WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.210 --> 00:00:01.470 - [Announcer] This is Future Tech, 2 00:00:01.470 --> 00:00:03.300 where each week we discuss the good, 3 00:00:03.300 --> 00:00:05.820 the bad and the ugly of where tech is headed 4 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:07.953 in 2023 and beyond. 5 00:00:08.850 --> 00:00:10.380 - Reddit is going dark. 6 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:12.630 Your favorite forum is not online. 7 00:00:12.630 --> 00:00:15.450 Joining me now is Tom Germain, Senior Reporter at Gizmodo. 8 00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:17.970 Tom, why can't I use Reddit this morning? 9 00:00:17.970 --> 00:00:19.470 - All right, so there is, like, 10 00:00:19.470 --> 00:00:22.020 a massive protest going on on Reddit 11 00:00:22.020 --> 00:00:24.000 over changes the company is making 12 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:26.790 that make it harder for people to use third-party tools. 13 00:00:26.790 --> 00:00:29.880 And approaching 9,000 subreddits, 14 00:00:29.880 --> 00:00:33.480 including some of the most popular ones, went dark. 15 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:35.250 Initially for 48 hours, 16 00:00:35.250 --> 00:00:37.470 but then based on some comments from the CEO, 17 00:00:37.470 --> 00:00:39.270 Steve Huffman, that came out, 18 00:00:39.270 --> 00:00:41.580 some are threatening to go dark indefinitely, 19 00:00:41.580 --> 00:00:44.100 maybe forever if Reddit doesn't change its tune. 20 00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:46.680 - What are the changes that Reddit was trying to institute 21 00:00:46.680 --> 00:00:48.780 that has everybody in such an uproar? 22 00:00:48.780 --> 00:00:51.060 - Right, so there's this thing called APIs, 23 00:00:51.060 --> 00:00:54.300 which is basically a piece of software 24 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:57.420 that lets a platform like Reddit or Facebook 25 00:00:57.420 --> 00:01:00.780 or TikTok integrate with third-party software. 26 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:02.670 So in this case, what that means 27 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:06.030 is the moderators of a lot of subreddits 28 00:01:06.030 --> 00:01:07.830 were using these tools to make it easier 29 00:01:07.830 --> 00:01:11.550 to read messages and posts and things like that. 30 00:01:11.550 --> 00:01:13.500 Reddit decided to start charging for these. 31 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:16.380 They've typically been free forever, 32 00:01:16.380 --> 00:01:20.250 since this modern era of social media started. 33 00:01:20.250 --> 00:01:23.760 But in part because of Open AI 34 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:26.040 and all these chat bots we've been seeing, 35 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:28.290 a lot of companies are thinking about charging for them 36 00:01:28.290 --> 00:01:29.790 because they're often built 37 00:01:29.790 --> 00:01:32.850 by scraping some of the content that exists on the web. 38 00:01:32.850 --> 00:01:34.507 So Reddit has decided, 39 00:01:34.507 --> 00:01:37.230 "We don't want to give all this information away for free, 40 00:01:37.230 --> 00:01:38.910 we're gonna start charging for it." 41 00:01:38.910 --> 00:01:40.770 And this is kind of collateral damage. 42 00:01:40.770 --> 00:01:43.230 - Huh. So on its face, I mean, that seems like a fair thing 43 00:01:43.230 --> 00:01:44.880 for a company to do. 44 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:47.070 What are the consequences that have, like, 45 00:01:47.070 --> 00:01:49.980 everyday users so angry that they'll strike 46 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:52.380 and not do their unpaid volunteer work anymore? 47 00:01:52.380 --> 00:01:54.270 - Right, so essentially if you're a moderator 48 00:01:54.270 --> 00:01:55.920 of a really large platform, 49 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:59.550 or if you're the moderator of many different subreddits, 50 00:01:59.550 --> 00:02:01.620 like a lot of these people are, 51 00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:04.770 the website itself is not particularly useful 52 00:02:04.770 --> 00:02:08.010 for doing the extensive labor that it requires. 53 00:02:08.010 --> 00:02:09.540 Reddit's kind of weird. - [Blake] It's true. 54 00:02:09.540 --> 00:02:13.500 - Yeah, because the people who are really running it 55 00:02:13.500 --> 00:02:16.050 are unpaid employees, essentially. 56 00:02:16.050 --> 00:02:17.340 The fact that this is making 57 00:02:17.340 --> 00:02:19.410 their lives significantly harder 58 00:02:19.410 --> 00:02:21.090 for this kind of weird, 59 00:02:21.090 --> 00:02:24.360 like, apparently not very well thought out change 60 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:27.330 to fight off supposed AI competitors 61 00:02:27.330 --> 00:02:29.010 is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. 62 00:02:29.010 --> 00:02:31.890 And they want to continue to use these tools 63 00:02:31.890 --> 00:02:32.790 that have allowed them 64 00:02:32.790 --> 00:02:35.250 to make Reddit great using their free labor 65 00:02:35.250 --> 00:02:36.870 for the better part of a decade. 66 00:02:36.870 --> 00:02:38.550 - And it sounds like what the CEO said, 67 00:02:38.550 --> 00:02:41.760 like, exacerbated tensions more so than alleviating them. 68 00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:43.440 Like, what was he saying 69 00:02:43.440 --> 00:02:45.720 that kind of ruffled everybody's feathers? 70 00:02:45.720 --> 00:02:47.520 - Yeah, so he didn't ask me anything, 71 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:48.540 I believe on Monday, 72 00:02:48.540 --> 00:02:51.450 where he really seemed completely unprepared. 73 00:02:51.450 --> 00:02:54.720 He fumbled a lot of, like, very basic questions 74 00:02:54.720 --> 00:02:57.540 that you would've assumed he would've been asked. 75 00:02:57.540 --> 00:02:59.790 It seems like he wasn't taking it that seriously. 76 00:02:59.790 --> 00:03:01.860 But then an internal memo 77 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:04.800 that he sent to the company leaked, 78 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.350 where he said essentially, like, "Don't worry about this. 79 00:03:07.350 --> 00:03:08.520 We're sticking to our guns. 80 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:09.510 This is gonna blow over. 81 00:03:09.510 --> 00:03:10.650 It doesn't matter." 82 00:03:10.650 --> 00:03:12.750 And now some of these subreddits 83 00:03:12.750 --> 00:03:15.630 which said they were going dark for 48 hours, 84 00:03:15.630 --> 00:03:18.690 say they're gonna be offline maybe forever. 85 00:03:18.690 --> 00:03:21.510 - Wow. - And of the nine-ish thousand 86 00:03:21.510 --> 00:03:25.350 that were offline, still around 6,000 are dark, 87 00:03:25.350 --> 00:03:28.230 including some of the most popular subreddits, 88 00:03:28.230 --> 00:03:31.143 like music videos and futurology. 89 00:03:32.100 --> 00:03:35.100 Subreddits that amount to tens of millions, 90 00:03:35.100 --> 00:03:37.740 sometimes even more subscribers. 91 00:03:37.740 --> 00:03:38.573 - Wow. 92 00:03:38.573 --> 00:03:41.010 I guess we can't use Reddit for the foreseeable future 93 00:03:41.010 --> 00:03:42.063 for the most part. 94 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:44.820 Yeah, my favorite forum is still dark, 95 00:03:44.820 --> 00:03:46.110 one that I checked every morning. 96 00:03:46.110 --> 00:03:48.180 - That is a bummer. - Oh, well. 97 00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:50.220 For more on the Reddit moderator strike, 98 00:03:50.220 --> 00:03:51.993 check out gizmodo.com.