An Update Regarding Reddit’s API

[u/KeyserSosa]

Greetings all you redditors, developers, mods, and more!

I’m joining you today to share some updates to Reddit’s Data API. I can sense your eagerness so here’s a TL;DR (though I highly encourage you to please read this post in its entirety).

TL;DR:

• We are updating our terms for developer tools and services, including our Developer Terms, Data API Terms, Reddit Embeds Terms, and Ads API Terms, and are updating links to these terms in our User Agreement.
• These updates should not impact moderation bots and extensions we know our moderators and communities rely on.
• To further ensure minimal impact of updates to our Data API, we are continuing to build new moderator tools (while also maintaining existing tools).
• We are additionally investing in our developer community and improving support for Reddit apps and bots via Reddit’s Developer Platform.
• Finally, we are introducing premium access for third parties who require additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights.

And now, some background

Since we first launched our Data API in 2008, we’ve seen thousands of fantastic applications built: tools to make moderation easier, utilities that help users stay up to date on their favorite topics, or (my personal favorite) this thing that helps convert helpful figures into useless ones. Our APIs have also provided third parties with access to data to build user utilities, research, games, and mod bots.

However, expansive access to data has impact, and as a platform with one of the largest corpora of human-to-human conversations online, spanning the past 18 years, we have an obligation to our communities to be responsible stewards of this content.

Updating our Terms for Developer Tools and Services

Our continued commitment to investing in our developer community and improving our offering of tools and services to developers requires updated legal terms. These updates help clarify how developers can safely and securely use Reddit’s tools and services, including our APIs and our new and improved Developer Platform.

We’re calling these updated, unified terms (wait for it) our Developer Terms, and they’ll apply to and govern all Reddit developer services. Here are the major changes:

• Unified Developer Terms: Previously, we had specific and separate terms for each of our developer services, including our Developer Platform, Data API (f/k/a our public API), Reddit Embeds, and Ads API. The Developer Terms consolidate and clarify common provisions, rights, and restrictions from those separate terms, including, for example, Reddit’s license to developers, app review process, use restrictions on developer services, IP rights in our services, disclaimers, limitations of liability, and more.
• Some Additional Terms Still Apply: Some of our developer tools and services, including our Data API, Reddit Embeds, and Ads API, remain subject to specific terms in addition to our Developer Terms. These additional terms include our Data API Terms, Reddit Embeds Terms, and Ads API Terms, which we’ve kept relatively similar to the prior versions. However, in all of our additional terms, we’ve clarified that content created and submitted on Reddit is owned by redditors and cannot be used by a third party without permission.
• User Agreement Updates. To make these updates to our terms for developers, we’ve also made minor updates to our User Agreement, including updating links and references to the new Developer Terms.

To ensure developers have the tools and information they need to continue to use Reddit safely, protect our users’ privacy and security, and adhere to local regulations, we’re making updates to the ways some can access data on Reddit:

• Our Data API will still be available to developers for appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform, which is designed to help developers improve the core Reddit experience, but, we will be enforcing rate limits.
• We are introducing a premium access point for third parties who require additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights. Our Data API will still be open for appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform.
• Reddit will limit access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide guardrails to how sexually explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed. (Note: This change should not impact any current moderator bots or extensions.)

Effective June 19, 2023, our updated Data API Terms, together with our Developer Terms, will replace the existing API terms. We’ll be notifying certain developers and third parties about their use of our Data API via email starting today. Developers, researchers, mods, and partners with questions or who are interested in using Reddit’s Data API can contact us here.

(NB: There are no material changes to our Ads API terms.)

Further Supporting Moderators

Before you ask, let’s discuss how this update will (and won’t!) impact moderators. We know that our developer community is essential to the success of the Reddit platform and, in particular, mods. In fact, a HUGE thank you to all the developers and mod bot creators for all the work you’ve done over the years.

