As some subreddits continue blackouts to protest Reddit’s plans to charge high prices for its API, Reddit has informed the moderators of those subreddits that it has plans to replace resistant moderation teams to keep spaces “open and accessible to users.”
Edit, there seems to be conflicting reporting on this issue:
While the company does “respect the community’s right to protest” and pledges that it won’t force communities to reopen, Reddit also suggests there’s no need for that.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/15/23762501/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-interview-protests-blackout
Hey everyone we’re trying to keep the reddit threads centralized in technology in beehaw. I’m not locking this one because there’s a lot of discussion, but consider moving the chat over to https://beehaw.org/post/576904
Everyone needs to realise it doesnt matter. Enough people already came to lemmy for us to carry on without reddit. Now we just do the normal long haul work - help users who need help so people start searching lemmy for tech solutions, post our normal content here so there is a reason to stay, upvote and comment others work so there is engagement. The rest will follow as this grows and grows. We have already won. Lemmy is no longer a fringe interest.
I feel the same way. Critical mass has already been reached
I feel like another critical change happened, and that is that Reddit’s users views of themselves changed. The idea that we are giving Reddit free content and labor so they can profit from it is spreading around.
An ugly underlayer has been laid bare and many are finding they don’t really like it.
help users who need help so people start searching lemmy for tech solutions
For a moment, I misread this as “tech positions” and got excited about a job board on here.
Community idea: we develop a fake company that we all “work” at so that we can vouch for each other and use our “experience” on our resumes.
Lemmings re-discover ancient multibillion dollar corporate CEO secret strategies
Or just list it as volunteer work…
I’ll be your reference if you’ll be mine.
Lemmy is a “ground floor” for the next random tidbits of knowledge aggregator. And I don’t mean that as Lemmy is new, but rather it’d the next port-of-call and mature enough to be engaging while not being entrenched in decades’ old procedures.
I’m excited. I logged off Reddit when Christian shuttered Apollo, signed up on Beehaw and never looked back.
Agreed, I have moved on. Lemmy is at the place now that it feels more like what the Internet should be. It feels more personal and tight knit. By the end with reddit, I felt so much like a tiny fish in a gigantic pond that it felt completely pointless to comment on anything.
Yeah I agree that enough attention has been placed on Lemmy for it to pop in Redditors heads when they start thinking of other sites to go to. It won’t happen overnight but that’ll also give the Lemmy devs time to apply some fixes and add new features.
Im not here to hunger strike from reddit until i get hungry. Im willing to hunger strike till i die. Fortunatly lemmy seems to be a source of nourishment but ive made my decision.
Completely agree. As long as users keep engaging and don’t into the old habit of lurking we have nothing to worry about.
Hell yeah. Quality content is what Lemmy needs right now, the rest will follow
Good luck with that! I’m excited to see the fireworks as their brand-new mod teams use their brand-new mod tools right as they go public. Should be quite a show.
And on top of that when the new mods find out it’s just like a regular job but without pay tons will bail out.
btw: thank you mods, honestly, after doing for a little while I think you are saints.
I think what will happen is that a lot of the subs are eventually going to end up in the hands of the few mods who love sucking up to the admins and the mods who are in it for the dopamine they gain power-tripping instead of the mods who are in it to make the subreddit the best version of itself.
This will only further the “5 Mods Control 92 Of The Top 500 Subs” issue and lead to overall less happy, less engaged users.
undefined> This will only further the “5 Mods Control 92 Of The Top 500 Subs” issue and lead to overall less happy, less engaged users.
With that many subs, they couldn’t be good mods even if they wanted to. It is truly only a power trip and badge collecting at that point.
It’s like bragging that they’re the CEO of 3 companies…ok so you’re doing a terrible job managing 3 companies instead of trying to do good at 1.
I was a mod on a big sub for awhile many years ago and it was a literal horrowshow every day. It was an endless torrent that never stopped, the mod team basically ran 24/7. It was guaranteed you would see at least some fucked up bigotry every time you looked in the queue because the sub was a regular target for those people. It was really just a nonstop firehose of all the worst the internet has to offer, one reported Reddit comment at a time, forever. The tools I had access to were janky browser plugins and things like that, stuff previous mods had built themselves years before because the actual Reddit tools were inadequate. The sub involved so much moderation the team was very organized and you had to put in a certain amount of work every month, it really was like a part time job where you get to set your own hours but can be “fired” for slacking. You often feel emotionally drained afterwards just like a real job, and you start feeling anxious when you “clock in” because fuck not this same miserable bullshit yet again, just like a real job. I have so much respect for quality moderation, it is not at all easy in any way.
