Thousands of subreddits have gone dark today.

We have updated the post you are reading with the most current information.

For more on what to expect as a user,this post from r/helpdescribes what you will see.

Note that your profile and notifications will be missing anything from participating subs during the blackout.

Its unclear whether these issues have any connection with the blackout.

What are they protesting?

Reddit recently announced that they willbegin chargingthird-party apps to access their API.

Wevehighlighted several of these apps before; they make Reddit more useful and more pleasant to participate in.

The developer of one popular app, Apollo, hassaidthat his costwould be $20 million per year.

Several of the popular third-party apps predate Reddits own mobile app, which launched in 2016.

Reddits app is popularly seen to be buggy and annoying, hence the continued popularity of these mobile apps.

It also has not backed down despite pushback from developers and other Reddit users.

Reddit also gives the impression of struggling financially, with plans tolay off 5% of its workforce.

Redditors have speculated that the companys recent decisions may have to do with aplanned IPO later this year.

But those apps arent the only tools that use the Reddit API.

And they arent the only moderators who rely on third-party tools to do their job.

Its because of these moderators that subreddits are as useful as they are.

Moderators use a wide variety of third-party tools to do their (unpaid) jobs.

If moderation tools go away, Reddit will become far less readable.

Moderators wont be able to do their job as well, and many will likely resign in frustration.

Which sites are going dark, and how can I learn more?

In total, there appear to be more than 15,000 sites already on board.

Subs that join the protest will be unavailable for 48 hours, beginning on Monday, June 12.

The last time subreddits joined together for a protest like this was over Reddits hiring of acontroversialemployee.

The employeewas then let go.

The user accountu/why_subs_went_darkand the subredditr/ModCoordwere created by organizers of the protest and are also ones to watch.