The Structure of Online Movement: Case of Reddit API Controversy 2023

This study investigates the case of Reddit API Controversy 2023 as an online movement that transpired exclusively within the Reddit platform involving participation of huge online communities and its users. In protest of Reddit's paid API restriction, its users and moderators of various communities or subreddits began shutting them down, and spreading the information about the potential harms of such a restriction for website use. The exploratory research was done using methods of computational text analysis of 33232 user comments and social network analysis of users' action history data from the subreddits r/ModCoord, r/Save3rdPartyApps and r/ModSupport. The research reveals the dynamics of the movement, topics of user discussions, and network structure of the subreddits which were actively commenting during this movement. These characteristics were compared with characteristics obtained in studies of hybrid modern social movements such as Black Lives Matter and MeToo. The textual analysis revealed similar dynamics of the movement with specific stages of sharp emergence and peak activity, then rapid decline, but the absence of the stage of involvement of “elite groups” represented by the site administration in the course of the protest. Analysis of user discussions showed the ambiguity of opinions among users about the protest itself and its results, which gave reason to say that there were disagreements among the participants of the movement. As part of the network analysis, we visualized the structure of the subreddit network, identified subreddits central to the protest, and analyzed clusters with “core” and “periphery” positions depending on the position in the subreddit network structure and the role of subreddit participants in the protest itself. The findings contribute to advancing theoretical frameworks for Reddit and digital social movement studies, offering insights into the specificity of user interaction on Reddit, virtual mobilization dynamics and the role of online platforms in collective expression.