With all the time and effort mods like yourself put into looking after subs, does Reddit not have at the very least a way of publicly rewarding moderators that do some much work keeping subs running? I know fellow Redditors can hand out ‘rewards’ but something directly from Reddit would show the community how much mods are appreciated and required.
Not that I’m aware of, but this was many years ago now so things could be different. I personally wouldn’t have wanted any kind of public reward because that can paint a target, you get direct messages from problem users and other issues that come with recognition. I never publicly mentioned being a mod anywhere on Reddit, it was one of the things the mod team warned new mods about because trolls and other problem users will start targeting you directly.
That’s a very good and fair point.
@coldredlight @peyotecosmico interesting!
Do you have any thoughts on what kind of mod tooling the Threadiverse needs to make mods’ work easier?
I don’t really have enough experience with them yet to have specific thoughts but my impression is they are very basic currently and need a lot of work. One thing that’s really important is being able to do bulk actions against multiple users quickly. I remember the times when big attacks would happen and we would have a sudden flood of obvious problem users posting comments blatantly intended to cause disruptions, being able to efficiently respond in the moment to that scenario can be really important. It sucks when the mod team lacks the ability to respond quickly because in the meantime users trying to have a real conversation end up getting harassed, angered, and driven away with the impression the mods are worthless. You don’t want to have to fight your tools and spend a bunch of time per individual action because by the time you get to dealing with the full swarm of trolls the conversation might have really taken a turn or be basically over so you end up cleaning things up after it doesn’t make much difference for the users. Also, bots like automod are extremely useful and important so I would say the fediverse needs them ASAP. I never messed with the bots when I was mod but they were definitely like a force multiplier for the mod team.
@coldredlight @rysiek It seems to me that search would be critical. An ideal workflow during a flood might look like:
- Search for a particular keyword (or regular expression 🤩)
- Multi-select relevant comments
- Optionally: Review list of the associated usernames, possibly annotated with account age etc. and allow deselecting any that were accidentally included
- One-click ban + remove recent comments of all users in list.
@rysiek @coldredlight @peyotecosmico from my experience modding on Facebook, the things I most often wished for were just better views of incoming comments. Being able to sort and group by time on a certain post, for example, and then filter that list by keyword so I can take bulk actions.
Being able to restrict who can comment on a post helps a LOT. The amount of harassment I had to deal with dropped significantly when I could change a post to only accounts over a certain age, for example.
And on top of that when those “tools” don’t materialize and they’re more overworked than previous mods having to manually squash bots and alt right trolls, even more will bail.
And I bet spammers will target the subreddits where mods have been removed.
or the people who now see an opportunity to take over a sub and power-trip
there is no good outcome for reddit with this situation
There are enough power hungry people ready to jump in the first opportunity they get to moderate
Sure, but let’s keep in mind eagerness does not equal competence.
Funny how he repeatedly uses phrases such as “the extent that they were profiting off of our API” but has never used the phrase “the extent that we rely on freely provided content and freely provided moderation. If it weren’t for the tens of millions of people who are giving us free stuff we wouldn’t even exist.”
I have yet to profit a single dime off of Reddit. After over ten years (11th Cake Day is coming up), and nothing to show for it but piles of worthless Karma.
but if you sell your account you can get hundred of dollars! That’s upwards of $9 a year of pure profit.
Hmmm, assimilate my account into the faceless horde collective of disinformation drones for a cup of coffee… Hard choice
I’m deleting all my free content off reddit. It’s not particularly exciting content, but I have answered a few questions people probably ask on Google (recipes, cleaning tips, etc) that will now be gone. Just gotta back up my most important stuff first
I nuked the past several years of gif making from my account. Felt like slicing out a troublesome family member and it still weirdly hurts to have done that.
It’s like cutting out a toxic family member when you still care about their kids.
He was referring to app developers who charged for license or for premium features. Those people “profited” or at least, took in revenue.
Its probably going to end up like facebook.
A big lumbering thing, still heavily populated but ad choked and overrun by bots and bad actors, indoctrinating unsuspecting users. Even if it stays big, hopefully its reputation will suffer enough to keep most new users away.I would argue that the default subs already suffer from a lot of those problems. What’s kept me around in Reddit is definitely the more specialist subs.
Getting into fediverse platforms has been a godsend. Talking to real people and not dealing with the high percentage of bots is incredible.
I literally forgot what it was like to browse content without sponsored ads strangling my feed.
I feel like Reddit already turned into a general social media underneath us already, with so many reposts from TikTok, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it had nowhere near the amount of original style content as it used to.
The comments became no longer worth reading, with the same lame jokes populating the top of the thread, the atmosphere became toxic and not like a community.
