Reddit is telling protesting mods their communities ‘will not’ stay private
Reddit is telling protesting mods their communities ‘will not’ stay private
More pressure from Reddit.
Reddit is just a Karen now
I saw a couple days ago they are not even respecting subreddits that were actually private from the beginning. I saw the mod of a private breastfeeding group freaking out because they were going to make the whole thing public.
I'm sure opening up all the high-karma-only subs is gonna go over real well.
I've been on reddit a long time, over 17 years, and I'm a member of some private subs that happen to have some quite influential users in them. It would be really interesting to open those up to the public to see what reddit influencers are saying in closed spaces, and the amount of gaming etc. that goes on between prominent users you see all across the site.
Admittedly, at least the subs I'm in are relatively quiet these days, but in years gone by they'd basically decide what was going to be popular, who was going to mod which subs etc.
Honestly I think that 90% of reddit never commented and just read stuff so there should be a huge drop off in new comments vs historically, especially in those "popular" subs.
So I assume this means they will open up their shitty lounge that you need Premium to access, right?
The private breastfeeding WHAT? Mother of God, this is vilest of the vile. And, speaking of u/spez, that really is saying something...
Reddit declined to comment
That means what The Verge says is 100% correct. Reddit will speak when there's corrections to make. :-)
I'm really interested to see what happens at the end of this week. I have a group of friends that all hang out in discord and out of the group (about 12 of us) I'm the only one that's moved on from Reddit. Every time I see one of them post a Reddit link I want to say something but I just keep quiet and don't follow the links. I'm guessing this is just going to blow over for 90% of the people on Reddit and I'm fine with that but it is somewhat depressing to me folks aren't as bothered by what they are doing to third party apps.
Honest question, why keep quiet? I assume they are aware of the shit that went down in Reddit, if you provide Lemmy as an alternative some may actually try it and end up liking it more. The more people swap over the more it becomes an attractive alternative for others.
You don't have to be obnoxious about it, but just a suggestion could interest them.
So, say something. It can feel hard, but what's the worst that can happen?
Even just show a friend how one of their favorite communities has moved. Or just share a lemmy.world link instead of a reddit.com link to a similar post.
Getting folks to move off facebook messenger or something like that to Signal felt similar about 5-8 years ago. But... enough shitty news stories and worse-and-worse scandals, and just consistently mentioning it as an option works pretty well. These things snowball
I did bring it up when the protests started happening, I was met with some apathy and something like 'I'll just have to wait and see what the new big thing is, until then I'm going to keep using reddit'. This is all first world problem stuff anyway so whatever, thanks for taking the time to reply and for contributing to the community.
I used to feel the same but I keep reminding myself that I don't actually want all those mindless users to come here and complain or be toxic. So far, the communities are much nicer than reddit because early users wants to see a different social media experience here.
Maybe let the majority sit on ad infested reddit until they can't stand it anymore. :)
I'm still curious as to what is going to happen on the 1st and moving forward. I haven't seen much news about whether or not moderation focused apps/bots will still work despite Reddit's promises.
My bet is that effective moderation is going to drop significantly. Spam is going to increase to take advantage and trolls (whether to usual kind or as a form of protest) will run rampant. The user experience is going to suffer for the users that currently "don't care". And then Reddit will die.
I think tbh it will be more gradual than that. AI and shills and whatnot will run free and unfettered across the entire Reddit landscape, and people will move on when it hits their personal tipping point and some alternative becomes more useful.
Reddit would crumble badly very soon is those unpaid mods just immediately give up. The chaos will definitely doom Reddit and fast.
But it's clear that mods there would rather suffer than give up their made up power.
Of all the assorted protests I saw, I liked what interestingasfuck did the most. Just said "f it, here is what subs will look like with the bare minimum modding" and walked away. Mess up their front page, their advertising, and actually show what an unmodded major reddit sub would look like.
If every sub had done that instead of some milquetoast 48 hour blackout, I think it would have been at least moderately more impactful.
I wouldn’t call the blackout milquetoast. It made the global news for days. What is needed is additional followup, which we seen such as moderators just giving up, setting the sub to NSFW, etc.
At any rate, I’m gone. Reddit management sucks. There was so many ways to allow third party apps while charging the AI models. Tiered API rates, license agreements and terms of use, mandate third party app API users allow their advertising, etc.
I was happy to pay $5/mo to keep using Apollo. Now I’m gone and wouldn’t go back after we saw Reddit’s masterclass in how not to run a business.
