hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout, its aftermath, and what’s happening going forward, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! thanks! we’ll see if we need to cycle the thread again before the end of this week, but i don’t know that we’ll need to
Troubling update from the Reddit admins. They are planning to remove mods from any subs that decide to stay private and hand them over to scabs. This goes back on their previous statements that subs had a right to protest and go private. Mods of one large community have already been contacted by the admins and told that “if you decide to close your community going forward, our Code of Conduct team will reach out with next steps”. Which is a fresh take on “nice kneecaps, shame if something happened to them”.
privately, i’ve kind of wondered whether Reddit does even care if all of its subreddits are moderated horribly, and if it doesn’t whether that renders anything short of taking your ball and going home moot
They’re shooting themselves in the foot with this stance. Handing over some very popular subreddits to the most aggressive, dissenting voices in a community who have no experience running that particular subreddit is a recipe for disaster. A hostile takeover is not going to set the new mods in a good light from the get-go, alienating them from the groups they’re supposed to be running and creating an adversarial relationship. This will not turn out the way they’re hoping.
r/subredditdrama would be trending ever day. Any controversial subreddit would be subject to astroturfing campaigns. Could you imagine if a political party decided to over throw mods of r/politics or r/news just before an election?
The whole point of a Reddit it is a community that is fostered by the moderators and the voting system. Hostile take overs of a subreddit will result in toxicity and encourage heavy handed moderation, restricted membership and make the popular subreddit echo chambers.
The CEO is changing too much, too fast, and with reckless abandon. You can’t change your pricing model, your business model and your value prop in one go. The best analogy I can come up with that it’s like he’s remodeling the kitchen and decided that a wrecking ball through the front of the house is a good idea.
I’m honestly not even surprised about this anymore
Stevie Wonder coulda seen that coming.
The thing that doesn’t make sense in that is if third party app users are such a small portion of Reddit overall, why even go after them in the first place? I could understand wanted to monetize groups taking advantage of the reddit API to train their AI models, but people making things to enhance the reddit experience?
https://mastodon.social/@robotdeathsquad/110543755195398954
Every time you hear the Reddit CEO talking about how they need to become profitable, remember they raised $250m and then spent the last couple years building this: https://nft.reddit.com
What.The.Fuck.
Sorry. I am at a loss for words.
I thought I had cringe resistance.
Yeah they’ve been completely inept for years.
According to a screenshot shared in the modcoord discord, there’s already a facist trying to take over /r/aww. The user is a former T_D mod, a sub which was actively involved in the January 6 riots and known for its misconduct across Reddit. These are the people that spez wants to empower.
that was my worry as well. Reddit is going to shit incredibly fast. Boot the mods and this is what we will get—a new, sitewide alt-right pipeline.
Let’s see the outcome.
That person’s profile is completely insane - far into the deep end. Fuck
Redditinc.com’s fact(oid)s about the API changes.
Includes such BS as
100,000+ active communities
Technically true. But it’s estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 are NSFW. That is, the subs they don’t want shown at their (mythical) IPO.
Supporting these apps is not free for Reddit; they incur both infrastructure and significant opportunity costs.
Technically true. But so does the official app, and web browsers. API calls are not some sort of special magic that causes extra wear on the systems. If the users never had the third party apps they’d be using something else, causing the same traffic and usage - or using nothing at all.
Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use from our API.
Again, third party apps are no more of a drain on data use than anything else. It’s been proven, but Spez keeps pushing this lie.
Many other platforms have chosen to stop supporting apps like these altogether.
Objection! Facts not in evidence.
more than 98% of apps do not pay and will continue to access the Data API for free so long as apps are not monetized […].
Emphasis mine. This is the real story.
Our pricing is based on usage levels comparable to our own costs
Either this is an outright lie or Spez is admitting that the official Reddit app is an inefficient, data monching, piece of garbage.
We’re working to improve the mobile mod experience
Spez has been promising rainbows for years but all we ever get is poop. Or just the smell of poop. That the mobile apps were released without proper moderator tools tells you what he thinks of moderators.
We have a unique system of checks and balances, and we respect the communities right to protest.
Clearly a lie, given that Spez is going to change the rules to force out moderators who choose to follow their sub’s wishes to protest.
r/nottheonion is asking users to vote, including a fun option that encourages people to take Tuesdays off
The “fun option” is an official means of joining the protest. Can he stop lying for 10 seconds?