What Reddit are doing is intended to turn the existing known entity into a profitable social media app, they don’t care about the quality decline. The existing owners will slowly sell as the valuation increases and they will get their winnings at the expense of the decade of free labour from the content creators, moderators & developers.
We made them rich.
It feels a lot like Reddit wants to be Facebook, especially with the recent changes it made to the official app to remove control over what Redditors read.
However, I don’t think Reddit can afford the moderation required to be Facebook.
I felt strongly that the updated Reddit interface was explicitly meant to look like facebook, to make fb users more comfortable.
Have you checked out the official app? Last I looked, it defaults to about 1 post visible at a time. You can adjust it to about 4 posts visible. Last I check, 1 of those posts was an ad and another was a recommended post.
It already feels like Facebook.
I can’t say I’m shocked, but I am disappointed. But at the same time - Lemmy/Kbin is the answer. This is the way.
The changes are coming at a good enough clip that it feels like it’s worth taking a stand here. Even if things don’t feel like reddit yet, we’re getting there. Enough people leave and they’ll have a pool of content consumers and no creators and that’s a fast ticket to a quick death.
It’s important to remember it’s early days. Things aren’t as smooth as reddit now, especially with Federation, but they’re going to improve.
This is the way
This is the way.
Simply replacing all the mods sound like a good way to kill a subreddit, Reddit probably has no way to pick good mods… Mods will need some connection with the topic, and you don’t want to pick random users with no experience for large subreddits.
get ready for sudden and radical rule changes, non enforcement of rules, nsfw, bots, spam, all kinds of fun crazy shit in the subs with mods removed. I’m sure a percentage of subs would stay the same, but I don’t think that percentage is very high.
Don’t forget there are literally Nazis being employed as Mods
Finally! Godwin’s law!
I can already hear the CPA/affiliate marketing bots spinning up lol.
Man, I was mod for a tiny subreddit for a TV show that was niche. We still got slammed with bots, nsfw, spam, etc. I can’t imagine what the big subs are like, and I laugh at Reddit trying to insert their people into that situation.
I’m mod of one and I’m worried about that kicking up, I feel like I’m not ready. Any recommendations?
Just make it part of your routine to check on things. Encourage your users to report spam, etc.
…and the subreddit rebellion has been foiled. The remaining locked subreddits will be hunted down and defeated!
The attempt on my credibility by the Apollo dev has left me scarred, and deformed. But I assure you: My resolve… has never been stronger!
In order to ensure the profitability and continuing advertising…
REDDIT, WILL BE REORGINIZED…
INTO THE FIRST…
GALACTIC ADVERTISING PLATFORM!
FOR A SAFE, AND PROFITABLE WEBSITE.
— u/spez to potential investors. Maybe. Probably. Might be slightly paraphrased.
This is too emotionally intelligent to be u/spez
I mean… did you even ask his permission before just ripping his words verbatim for your own post?
😎
Yes, I got the “message” from the Reddit CEO, and decided to pre-empt that, and I spent a few hours today manually deleting each and every post I made in my subreddit. The content is already anyway on my blog, on The Internet Archive, and on the Fediverse. So my subreddit now looks like this (he is welcome to let someone else take it now):
I can’t believe the amount of people I see that are supporting Reddits decision not only with the API pricing and changes, but in removing mods like this.
The whole reason for the blackouts is a protest against Reddit and their new policy. Now they’re threatening to come in and remove mods with their own appointed ones to force subs to open? And they’re for this?
I…just…wow.
It’s not that they’re for this specifically… It’s that they are self centered. They’re the same 75% of the population that is willing to cross the picket line at Starbucks cuz they want their coffee. They don’t think about the workers rights, they only care about coffee.
The same people just want memes and football and porn. They don’t care about what’s behind the scenes unless it directly impacts them. And let’s be honest, the reddit changes (for now) impact like 10% of reddits user base. That’s not enough for them to give up some dumb memes for
Exactly; see /r/PS5, which recently reopened after the loudest voices on the sub overwhelmingly said they don’t care if the world burns around them as long as they get their gaming sub. It’s sad.
From NBC News interview :
“If you’re a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders,” he said. “And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.”
Eat sand /u/spez.
Funny. When my 10 year old account gets banned by some 6 month old power tripping mod account I’m told “moderators get to decide who can participate in their communities” and given zero recourse.
Now when mods go on strike, they’re told it’s undemocratic and that mods shouldn’t get to decide who participates in their communities just because they moderate those communities.
Fuck this weasel.
The labor situation in a nutshell.
