Reddit customers who need adjustments to the corporate’s API pricing have discovered unlikely allies in a gaggle of hackers.

Hackers from the BlackCat ransomware gang are threatening to launch stolen Reddit knowledge they obtained in February if the corporate doesn’t cave to protestor calls for.

In a darkish net publish, the hackers say they initially requested the corporate for $4.5 million ransom for the information in April. After receiving no response, the hackers made this demand: Change API pricing, or threat the information getting out. 

Reddit confirmed {that a} hack occurred 4 months in the past and that the most recent publish is expounded to that incident. 

The hackers’ calls for put them in league with hundreds of subreddit managers who've been on strike for greater than every week. The strike noticed hundreds of in style subreddits go darkish or on read-only for 2 days. Over 3,000 subreddits determined to proceed the protest and stay darkish this week after Reddit failed to reply.

The protest was sparked after Reddit introduced in April that it could start charging for utility programming interface, with third-party builders having to pay 24 cents per 1,000 API requests. The system can generate 10 requests per second per consumer.

Small builders depend on free, or inexpensive, API to create sister apps to Reddit for enjoyable or accessibility. With the adjustments in API pricing, a number of small and enormous builders have been pressured to close down.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has not modified his tune because the protest or the hackers’ publish. He sees most of the apps created with Reddit API to be direct rivals to Reddit, which means they need to must pay to exist. He stated the protest has not damage the corporate’s backside line and gained’t power it to alter the coverage.

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