We conducted an accessibility audit with an external consultant and have been working on improving accessibility on the site and in our apps.
Yes, much smarter than actually TALKING TO YOUR OWN USERS AND SEEING WHAT THEY WANT. Oh, they want what you refuse to do? Gee, what a surprise!
Nothing says ableism more than telling people with disabilities that they have no agency in how or if they get accommodations. (Sadly, the ADA does not apply to Reddit as a website.)
In summary, Spez needs to be fired. Preferably out of a cannon, into the sun. (Edit to add, because I am newbie here: This is hyperbole. I do not actually advocate violence against anyone.)
Yes, but if you fire a spez from a canon into the sun, but no one can see him enter the sun, then does he actually get harmed? No one knows, especially if he never returns!
Do it at night, show some mercy.
at midnight. as is tradition.
So spez is the narwhal who gets his bacon cooked. The prophecy’s revelation has come to pass!
What about in winter, when the sun isn’t as hot?
Could you elaborate on how and why the ADA doesn’t apply to Reddit as a website? I’ve been wondering about this ever since Spez admitted the official app isn’t accessible and they seemingly have no plans to make it so.
The ADA only requires accessibility in websites if it’s a government site, or if it’s the site of a company providing a “public service,” such as a bank or a hotel.
Here’s the ada.gov page about it: https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/
undefined> Technically true. But it’s estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 are NSFW. That is, the subs they don’t want shown at their (mythical) IPO.
I’m pretty sure r/clipclop is considered respectable and mainstream now.
I can only imagine that 5his wasn’t a recent interview, but I know it’s not the case. He’s completely lost it. Very out of touch with what made Reddit Reddit.
And so, it begins https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14aeq5j/new_admin_post_if_a_moderator_team_unanimously/
Reddit CEO slams protest leaders, saying he’ll change rules that favor ‘landed gentry’
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said Thursday that he wants to bring an end to a user-led protest that has made large parts of the influential website inaccessible this week. Huffman said in an interview that he plans to institute rules changes that would allow Reddit users to vote out moderators who have overseen the protest, comparing them to a “landed gentry.”
The protest took down thousands of message boards, known as subreddits, starting Monday, and some communities say they plan to continue the action indefinitely. The action has been led by Reddit’s unpaid, volunteer moderators, who have a high level of control over how their subreddits are run. Participating communities went “private,” making them unviewable even to members. The protesters oppose changes that will most likely cut off their ability to access Reddit through third-party apps, and their action has hobbled much of the site.
Huffman, also a Reddit co-founder, said he plans to pursue changes to Reddit’s moderator removal policy to allow ordinary users to vote moderators out more easily if their decisions aren’t popular. He said the new system would be more democratic and allow a wider set of people to hold moderators accountable.
Reddit’s current policy says moderators may be removed by higher-ranking moderators or by Reddit itself for inactivity or violations of Reddit-wide rules. They may also remove themselves. Many have held their positions for years.
“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.”
Moderators have argued that the high level of control over their communities is well-deserved because of the hours of free labor they’ve put into making and enforcing rules on their subreddits. Any plan to reduce their influence might result in another backlash.
Huffman, who co-founded Reddit 18 years ago this month, said he believes the leaders of the protest may have had popular support when it started Monday but have lost most of it since.
Can users vote out the CEO?
Rules for thee but not for me
Shareholders can.
Reddit doesn’t have any shares or shareholders currently.
Yup, fully aware. I guess what I was trying to say was that there is a way to get rid of a CEO - own a lot of the business.
The venture capitalists can if they have a majority of the shares. Since Reddit raised $1.3B, I wouldn’t be surprised if the VCs own more than 50%. The only exception would be if those shares by the VCs are non voting, but I can’t see a VC buying non voting shares.
If anything, the mods are indentured servants who toil on Lord Huffmans plots for free. Landed gentry, my ass.
That’s the exact definition of serfdom.
It’s frustrating that being a mod is first-come-first-serve, but people have been complaining about the system for many many years (/r/Canada is one strong example). So in a way, voting on mods could be a welcome change, but this is clearly not actually for the good of the community.
Interesting point about the future of Reddit in that article:
Huffman said, however, that he’d like some form of revenue-sharing.
“I would like subreddits to be able to be businesses if they choose,” he said, adding that’s “another conversation, but I think that’s the next frontier of Reddit.”
