The upcoming reddit blackout will involve admins for 3,489 subreddits making the communities private for 48 hours in total. These subreddits include half of the ten most popular communities on the site that have memberships of at least 30 millions users like r/gaming, r/aww, r/Music.
It is about putting pressure on REDDIT to turn back changes they have made to accessing the reddit API.
These charges have been heavily criticized as extortionate – with many third party developers claiming that the charges will force them to close their apps.
They said they wanted Reddit admins to understand that it is unfair to charge money for the API when they rely on unpaid moderators to operate the site. They feel that the only way to send a message was by harming Reddit’s traffic.
“Our entire community is supporting us against this change,” they reportedly said.