protests

All through June, we have witnessed a unique battle between a social media platform and its users to determine its policies. Reddit announced earlier this year its new API pricing change that was introduced in order to stave off AI platforms using the website's data to train its models. However, one consequence of it was seen on third-party apps that suddenly had to pay an extremely high price to request data from Reddit. That turned out to be a big pain point between the admins of the platform and the community, which…

German public sector union ver.di on Monday called for a 48-hour strike starting immediately at Amazon's warehouses in the country's eastern city of Leipzig.The workers want a collective labour agreement that includes a 2.5 euro ($2.73) per hour wage increase for a 12-month period. They also want a 250 euro wage increase for apprentices and the labour agreement must become binding for the company. The union's representative Ronny Streich called Amazon's offer of a 3% wage increase for the first year of the agreement "a…

The first time we speak, Joep Meindertsma is not in a good place. He tears up as he describes a conversation in which he warned his niece about the risk of artificial intelligence causing societal collapse. Afterward, she had a panic attack. “I cry every other day,” he says, speaking over Zoom from his home in the Dutch city of Utrecht. “Every time I say goodbye to my parents or friends, it feels like it could be the last time.”Meindertsma, who is 31 and co-owns a database company, has been interested in AI for a couple…

A Dungeons And Dragons subreddit with over a million members is experiencing an “influx of sexualised goblin content”, due to ongoing protests surrounding Reddit‘s controversial pricing changes. For several weeks, Reddit communities have been protesting the site’s controversial changes to its charging Application Programming Interface (API), which has resulted in a number of third-party Reddit apps being forced to close. While the protests began with days of subreddit blackouts, Reddit leadership soon warned that it…

In a shocking development, Reddit moderators, who participated in the protests against the company over its API pricing change, were reportedly being removed from their position. The moderators who were being suspended were the ones who changed their subreddit's label to Not Safe For Work (NSFW). The label indicates that sexual content is allowed on the subreddit. The ongoing protests began on June 12 when many Reddit communities went private to show their displeasure over the planned price hikes for API requests that…

Inspired by Elon Musk's massive layoffs, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has refused to budge against widespread protests over the application programming interface (API) changes on its platform, saying plans to pursue changes and "don't have problems with protests."In an interview with NBC News, Huffman said that "my takeaway from Twitter and Elon at Twitter is reaffirming that we can build a really good business in this space at our scale.""You can run a company with that many users in the ads business and break even with a…

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is not backing down amid protests against API changes made by the platform. In interviews with The Verge, NBCNews and NPR, Huffman defended business decisions made by the company to charge third-party apps saying the API wasn’t designed to support these clients. The Reddit co-founder also talked about protesting moderators, changing site rules, and profitability in these interviews. The platform is facing one of the strongest backlashes from the community, but the CEO seemingly doesn’t want…

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. responded to the European Commission's…

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman had some heavy words for his site’s moderators (mods, for short), many of whom participated in a “blackout” effort this week to protest his Reddit application programming interface (API) monetization changes. In an NBC interview, he equated the moderators with “landed gentry” and said the system enabling them to maintain the blackout was “not democratic.” To note: “landed gentry” refers to the British social class that generationally inherited land, giving them geographic control that…

Reddit is arguably the biggest discussion forum on the web. According to Similarweb, it ranks 20th in the most visited websites in the world. Part of the reason for Reddit's popularity is its cohesive ecosystem that is maintained by users, moderators, third-party app developers, and Reddit administrators (the corporate team behind the platform) all working together. So, it was not really a surprise that after Reddit announced its new API policy and its pricing system, the entire ecosystem has been thrown into chaos due…