The long-term goal is monetization of subreddits. I’m glad I won’t be there to see that happen.
I think this is where the Fediverse can shine. If a Corp wants to join and host their own stuff, they can, and it will be really clear. Decentralization means that instead of a single broker of the information we can have a range from altruistic to straight up monetization exist side by side. But why some Corp would pay for a subreddit is crazy…I mean, what is the value prop? Companies would have to pay for the subreddit and then moderate it too?
At least when they were paying for bots and shills there was a modicum of plausible deniability.
The only long term goal of most CEO is money in their pocket. But some are to dumb, since they often just fall upwards their whole life, so they run their company into the ground.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/16/23763661/reddit-rif-is-fun-developer-ceo-steve-huffman
RIF developer pushing back on Huffman’s claims that RIF didn’t want to work with Reddit by releasing emails.
inb4 spez rants about him releasing private email conversations.
This article is absolutely scathing, great read.
Maybe Reddit won’t die but I think it will die for who read this article.
Anyone willing to copy it here for those with privacy browsers?
Here ya go…
The basic idea of most websites is to create content, attract an audience, and then sell advertising that targets your audience. If your website attracts a large enough audience, you can make a good business out of selling advertising.
Of course, if you build a website where your audience volunteers to create the content for free, and you still get to show them ads, that sounds like a really good business. That’s basically all social media websites, though some of them (Facebook) are much better than others (Twitter).
Reddit is an interesting case because not only do the people who use the website create all of the content, but they also do almost all of the heavy lifting of managing and moderating the site. That sounds like a really good gig, except Reddit hasn’t ever really managed to make money. Yes, it gets all the content for free and sells ads, but not nearly to an extent that makes a profit.
There’s another problem, which is that if you give people a lot of control over your website, you’ll build a thriving community–which seems like a good thing–but if you want to make changes that affect your community, they might get upset. They might even decide to protest. Considering the amount of control you gave them over your website, it doesn’t seem ideal to have them angry or protesting.
That’s Reddit.
On Monday, more than 7,000 Subreddits, the name for individual communities within the site, went private, effectively taking those parts of the website down. At some point, Reddit–in its entirety–went down.
The protest comes in response to Reddit’s decision to start charging for its API access. That API is used for things like scooping up Reddit’s content to train large language models (LLMs) used by A.I. chatbots like ChatGPT. It’s also used for creating third-party apps like Apollo, whose developer, Christian Selig, said last week that it should be shutting down because of the fact Reddit’s API fees would cost him more than $20 million a year. For context, Selig says Apollo makes about $500,000 a year.
Ostensibly, that’s exactly what Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman, wants. During an AMA last week, Huffman didn’t hide his disdain for third-party apps that make a profit, even while Reddit does not. The thing is, if that’s the case, he should have just said, “Hey, we’re cutting off third-party access to our API for creating client apps since we don’t make any money off of them.”
Instead, Huffman said he’s happy to work with third-party apps, but it’s obvious that’s just a thing you say when you know none of them have the money to keep going. Reddit is under pressure to become profitable as it reportedly prepares for an IPO, and as investors have stopped putting in new money.
This brings me to Elon Musk and Twitter. Earlier this year, Twitter pulled the plug on third-party developers. The difference is that the company was pretty clear that it just no longer wanted them to exist. If you’re going to use Twitter, the company wants you to use its website or its own app. Again, the reason isn’t hard to understand–Twitter doesn’t make any money from anyone using a third-party app because they don’t see Twitter’s ads.
If you’re going to kill off your partners–who do bring value to your platform, even if you can’t see it on the bottom line–you should just be honest about it. You should just say, “Hey, it’s been a nice ride, but we’re doing this differently from now on.” That isn’t to say that it isn’t going to ruin some small businesses, but if that’s your goal, you should own it.
Sure, Musk took heat for killing off popular apps like Twitterific and Tweetbot. I’m sure plenty of people would disagree with this decision. It’s not like Musk’s Twitter hasn’t been one chaotic move after another. At least, in this case, no one was pretending it was about anything other than getting everyone on the official platforms.
On the other hand, Huffman wants to pretend this is all about LLMs or something else. This is purely about trying to find any way to increase revenue per user (which, again, is zero if you’re using a third-party app) ahead of going public.
