Can’t get on Reddit for your daily dose of Internet happenings and discussion? There may be a specific reason for it, or it may just be that the website is really busy at the moment. In this article, we’ll discuss the various reasons that Reddit may go down, as well as how to check whether it has or not.
Why is Reddit down?
Most of the time, when Reddit is down, it is because of technical issues. It is, after all, a very large website with lots of people visiting it, creating topics, commenting on topics, voting on comments or topics, and so on. For some approximate numbers, see our How Many People Use Reddit article.
All of those people viewing and interacting with all of that info can put Reddit’s server computers under very heavy workloads. Those workloads can get even heavier when an especially notable event occurs, or a popular person holds an “Ask Me Anything” session, as many more people will be active on the website. This is usually what causes Reddit to go down.
There have been times, however, where Reddit has been shut down on purpose. One example was in January of 2012, when Reddit joined the protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act because they believed that those bills would open the door to censorship and copyright enforcement abuse by big media corporations. Another example was in July of 2015, when many message board moderators shut down their message boards to protest the abrupt firing of Victoria Taylor, a popular Reddit employee and facilitator of the website’s “Ask Me Anything” sessions.
Is Reddit down right now? How can I check?
If you want to know whether Reddit is down right now or not, you can go to www.redditstatus.com. You can also follow “@redditstatus” on Twitter (twitter.com/redditstatus) to track issues that Reddit has faced in the past, and see if there are any issues going on right now.
That wraps up our explanation of why Reddit might be down, and how you can check to make sure!
