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

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[–] 113 points 3 years ago (8 children)

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.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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    [–] 59 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 48 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 21 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago

    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.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago (7 children)

    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.

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    [–] 45 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    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.

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    [–] 44 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.”

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  • [–] 34 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 30 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    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.

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    [–] 29 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    ...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...

    OUR WEBSITE, 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.

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    [–] 27 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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):

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    [–] 27 points 3 years ago

    These definitely sound like the actions of a company that is in no way threatened at all not even a little bit.

    /s

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  • [–] 26 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    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.

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    [–] 26 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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    [–] 25 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Steve Huffman should resign.

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    [–] 25 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 24 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    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

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  • [–] 24 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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    [–] 24 points 3 years ago*

    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

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  • [–] 24 points 3 years ago

    Can't wait to watch the most entertaining stage of enshittification...

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  • It feels right to be reading this from the comfort of Lemmy.

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  • [–] 22 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    OK, third time trying to post this comment after my previous two never went through 🥲

    I've seen a lot of people predict that this would be their next move if the blackouts continued. It's sad to see them actually begin with the threats though :/

    I'm wondering if this is a sort of desperation move because of advertisers looking at removing spending from reddit if things continue. Particularly where they say they would start thinking about that if things stayed dark for a couple of weeks.

    I don't know, I'm heading to bed, rewritten this three times and I'm not a good speaker, so apologies for it not being very coherent! 😅

    Anyway, still many shames on reddit. I hope the blackouts continue so that advertisers leave. Booooo reddit booooo.

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    [–] 21 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Glad I left Reddit tbh, so far Lemmy/the Fediverse seems to be way better.

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    [–] 20 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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    [–] 19 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    This is literally a copy and paste from another article with Huffman posted TODAY:

    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

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    [–] 17 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    They can’t keep their story straight. First the protest is “noise” that will “blow over”. Now they’re forcing subs to re-open.

    Look, even if the protest “fails”, they stick to the API pricing, and forcefully re-open subs, some things will be obvious and for everyone to see that weren’t before:

    • spez is lying and isn’t trustworthy
    • reddit cares more about IPO positioning and money than the health of the community
    • people are willing to explore alternatives like this fediverse
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  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago

    Yeah - obviously Reddit isn't going to go down in a fiery blaze, wiped from the internet, but it's entering a long, slow, spiral, imo, after having made a series of terrible decisions and bad PR moves that are likely significantly reducing its value as a company and casting doubt on its longevity as the power house its historically been. As far as I'm concerned, the protests were a success because it's forced Reddit to show its hand in a very public way (after all MSM picked up the story).

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    [–] 17 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    When r/WorkReform sprang up overnight and proposed to elect moderators, Reddit's admins threatened to ban the subreddit for that

    Fuck Spez. Fuck Reddit. Build kbin.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago

    The enshittification only continues..

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    I'm treating the blackout like a strike, and I don't cross picket lines, and neither should anyone else. No scabs. No one should be agreeing to moderate a sub that has lost all of its moderators to forcible removal.

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    [–] 16 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Alright! Time to Boaty McBoatface this thing.

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    [–] 14 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I swear Reddit is not only not learning from history but purposely trying to repeat it again thinking oh the previous guys were just too weak....

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    [–] 13 points 3 years ago

    If you put people in charge who don't know / care about particular communities in charge, there could be huge trouble.

    You know.... like the legal advice subr×ddit being moderated by cops. Which it is.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    So much for moderators being "free to run their communities as they choose" as this article outlines

    https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204533859-What-s-a-moderator-

    It's pretty obvious they're given free reign until they happen to disagree with admins and then it's "they're holding subreddits hostage", "they're just Stewarts" etc

    Reddit admins will legitimately say and do anything to frame this as not their own fuck up

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    [–] 13 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    How many people think any such "election" Reddit holds will be a sham?

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    [–] 12 points 3 years ago

    Was rather foreseeable but seals the deal for me. I will will waste my time here.

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