Thousands of Reddit communities will be unavailable on Monday in protest of the site's management.
Reddit is imposing controversial fees on developers of third-party apps used to navigate the social media platform.
However, this has sparked a backlash, with moderators on some of Reddit's most popular subreddits making their communities private for 48 hours in protest.
As a result, nearly 3,500 subreddits will be inaccessible.
A subreddit is the name given to a forum on the Reddit platform, which is effectively a community of people who gather to discuss a specific topic.
Instead of following individual users on other platforms, Reddit users - or Redditors - will typically join a variety of subreddits and see posts from these communities in their feed.
Unlike other social media platforms, Reddit heavily relies on community moderation.
In addition to a few paid administrators, the website relies on tens of thousands of unpaid moderators known as mods to keep it running.
These moderators may spend one or two hours per day ensuring that their subreddit is free of off-topic comments, banned content, or even illegal content.
On the other hand, Reddit does not charge hosting fees for people who want to create their own community based on a shared interest.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman addressed the blackout in a post on the website on Friday, saying it "needs to be a self-sustaining business."
"We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight what you need, including going private at times," he said.
"We are all responsible for ensuring that Reddit is an open, accessible space where people can find community and belonging."
He also confirmed that explicit content would remain on the site, but Reddit would restrict access to it through third-party apps.
'Strength in numbers'
The blackout will affect 3,489 subreddits in total, including five of the top ten most popular communities on the site, r/gaming, r/aww, r/Music, r/todayilearned, and r/pics, which each have over 30 million members.
According to a moderator on one of these subreddits, the protest was about "strength in numbers."
"If it was just one subreddit going private, Reddit might step in," they said.
"However, if it's half the website, you feel a lot more pressured."
"This is a completely volunteer position; we do not receive any financial compensation, but we take it very seriously."
They stated that they wanted Reddit administrators to understand that they rely on moderators to run the site and that the only way to send a message was to harm Reddit's traffic.
"Our entire community is united in our opposition to this change," they said.
"It feels good to have the authority to say, 'We will not continue to moderate our communities if you impose these changes.'"
"Would they destroy what they've built up in all these communities just to push through this highly unpopular change that both Reddit mods and users are overwhelmingly against?"
The front page of the internet
Reddit, which bills itself as "the front page of the internet," has an official app, but it was released in 2016, many years after the website was established.
As a result, third-party apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync, and ReddPlanet were created to allow people to access the platform on their mobile devices.
Reddit has imposed a series of fees on developers who wish to continue using its Application Programming Interface (API) - the code that allows third-party apps to find and display Reddit content.
All four of these apps have announced that they will cease operations as a result of Reddit's new API pricing.
These fees have been widely condemned as extortionate, with Apollo developer Christian Selig claiming that continuing to operate the app would cost him $20 million (£15.9 million).
However, a Reddit representative told the BBC that Apollo was "significantly less efficient" than other third-party apps.
They claimed that the social media platform spends "millions of dollars on hosting fees" and "deserves to be fairly compensated" in order to continue supporting third-party apps.
"Our pricing is based on usage levels that we have determined to be comparable to our own costs," they explained.
According to the spokesperson, not all third-party apps will require paid access. Reddit previously stated that it would not charge for apps that make the platform more accessible.
The BBC spoke with a moderator who said the blackout could last until Reddit reversed the changes.
"The current plan for many communities is... they may extend the blackout beyond the original 48 hours, or keep their subreddits restricted so that no one can post," they explained.
"Every community is different, and different moderators have different perspectives on what's going on right now, so it does vary."
"However, based on recent communications between moderators and Reddit admins, I don't think they intend to reverse these changes."
And some communities, such as r/Music, which has 32 million members, claim that their subreddit will be inaccessible indefinitely unless Reddit changes its policy.
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