Issues Database

Reddit's 2023 API price hikes threatened to wipe out the third-party apps that blind and visually impaired users relied on for accessible access, forcing the company into a hastily announced and criticized exception for 'accessibility-focused' apps.

After the initial June 2023 API blackout failed to move Reddit, major subreddits including r/pics, r/aww and r/gifs held polls and reopened under a malicious-compliance rule allowing only images of comedian John Oliver. Oliver himself endorsed the stunt and supplied photos.

After the June 2023 API blackout, Reddit invoked its Moderator Code of Conduct to threaten and then remove the mod teams of subreddits that stayed dark, while CEO Steve Huffman dismissed moderators as 'landed gentry.' When protesters marked communities NSFW to strip out ads, Reddit issued final warnings and forced them back to SFW.

Reddit's decision to charge punitive prices for API access killed popular third-party apps like Apollo and triggered the largest protest in the site's history — followed by the removal of protesting moderators.

Reddit's July 2023 r/place reboot arrived weeks after the API-pricing blackout, and protesting users hijacked the canvas to spell out anti-CEO slogans before coordinating to paint the whole board white.

After Reddit fired the admin who coordinated celebrity AMAs in 2015, r/IAmA slid into low-effort, PR-managed 'drive-by' promotional Q&As, and the format that once defined Reddit's appeal was widely declared a shadow of its former self.

Moderators of the 6.9-million-member r/CryptoCurrency dumped roughly $150,000 worth of the community's MOON token minutes before Reddit publicly announced it was shutting down the program that gave the token value — and were removed for what users called blatant insider trading.

Section 230 immunizes Reddit, its moderators, and its users from liability for posted content, leaving people defamed on the platform with few options short of costly litigation to unmask anonymous posters.

Reddit acquired the short-video app Dubsmash in December 2020, harvested its creation tools to build a TikTok-style swipeable video feed, then shut Dubsmash down in early 2022 — an acqui-hire-and-discard that left the standalone app's community stranded.

Reddit runs on unpaid volunteer moderators whose exposure to harmful content and harassment causes documented psychological harm — a problem underscored by professional-moderator PTSD lawsuits across the industry.

A security researcher earned a $10,000 Reddit bug bounty for an OAuth flaw in Reddit's 'Sign in with Apple' flow that let an attacker hijack the account of any user who used Apple sign-in with a single click, by abusing the OAuth state parameter to steal the victim's authorization code.