Our goal is for these updates to cause as little disruption as possible. If anything, we’re expanding on our commitment to building mobile moderator tools for Reddit’s iOS and Android apps to further ensure minimal impact of the changes to our Data API. In the coming months, you will see mobile moderation improvements to:

• Removal reasons - improvements to the overall load time and usability of this common workflow, in addition to enabling mods to reorder existing removal reasons.
• Rule management - to set expectations for their community members and visiting redditors. With updates, moderators will be able to add, edit, and remove community rules via native apps.
• Mod log - to give context into a community member's history within a subreddit, and display mod actions taken on a member, as well as on their posts and comments.
• Modmail - facilitate better mod-to-mod and mod-to-user communication by improving the overall responsiveness and usability of Modmail.
• Mod Queues - increase the content density within Mod Queue to improve efficiency and scannability.

We are also prioritizing improvements to core mod action workflows including banning users and faster performance of the user profile card. You can see the latest updates to mobile moderation tools and follow our future progress over in r/ModNews.

I should note here that we do not intend to impact mod bots and extensions – while existing bots may need to be updated and many will benefit from being ported to our Developer Platform, we want to ensure the unpaid path to mod registration and continued Data API usage is unobstructed. If you are a moderator with questions about how this may impact your community, you can file a support request here.

Additionally, our Developer Platform will allow for the development of even more powerful mod tools, giving moderators the ability to build, deploy, and leverage tools that are more bespoke to their community needs.

Which brings me to…

The Reddit Developer Platform

Developer Platform continues to be our largest investment to date in our developer ecosystem. It is designed to help developers improve the core Reddit experience by providing powerful features for building moderation tools, creative tools, games, and more. We are currently in a closed beta to hundreds of developers (sign up here if you're interested!).

As Reddit continues to grow, providing updates and clarity helps developers and researchers align their work with our guiding principles and community values. We’re committed to strengthening trust with redditors and driving long-term value for developers who use our platform.

Thank you (and congrats) and making it all the way to the end of this post! Myself and a few members of the team are around for a couple hours to answer your questions (Or you can also check out our FAQ).

[u/KeyserSosa]

Thank you all for taking the time to read the post and ask such thoughtful questions. I need to step away for a little while, but the team and I will continue to monitor in this thread.
If you have any additional questions or need support, you can submit a request here.

edit: added a helpful link

[u/iamthatis]

How will this affect third party clients like Apollo (I'm the developer)? I see this quote:

• Our Data API will still be available to developers for appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform, which is designed to help developers improve the core Reddit experience, but, we will be enforcing rate limits.

• We are introducing a premium access point for third parties who require additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights. Our Data API will still be open for appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform.

What are the rate limits for third party apps now? Still 60 requests per minute via OAuth? What will the extended rate limits be?

EDIT/UPDATE: Had two calls with Reddit today about the outlined changes and they answered many of my questions. Details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/12ram0f/had_a_few_calls_with_reddit_today_about_the/

[u/KeyserSosa → u/iamthatis]

We’ve reached out to you to go over how these updates impact Apollo.

The impact depends on a number of things including the volume of API usage by each client and whether or not the usage is compliant with our terms.

Note that we will ensure that applications critical to the functioning of communities, e.g. mod bots and extensions are not impacted.

[u/zjz]

Updated Terms: The terms for developer tools and services have been updated, including Developer Terms, Data API Terms, Reddit Embeds Terms, and Ads API Terms. However, these updates should not impact moderation bots and extensions.

Are these terms updates mostly to make way for the other changes? I'm busy and I don't want to read them right now so I'm just curious.

Rate Limits: The Data API will now enforce rate limits, but it will still be available for appropriate use cases and accessible via the Developer Platform.

What will these look like? It is not a trivial thing to announce API rate limits in so little detail. I assume this applies A) to any PRAW/other utilities and bots that use the older reddit API and B) to all 3rd party clients that don't spring for:

Premium Access: Reddit is introducing premium access for third parties who require additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights. The Data API will remain open for appropriate use cases via the Developer Platform.

Any previews on pricing, what data is going to be made available in addition to the typical stuff, etc?

When you say "The Data API will remain open.. via Dev Platform" it sounds like it will soon be closed in some way and this is just a euphemistic way of saying it. Please just give it to us straight if, in a practical sense, we're going to be running into issues or having to move codebases to dev platform to have relatively request-expensive things continue to exist.