And Reddit killed r/interestingasfuck for it.
r/redditrequest is a disgusting feeding frenzy right now. For every mod that's continuing the protest or has already been "fired", there's a dozen people desperately begging to be allowed to do free labor for that tiny bit of authority they'll get on their corner of reddit.
Hard to give yo virtual power when its all you have sitting in your mothers basement eating cheezy poof because you're a good mod...
Reddit can get f'ed.
Also, please donate so that we can have lemmy servers up all the time.
These actions are further diminishing the public's trust in them.
Im betting they are counting on most users just not being involved or caring.
They're probably right, depressingly.
I can't make anyone else leave, but I did what I could by leaving personally. I am generally enjoying the experience over here more anyway, so I am not missing a whole lot. Maybe a couple niche subs, but I was considering working on launching equivalent communities over here.
This is almost certainly true. But what I can't figure out is that Reddit needs Mods for the subs. And surely mods, and potential mods, are more engaged and informed.
There's always been this implicit understanding that Reddit gets free moderation across the whole site, something other SM sites spend millions if not billions on each year, in exchange for those mods having autonomy, control, and a sense of ownership of the subs they mod. That social contract has completely broken down.
I'd guess mods get into modding for one of two reasons. One is power/influence, which is now seriously diminished, and the other is because they care about the community, and they must now be wondering whether Reddit Inc is the best place to host such a community when it appears to be so hostile to users.
Fuck /u/spez. When it was just the API changes I might have grudgingly continued using reddit, but after this display I don’t think I will. Reddit has shown yet again that huge social media companies cannot be trusted to act in the interests of their users.
Yeah, I was still considering using it only on PC after they ruined third-party apps, but after this sequence of events I can't stand being on that platform.
That's where I'm at as well.
I was under the impression that I'd just hit it up on desktop every once and again. But now? I feel dirty using the site at all. Really hard to feel comfortable supporting that kind of behavior.
I'm surprised none of the big subs decided to say "ok, fuck you." And nuke the sub
If they attempted this Reddit admins would 100% revert it and ban whoever agreed to do it.
They can’t, Reddit doesn’t allow mods to delete subreddits:
All part of the plan to keep their sinking ship afloat, I suppose
Given the lows to which Reddit has stooped lately, I wouldn't be surprised to see Reddit respond to that by filing a lawsuit against the mod seeking nine figures in damages.
Which makes me hope even more somebody does it.
I heard mods cannot delete their own subreddit https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043044052-How-do-I-delete-a-community-I-ve-created-
"Because communities on Reddit are shared spaces that in many ways belong to the members of the community as much as the creator, there’s no way to delete a community."
More like the company then the members of the community lol
They can't delete it as far as I am aware. They could delete all posts and perma-private it I think, but that would be extremely tedious and the admins could revert everything a lot easier.
When you're working within their frameworks, effective protests are limited. It's why I just left.
Too bad there isn't a free API that could be used to delete all posts /s
It doesn't matter, reddit has backups of backups. All they have to do is kick all the mods and recreate the sub
I guess there gonna reopen r/jailbait and make u/spez the mod
*again
They are losing 1. Quality in UGC; 2. Quantity in UGC; and 3. Unpaid mods, which are all considered most important assets in terms of their (Spez’s) IPO.
Are they losing enough to have an impact to their ad traffic however? Something reddit definitely have lost is the monopoly on online communities, now there's a bunch of alternatives that people use which has definitely reduced the value of reddit.
I can't speak to ad traffic, but they're seeing a drop in ad sales, which is worse: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/06/28/reddit-protests-turn-porn-bombing-advertisers-face-increasing-brand-safety-concerns
Time for the closed subreddits to let the users have a vote on full reopen or a reopen with a touch of John Oliver.
After all, Reddit is just doing all this with the interest of the users in mind....
I’m waiting till Apollo is officially dead, then handing over the subreddit I modded for about 4 years now to whoever wants it.
Don’t hand it off. Just stop doing the work.
yesssssssss we may need moles
If your plan is to leave anyway, they have no leverage over you. I'm curious why you didn't keep your sub private.
I'll take it to dedicate it to posts about Lemmy migration
I've dropped all but two of my subs over the years so they have no power there. Those who don't migrate or unsub must be kinky that way. As consenting adults they are free to do whatever they want. Not my problem, anymore.
Take my sub. I could give two shits. Reddit is the new MySpace.
I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it again. /Darthvader
Huh, I just realized, who do people in the Star Wars universe pray to? The Force? The Schwartz?