Reddit users who want changes to the company’s API pricing have found unlikely allies in a group of hackers.

Hackers from the BlackCat ransomware gang are threatening to release stolen Reddit data they obtained in February if the company doesn’t cave to protestor demands.

In a dark web post, the hackers say they originally asked the company for $4.5 million ransom for the data in April. After receiving no response, the hackers made this demand: Change API pricing, or risk the data getting out. 

Reddit confirmed that a hack occurred four months ago and that the latest post is related to that incident. 

The hackers’ demands put them in league with thousands of subreddit managers who have been on strike for more than a week. The strike saw thousands of popular subreddits go dark or on read-only for two days. Over 3,000 subreddits decided to continue the protest and remain dark this week after Reddit failed to respond.

The protest was sparked after Reddit announced in April that it would begin charging for application programming interface, with third-party developers having to pay 24 cents per 1,000 API requests. The system can generate 10 requests per second per user.

Small developers rely on free, or affordable, API to create sister apps to Reddit for fun or accessibility. With the changes in API pricing, several small and large developers were forced to shut down.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has not changed his tune since the protest or the hackers’ post. He sees many of the apps created with Reddit API to be direct competitors to Reddit, meaning they should have to pay to exist. He said the protest has not hurt the company’s bottom line and won’t force it to change the policy.

• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.