I can already hear the voices of mods wishing him good luck moderating reddit on his own (in fact, I was certainly able to hear my own saying so before I de-listed myself as a mod).
I am impressed at how badly they are managing something that was initially merely “not the best idea” and now has become a true shitshow.
RIP reddit, you may very well survive this, but you’ll never again be “the front page of the Internet”.
I really wish users, who are the only ones that bring real value to a site like Reddit, could vote out the CEO. I guess we are voting with our feet, but it’s a shame that we have to go through this stupid lather/rinse/repeat cycle with every user contribution site.
well maybe not - if we move to not-for-profit platforms, there’s no enshittification cycle.
Just mods having unchecked power. But the good thing is we can transfer to another instance if that happens.
reddit is the means of production, but all of the value produced comes from the users, who are unremunerated
If we all buy stock during their IPO, we could vote him out…
Driving up his share price and his wealth. This is what he wants, it’s his exit strategy. He clearly doesn’t care if reddit burns at this point.
Not for nothing, but a key feature of fascism is that you’re “enemy” is both weak and strong at the same time.
So the blackout is not a big deal AND the mods coordinating the blackout are too powerful…
ACAB - All CEOs Are Bastards
Meh. “Fascism”? That tactic is used in politics all the time against most prominent leaders and groups, no matter where they come from. They’re both inept and totally powerful and Machiavellian.
It’s the whole thing about “will bear them with humor and ridicule” but also “look at their evil actions”.
A fascist tactic that is used in politics all the time.
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My point is that I don’t know what’s specifically “fascist” about it if virtually everyone uses it.
“Fascist” is an adjective. Like “green.”
A bad example: l don’t know what’s specifically green about it if virtually all plants look that way.
Everyone is using a fascist tactic. It doesn’t become a benevolent tactic because everyone uses it. It’s still fascist.
Edit: here is one of the better known essays on fascism, which might be of more use than my clumsy attempt https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html. Humans have been rollicking around brutalizing each other since before we climbed down out of the trees, and using fascist tactics long before the Roman’s came up with the term.
Interesting that he mentions that CEOs can be removed by their shareholders, which is quite similar to how reddit currently works-mods can be removed by reddit itself. The “users voting mods out” analogue in the business world would be employees having to power to vote out and replace their CEOs.
Person with power: CEO::mod
Those who make money off of them: shareholders::reddit
Those who provide the content: workers::posters/commenters
End users: customers::advertisers
Sounds to me like spez just made a pretty compelling aruguement that his employees should be able to vote him out!
*edited for formatting
I adore the way you think, sincerely. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world, where employees could vote management/leadership out of their positions?
What a fantastic idea.
Again, sincerely, no sarcasm!
There is a company in switzerland (i think?) that does it. So the employees vote on whos gonna be boss for the next year and whos gonna get hired and all that stuff, not just voting out.
I have seen a documentary about it and they all were VERY happy to work in that enrivonment
I REMEMBER THAT! I read N article about that a long time ago.
Into the internet rabbit hole I go. Thanks!
That’s called anarcho-syndicalism :)
I would not have guessed that it would have a name. … I mean, I should have.
Thank you for supplying me with a rabbit hole from which I’m unlikely to surface anytime soon.
I did a little research and it sounds like that’s definitely a very important part of anarco syndicalism. Is it truly the main feature of it?
Glad I could help! Like all things there’s more to it, but the basic concept is to fire all bosses and have the workers run all the work places as a co-op. Personally, I believe this would end ‘greedflation’ and definitely make the world a better place :)
I feel it would make more sense to do it like the Romans did, compelled leadership by round robin IIRC. That, or elected leadership. I think it’s important to have a focused job that does decision making for the good of the group.
Anarchy never really appealed to me. It always felt like a lot of anxiety. Also I suspect that our species won’t survive unless we can all unite, so there’s that…
Edit: Also, forgot to link, Robert Reich on inflation and corporate profits.
So what will happen is that mods who enforce unpopular rules in a subreddit, such as “no NSFW”, will get voted out. This can’t possibly go wrong. /s
Unless there is some kind of cooldown time (but even then), mods will constantly change…
Group A votes Mod B off and places Mod A there. Group B doesn’t like that and votes Mod A off and places Mod B (or a similar) back.
The longer that goes on, the more users (and even Mods) will get annoyed and leave that sub. There will probably the be originalsub, splitsubA, splitsubB. All of these subs will be weaker than the originalsub was before.
So basically the same what we see in current politics. Instead of finding a solution together, it just creates larger gaps between the members.
It feels less like democracy but more like temporary dictatorship that oscillates between opinions.
A better solution would be to have multiple mods with different opinions finding consensus together. But that’s easier said than done…
A lot people here have been saying similar stuff. Dedicated mods being replaced by scabs isn’t gonna do any good for those communities…but maybe their degradation is a good thing.
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
This comparison is so stupid; is spez gonna send me an ID or something? Will I need to hand Reddit my birth certificate or anything in order to keep using it and sign a contract with them or something? Where is that contract gonna be registered?
Anyone would be able to look for any place where there is a vote, then join the community, vote whatever they want and then casually walk away. Or you could follow all subreddits or a bunch of them that you want to influence (say any pro-ukrainian ones). Then you’d cast a vote to whoever you’d like and walk away.
It’s so ridiculous!
blowing up their site expected with people being friends with elon musk
Spez: this will blow over Also spez: this cannot be allowed to continue
Schrödinger’s Protesters.
First rule of propaganda: the enemy is both terrifying and weak.
Okay if you want to talk like that make Reddit a CO-OP or shut up.
How can this guybhave such a persecution fethish when he litterally holds all the cards.
@AllonzeeLV at this point mods who are staying on Reddit are just prisoners waiting to get castrated
Funny. That is a feature I wanted for a long time. Question is how in the world will it be implemented. Probably going to pull another Elon and only allow Reddit premium members to vote. Kinda shows the blackout is working and he is trying to find a ‘good’ PR way to weasel his way out.
Based on the reporting two things seem clear to me: (1) the commercial value of Reddit is fundamentally a question of selling data access; and (2) the major subreddits will be made to continue operations come Hell or high water.
When (not if) Reddit circumvents the blackout by force, the obvious next move is to poison the well—make the data worthless by drowning it in noise (AI-generated, if you’ve a flair for the poetic). I doubt that will happen since (a) it would require coordination among a substantially larger and more dispersed userbase than the moderators and (b) it’s something of a nuclear option, but it’s an interesting idea.
poison the well
It’s already happening. /r/pics restricted the sub to sexy pics of John Oliver only after a poll.
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I am not sure why people link to twitch instead of the source. https://reddark.untone.uk
For me, that source redirects to that twitch stream.
It’s the same people running it. It’s just that the original site for overloaded. So they swapped to twitch to live stream the data
What an absolutely idiotic CEO lmao he is so clueless. He doesn’t realize the community and the volunteers (moderators) have all of the power. The website is nothing without that.
Ah, so the blackout isn’t as “unsuccessful” as he wants people to believe it to be…
