am one of the founders of Reddit, and I’ve been CEO since 2015. On Wednesday, I celebrated my 18th cake-day, which is about 17 years and 9 months longer than I thought this project would last. To be with you here today on Reddit—even in a heated moment like this—is an honor.
I want to talk with you today about what’s happening within the community and frustration stemming from changes we are making to access our API. I spoke to a number of moderators on Wednesday and yesterday afternoon and our product and community teams have had further conversations with mods as well.
First, let me share the background on this topic as well as some clarifying details. On 4/18, we shared that we would update access to the API, including premium access for third parties who require additional capabilities and higher usage limits. Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use.
There’s been a lot of confusion over what these changes mean, and I want to highlight what these changes mean for moderators and developers.
- Terms of Service
- Effective June 19, 2023, our updated Data API Terms, together with our Developer Terms, replaced the existing Data API terms.
- Free Data API
- Effective July 1, 2023, the rate limits to use the Data API free of charge are:
- 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id if you are using OAuth authentication and 10 queries per minute if you are not using OAuth authentication.
- Today, over 90% of apps fall into this category and can continue to access the Data API for free.
- Effective July 1, 2023, the rate limits to use the Data API free of charge are:
- Premium Enterprise API / Third-party apps
- Effective July 1, 2023, the rate for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1K API calls (less than $1.00 per user / month for a typical Reddit third-party app).
- Some apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync have decided this pricing doesn’t work for their businesses and will close before pricing goes into effect.
- For the other apps, we will continue talking. We acknowledge that the timeline we gave was tight; we are happy to engage with folks who want to work with us.
- Mod Tools
- We know many communities rely on tools like RES, ContextMod, Toolbox, etc., and these tools will continue to have free access to the Data API.
- We’re working together with Pushshift to restore access for verified moderators.
- Mod Bots
- If you’re creating free bots that help moderators and users (e.g. haikubot, setlistbot, etc), please continue to do so. You can contact us here if you have a bot that requires access to the Data API above the free limits.
- Developer Platform is a new platform designed to let users and developers expand the Reddit experience by providing powerful features for building moderation tools, creative tools, games, and more. We are currently in a closed beta with hundreds of developers (sign up here). For those of you who have been around a while, it is the spiritual successor to both the API and Custom CSS.
Explicit Content
- Effective July 5, 2023, we will limit access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide guardrails to how explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed.
- This change will not impact any moderator bots or extensions. In our conversations with moderators and developers, we heard two areas of feedback we plan to address.
Accessibility - We want everyone to be able to use Reddit. As a result, non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps and tools will continue to have free access. We’re working with apps like RedReader and Dystopia and a few others to ensure they can continue to access the Data API.
Better mobile moderation - We need more efficient moderation tools, especially on mobile. They are coming. We’ve launched improvements to some tools recently and will continue to do so. About 3% of mod actions come from third-party apps, and we’ve reached out to communities who moderate almost exclusively using these apps to ensure we address their needs.
Mods, I appreciate all the time you’ve spent with us this week, and all the time prior as well. Your feedback is invaluable. We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private. We are all responsible for ensuring Reddit provides an open accessible place for people to find community and belonging.
I will be sticking around to answer questions along with other admins. We know answers are tough to find, so we're switching the default sort to Q&A mode. You can view responses from the following admins here:
- Steve
P.S. old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere, and explicit content is still allowed on Reddit as long as it abides by our content policy.
edit: formatting
Do you genuinely not see how you making up stories about blackmail and threats would be what leads to difficulty working together, not me defending myself?
Most of our entire team quit after Reddit repeatedly refused to take down pornographic images of a minor. It took 20 requests over 20 months, and they didn't act at all til we were forced to call them out in public on it (tho they immediately removed this, of course). We never received any explanation or assurances that this wouldn't happen again.
I wouldn't be able to comment on the nature of rule-breaking content, but clear information and proof of the images being illegal content was given to Reddit, and was flatly ignored on 19 separate occasions. There was no excuse for them to not have deleted it promptly upon the first notification.
Another mod reached out after this to inform me that they've had two other instances of Reddit refusing to delete CSAM, both of which have reportedly been unresolved for over a year. They also frequently ignore initial reports, requiring escalation in about 50% of cases, by our team and others we've talked to. Additionally, Reddit often sends messages to both users and mods stating the content is not violating, even in cases where they actually did already remove the content. So this clearly remains a systemic and unaddressed problem with Reddit.
Our main request is simply for mature content communities to still be accessible in 3P apps, for all users who opt to see them, under fair and reasonable terms. We're even fine if Reddit forces those apps to contractually commit to maintaining the same restrictions on them that the official app will employ. If Reddit is claiming there are legal obligations to meet in terms of how that content is to be presented and under what conditions, then that is something that can go into a supplemental API access contract for apps that don't opt-out of supporting mature content.
Can you answer whether Reddit can make such access available under these conditions, and if not, why?
Clearly, Reddit is not one of those sites. I've modded many other places, and have never elsewhere encountered this level of negligent indifference.
This happens constantly, literally all the time for us. There seems to be a bug with the reporting tool where it will often say that even if the content was already removed by Reddit, and it does not appear to take into consideration whether moderators removed the content (and often comes back within seconds, before a mod has even seen the report).
It is extremely damaging to us, as there's nothing in the message that makes it clear it doesn't come from community mods, or that they can message the mods to appeal, or that we've removed the content on our own. We've seen users lash out at us and even delete their accounts thinking we condone threats of violence, harassment, or hate speech directed at them, or that we permit disturbing and illegal material in our communities. We've asked incessantly for Reddit to clarify this message and explain users can appeal it by messaging community mods, but they repeatedly have refused to do so.
Have the planned blackouts made you see sense?
Personally I won't be returning once Apollo is gone, and I suspect hundreds of thousands of others will do likewise.
This isn’t private communications, it’s business. It’s literally in the terms I liked so you can nitpick all you want it doesn’t make my statement any less true
Changed it to country, but in the context of the conversation state would be technically correct. Hate to break it to you, but just because you don’t agree with the law doesn’t make me an idiot, it just makes you a salty person
Make sure you do a bit of research before speaking next time: directly from office of the privacy commissioner
The law of recording calls is superseded by which one is stricter. Just because you call from Canada and Spez being most likely in California means that California’s 2 party consent laws take precedent. You sir are the one making a false statement.
Edit: even better! Canada is an all-consent country so the court would rule in Spez’s favor 10/10 times if they decided to go that route
Edit 2: for those that reply and immediately block so I can’t reply, cheers to you, but it doesn’t make you any less wrong, kind of comical that you’re afraid of a conversation
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Please feel free to give examples where I said something differently in public versus what I said to you. I give you full permission.