Subreddit Blackout / Going Dark

A subreddit blackout, also called "going dark," is a protest tactic in which a community's moderators switch it from public to private, hiding all of its content from non-approved users so that, in effect, the subreddit disappears from the site. Because Reddit depends on the unpaid labour of volunteer moderators and on the content those communities generate, taking a large number of communities private at once can disrupt the platform and demonstrate moderator leverage.

The most prominent example began on 12 June 2023, when more than six thousand subreddits, including very large communities such as r/funny, r/gaming, r/aww and r/Music, went private to protest Reddit's new data-API pricing, which threatened to shut down popular third-party apps. Planned as a 48-hour action, many communities extended it indefinitely, and the blackout contributed to temporary site instability. The episode made "going dark" a recognised form of collective action and a recurring reference point in debates over the balance of power between Reddit and its moderators.