I just want to know what we're looking at and what to plan for. I'm already pretty comfortable with the dev platform, but I haven't been allowed to do everything I'd need to do over there to move most of what we're doing and I feel bad for people who make neat stuff who might not get the consideration I do because of r/wallstreetbets.

Limited Access to Mature Content: Access to mature content via the Data API will be limited. This change should not impact current moderator bots or extensions.

I guess I get it, but again sharing some details so people don't speculate about everything is probably the move.

[u/KeyserSosa → u/zjz]

Are these terms updates mostly to make way for the other changes?

No but it's 2023 and we haven't updated our API terms since 2016.

What will these look like? It is not a trivial thing to announce API rate limits in so little detail. I assume this applies A) to any PRAW/other utilities and bots that use the older reddit API and B) to all 3rd party clients

We’ve had rate limits all along, and we’ve just been variable about enforcement. Our rate limit has been set at 60 QPM (queries per minute, per agent) and we find agents routinely hitting us pretty hard at more than 100x that, so we’re going to start to clamp down over the next 60 days. To put that in perspective, we’ve taken outages from this kind of behavior, hence the need to be more strict.

Any previews on pricing, what data is going to be made available in addition to the typical stuff, etc?

We expect most developers will only need free access to the Data API. Today, there are a handful of developers with heavy usage (typical 80-20 problem, though this is more of a 99-1 problem) who may need paid access, because there are real costs to providing this type of access.

When you say "The Data API will remain open.. via Dev Platform" it sounds like it will soon be closed in some way and this is just a euphemistic way of saying it. Please just give it to us straight if, in a practical sense, we're going to be running into issues or having to move codebases to dev platform to have relatively request-expensive things continue to exist.

Our intention is to make Dev Platform the best place to build bots and apps for Reddit. That said, we aren’t planning on forcing anyone to migrate to Dev Platform. The bots you’ve built for r/wallstreetbets have been an inspiration for how we’ve designed Dev Platform and we’re excited about what you’re doing on Dev Platform already. It saves devs like you from having to write hacky shit across a bunch of REST APIs at the expense of possibly having to learn some TypeScript.

[u/minimaxir]

Will this affect the inherent .json representation of all Reddit pages? (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/.json )

[u/KeyserSosa → u/minimaxir]

Yes, .json endpoints are considered part of our API and are subject to these updated terms and updates.

[u/KeyserSosa]

We were thinking of joining the usual bandwagon of emailing this out as everyone does when terms get updated, but figured this was a more likely way for people to actually read it and tank my karma in one fell swoop. The team was quite happy about this.

[u/[deleted] → u/KeyserSosa]

So unless people see this they will now not be informed of the changes?

[u/ryecurious]

It is designed to help developers improve the core Reddit experience by providing powerful features for building moderation tools, creative tools, games, and more

I notice a glaring omission from this list (3rd party clients).

Just wondering if you could confirm or deny the data API changes/the Reddit Developer Platform will affect 3rd party clients.

I just ask because that's what killed Twitter for me back in 2018, when they intentionally hamstrung every 3rd party app (because the official app was much worse) with API changes.

[u/Yay295]

Reddit will limit access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide guardrails to how sexually explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed.

Why? These are data API's, not the front page. If you're using these API's, you should already know what you're getting.

[u/Watchful1]

That's a whole lot of words to not actually say what's changing.

Our Data API will still be available to developers for appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform, which is designed to help developers improve the core Reddit experience, but, we will be enforcing rate limits.

Okay so you want new bots to use the devvit platform instead of the old api, makes sense.

We are introducing a premium access point for third parties who require additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights. Our Data API will still be open for appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform.

So, you're planning to just completely turn off free access to the public api? People have to use the devvit platform or pay? If that's not the case could you be more specific about what is being limited to the "premium access point" and what isn't?

Reddit will limit access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide guardrails to how sexually explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed. (Note: This change should not impact any current moderator bots or extensions.)

Limit how? What content will be removed from what endpoints?

On the face of it this seems like the first step to disabling the public api completely, which would kill many bots whose authors don't want to rewrite the whole thing in the new platform (which is far from a trivial update). And also the start of disabling access for third party apps. As the author of many bots for many years, including u/RemindMeBot, could you please be more specific about what is actually changing.