Huffman even doubled down in a note to employees that was first reported by The Verge:
There's a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we've seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward.Calling your users “noise” is maybe not the best way to win over your most important stakeholders. Instead, you just end up alienating the people you’re going to need to make your business successful.
That’s the worst thing you can do in any business, but especially when if you built it on the goodwill of your users and partners. Alienating them is bad enough–not being honest about it is even worse.
Edit: formatting
Thank you so much!
Weird. I thought having the top selling car in the world this year so far and founding the most advanced space program in the world made Elon look like a strategic genius. But he hasn’t made the company he bought and turned private 6 months ago profitable? What a loser.
If they want their subs back so badly, let them take them. They can deal with moderation (or finding any decent mods at all) on their own.
Good luck with that, Reddit admins. lol.
Something I’ve seen pointed out is that if Reddit ultimately does shift to a more “democratic” model of voting mods in and out, that could easily be abused by bot farms or for nefarious purposes. Everything about the future direction the site is heading sounds bleak and barely what it once was.
Like with a lot about Reddit, things have been implemented that sounds good on paper but little thought has been given to the consequences.
As for the electing mods/vox populi…[barf]
Huffman / spez is trying to follow the same outrage farming playbook that countless other rich guys like Trump and Musk have followed.
- Gain money and/or control over something prominent that more or less works
- Identify targets that you want to hurt or screw over
- Make big changes that damage the thing you control with no time for your targets to adjust
- When your targets complain or protest, double down and don’t apologize or change course
- Cultivate a critical mass of smoothbrained useful idiots that enjoy the way you stick to your guns and hurt others
- ???
- Profit. Literally. You’ll have a smaller base, but they’re loyal and you can make money off of them.
The question is whether spez will get to step 5. He’s already gotten to step 4.
Ironically I think most of the Twitter outrage is just on Reddit. Most other people seem to be carrying on like usual, albeit with a few hiccups. Although I don’t have a Twitter account so maybe my vantage point isn’t the best.
Welp.
Looks like a lot of mods are caving.
The excuse: “if the mods didn’t open the sub, they’ll replace them with shills”. 'Kay. And now that we know these mods will do what the admins ask when their precious power is threatened?
Well, I guess sabotage is valid approach, so I give the mods who are doing that at least a bit of credit.
/r/pics is making a stand in its own weird way.
/r/Steam just caved without much of a fight, if their sticky is anything to go by. While the mods aren’t doing anything, it does seem like there’s a bit of a user revolt where a few people are just posting pictures of literal water vapor (ie. “steam”).
/r/piracy mods seemed to give them enough of an issue that the admins de-modded the top mod and forced the sub open, but the mods seems to be taking the approach of “only sticking around to give you the coordinates to our new island”.
Honestly, though, it’s kind of hilarious that reddit considers /r/piracy of all subs to be integral to the site. How many times have they tried to shut it down now?
Everyone on that sub should just spam Nintendo stuff. Like, nothing else. Watching reddit piss off Nintendo and getting C&Ds from them would be oddly cathartic.
One of two things happens if people do that: A) the mods trying to “save” it have to actually keep it restricted to prevent getting DMCAs (lol, the irony), or B) admins just nuke the sub. Either are a win, IMO. Seems like they’re giving their users enough time to migrate and they’re probably going to jump ship soon.
German it magazine iX has an interview with the mods of r/de. I don’t know if this was mentioned here before…
Short summary: the mods of the large German communities see a huge issue with reddit not recognizing content creators and mods work and there seems to be growing support for an ongoing blackout or so they say.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/15/reddit-blackout-third-party-apps/
Loving the Reddit dumpster fire thumbnail image they included. Mostly covering TheVerge’s Huffman interview and pointing out how dumb he sounds as CEO.
That article sums up my view pretty well. Huffman has alienated his users, advertisers and potential employees. Reddit is changing the symbiotic relationship between itself and the third party ecosystem that made Reddit was it is today, and has gone full parasite.
But agreed, the Reddit dumpster fire pic is awesome.
Woah. I mean, that article nails his whole attitude. It’s so depressing to see what was such a great site come crashing down because of one tech-bro’s hubris.
It stopped being an interesting site years ago, although there were some communities that were an exception. But generally those were the ones with intense moderation and/or small user bases.
Any sub that was regularly on the front page was moronic and close minded and the subs that were their political opposite were the same plus even more hateful and vile.