And remind us who’s been maintaining that system for so long? I seem to remember spez saying something to the effect of “it’s democratic because you can just start another community”.
business owners are accountable???
well they pay accountants to write-off all their mistakes
Reposting a comment that applies here:
Yeah, moderating a large sub isn’t as shake-and-bake as the admins seem to think. They might “hire” scabs, but the scabs are probably going to slack off pretty hard and might not even understand the tools and procedures that can make it effective but not stifling to content.
I don’t think they care? As long as they can pump the communities with ads so they can IPO.
can’t pump the community with ads if the community gets overrun with content offensive to those advertising companies
These definitely sound like the actions of a company that is in no way threatened at all not even a little bit.
/s
I doubt anyone is actually surprised by this. reddit owns the site, and (according to their TOS) they have rights to everything posted on their site (while they at the same time take zero responsibility for anything posted). I’m only surprised it’s not happened sooner.
I’m also not surprised that this came about from someone that wants to take over one of the privated subs. Most likely to stroke their own egos.
I guess the problem is that they rely on moderators to do the work for free out of their love for their community. Every time the reddit admins pull shit like this, they are giving moderators a reason not to trust them.
So if i make a reddit sub, they can kick me from it whenever they want? How has this not been adressed so far?
Yes, they can and they have done so occasionally.
It hasn’t been addressed because so far it has been used relatively sparingly, and because the subreddits in question are often shut down by Reddit rather than handed over to a new head moderator.
Often it happens because the mod(s) refuse to enforce sitewide rules on their subreddit. The removals are usually preceded by encouragement from admin to sharpen up, followed by warnings and milder measures.
Historically, Reddit has been slow to act on that stuff of its own accord, only doing so when users organise to alert advertisers to the content their ads are appearing alongside.
You will see users of these subreddits complain that their communities are being targeted, especially if Reddit has acted against a cluster of related behaviours, but that latter bit does mean that those users tend to seek out other places. I don’t want to compare those fleeing to Lemmy/kbin/mastodon to proponents of political violence or those running foreign disinformation campaigns, but the principle of Reddit pushing a given class of users away from the site remains the same.
I suspect that Reddit has miscalculated here, or is just gunning to manipulate the apparent user metrics ahead of the IPO, but it seems to me that they actively want to shed everyone who is privacy-conscious, tech-literate, etc. They don’t want conversations about old.reddit or 3rd party apps or the fediverse influencing those who are unaware of these things, and they don’t want users or moderators who will organise against Reddit They already have power mods who have been running large numbers of the most popular subreddits for years and some of these may be paid admin; they’d find it easy to get people to replace the head mods of smaller communities, and they probably don’t care about the niche subreddits and will either let those die or trial the use of bot moderators on them.
I suspect that Reddit has miscalculated here, or is just gunning to manipulate the apparent user metrics ahead of the IPO, but it seems to me that they actively want to shed everyone who is privacy-conscious, tech-literate, etc. They don’t want conversations about old.reddit or 3rd party apps or the fediverse influencing those who are unaware of these things, and they don’t want users or moderators who will organise against Reddit They already have power mods who have been running large numbers of the most popular subreddits for years and some of these may be paid admin; they’d find it easy to get people to replace the head mods of smaller communities, and they probably don’t care about the niche subreddits and will either let those die or trial the use of bot moderators on them.
Yeah that much is obvious to me. Every platform has a turning point when the investors smell the money and ask why it is not making more money. And then they will do everything to make that happen. Every change they make is about ads. You control the conversation, you can sell more ads, that is all this is. They don’t like 3rd party apps anymore, because they can’t sell ads on them. The reddit app is full of ads. Same with old reddit, not enough ads. The whole redesign was hated so much because the purpose of it is to show more ads, not to make reddit better.
Reddit is on this path for a few years and now they are trying to throw out the opposition to replace them with yes-men.
What’s endlessly fascinating to me is how quickly Reddit (spez) dug this hole for itself. I’m (or was) an Apollo user, but didn’t pay close attention to the finer technical points of app use, and was only half paying attention when the API changes were announced. In a matter of about two weeks, I went from not having particularly strong feelings (like a shrug personified) to be vehemently anti-Reddit and Steve Huffman. And it has literally all been based on the things Reddit (spez and his mouthpieces) have said and done. In other words, there hasn’t been any “persuasive propaganda” that swayed me. Just them, in all their idiocy, taking me from neutral to bury them in an incredibly short period of time. The level of incompetence is truly impressive.
The thing that really disappointed me was that they pretended that he tried to blackmail them.
They clearly were not expecting that Christian would have recorded the call and that it was not going to be “he said, I said”.
Very proud of him.
It sounds like total incompetence, but I can’t believe that they don’t have a bigger plan. Like they’re burning the forest to promote new growth. Only the way they are going about it is to pull the rug from under our feet and ruin their brand.