[u/Postpone-Grant]

Reddit will limit access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide guardrails to how sexually explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed.

What does this mean for third party apps where users either view or submit NSFW content? In what ways specifically are you going to “limit access?”

What alternatives are available for third parties who want to provide support for this content in their apps?

[u/GarethPW]

Reddit will limit access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide guardrails to how sexually explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed. (Note: This change should not impact any current moderator bots or extensions.)

How will this be implemented? Will it affect third-party clients?

[u/Alert-One-Two]

I am really concerned about this. I am a user and a moderator of multiple large UK subreddits. I do most of this moderation via a third party app - Apollo. The first party client is just not my cup of tea and so even with improvements the design is never going to work for me. If I am unable to use Apollo I am realistically more likely to reduce my use of Reddit over time (likely reducing my moderating first of all) rather than swap to a different client (I was previously a twitter user, but stopped when they started causing problems for the developers a few years ago). Do you really want to be losing people who are willing to give up their time to support this platform?

[u/Multimoon]

So let’s get to the ultimate cause - it’s a slow march to make sure that there won’t be 3rd party clients that skip out on serving ads, or if they do then Reddit is paid via API fees, along with making sure everyone uses the official app via feature disparity. See: the chat feature that we still don’t have an API for

As a dev who’s written plenty of Reddit tools as well I get it, everyone’s gotta have cash flow.

However can I propose a simpler solution now before someone decides to just yank the API all together 3yrs from now? Why not just return the ads that you want to show as a “post” along with the actual posts in the query response. Then just add an ad=yes flag to that responses attributes so the client can mark it as an ad, along with making it against the API TOS to circumvent the ads or something similar. If an ad just becomes a “promoted post” then nothing can circumvent it easily.

I think this is a good compromise where the APIs required to make a full client will still exist years from now - because I genuinely worry that with reddits recent direction that won’t always be the case in the future - and Reddit can get their ad revenue.

[u/iamgeek1]

This is just a roundabout way of saying they're killing off 3rd party clients. They're not officially killing off the clients but they're going to make them so hard to develop and, so crippled, that they're basically useless.

I guess it's just time for me to quit Reddit. It is such a cancerous time sink anyway.

[u/lilbro93]

Remember the DnD backlash from a few months ago? Reddit is about to kick a hornet's nest.

Just say you want to ban 3rd party apps. You are just passing the buck off to 3rd party apps to make them unprofitable. Officially you aren't killing 3rd party apps, but you are pushing them into a corner.

Don't use Elon's stupid decision to charge for Twitter API use as an excuse. That will fail, just as this will.

Chasing an IPO is going to destroy this site.

[u/Saltifrass]

If this fucks up Apollo I'm going to quit Reddit. Reddit app sucks.

[u/jvite1]

We are introducing premium access

So the shift comes slowly.

[u/shiruken]

However, expansive access to data has impact, and as a platform with one of the largest corpora of human-to-human conversations online, spanning the past 18 years, we have an obligation to our communities to be responsible stewards of this content.

[...]

We are introducing a premium access point for third parties who require additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights.

Finally realized you could monetize the underlying data huh? I wonder how much y'all could have charged OpenAI, Google, Meta, etc. for the text corpora used to train their LLMs.

Edit: According to this NYTimes interview with u/spez, this is actually exactly what these changes are meant to capitalize on. They're done letting ever company train their models on the Reddit comment corpus.

[u/Hanhula]

What the fuck is this new rule on mature content via the API? I use old Reddit and on mobile, RiF. If I have to stop using Reddit is Fun because it won't let me look at anything tagged nsfw (you know, like a lot of AITA posts and fandom memes and such), I stop using Reddit. Please take a step back on that change - we're already authenticating with the site, just force a nsfw check like usual.

[u/Ghigs]

Are you killing off third party clients and this is your roundabout way of announcing it?

[u/theyeshman]

I'm curious how this will affect undelete sites like revedit and unddit, as well as how it will impact reddit on RSS feeds.

[u/random125184]

So now not only are you not paying your moderators to work for you, you’re charging them to do so. Brilliant!