According to someone on a discord server I am in, Reddit has started adding watermarks to every post?

Haunting_Tale_5150@kbin.social to Reddit Migration@kbin.social – 91 points –
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If that gets verified as true it will be exciting to see how many people don't want to put their personal content on the platform.

Does anyone still go to those other websites that watermark their content like ifunny.com or some place dumb like that?

There were years there when any watermark from another site would get OP lynched in the comments, and now Admin over there is sufficiently out of touch they're going to start doing it to their own content.

Bets are on that this is a stupid kneejerk test from Reddit, worried that post-migration community hubs are going to "profit from their content" the same way Reddit did to places like ifunny or 9gag during it's entire growth arc.

They're also trialing blocking access on mobile if you use a web browser. I swear, they are really trying to run off the old user base.

It can't be long before they trial actively blocking ad blockers, and then ditching old.reddit.

So what will be left of Reddit? What's the point of trying to turn it into 9gag? They can't be that removed from reality.

I think that's where they're headed intentional or not, but probably intentional. I think they're trying to pivot their business model. If I had to guess what will happen going forward in broad strokes.

  • Strike will break one way or another (mod removal most likely)
  • Huge mod turnover
  • Moderation quality takes a nosedive with spam, thinly-veiled ads, porn, and trolling ending up more and more prevalent in regular subs
  • Confidence of power-users starts to evaporate once the post quality sucks and niche subs devolve to /pics and discussion turns into the Youtube comments section
  • Comments become heavily restricted by Admins to pump their upcoming IPO
  • NSFW content either gets eradicated or heavily restricted by admins to pump their upcoming IPO
  • Slow diaspora of power-users to nowhere/federated platforms/new centralized platforms/niche forums/discord
  • Vast majority that's left are Tiktok adjacent crowd scrolling though the site upvoting and downvoting (though that's being gamed even more than currently) with little meaningful discussion or community in subs anymore

so like 9gag.

Bonus-round predictions:

  • Google has to re-rank search results because Reddit isn't a treasure trove of niche knowledge and mostly-real user experiences anymore
  • AI firms scraping Reddit for LLM data will cease eventually and most likely start redirecting that to where the real discussion's are happening
  • /spez will have cashed out soon after the IPO, carrying buckets of money off into the sunset
  • New leadership and duty to make all the cash will finish strangling the holdout's of Old Reddit
  • Invasive ads and lack of anything resembling good content will make the site a shell of its former self.

I'll be surprised if this process takes another 5 years, but by year 10 I definitely think the downfall will be complete.

I think they’re working under the assumption that the majority of users don’t care enough to leave and that new mods and people will step up after the exodus. Their actions, however, paint a picture that it’s going worse for them than they planned, if they’re taking specific reforming actions to counter the backlash. Or spez has just gone full Elon.

u/spez insists that old.reddit isn't going away, but he's already proven himself to be untrustworthy.

THIS! old.reddit is the shit with RES I don't need that other bullshit. RIP Apollo.

People always talk about sites blocking ad-blockers, and I'm sure sites are trying to, but I've genuinely never been to a website where ublock origin failed to work. Like, even if there's a big banner over the screen you can't dismiss, just open the ublock zapper tool and block the banner

Or the opposite, cropping out someone's watermark or signature to pass something as original, even putting a new watermark over the old one. Can't wait to see redditors still holding out saying it's not a big deal and then find Reddit itself is doing the same thing.

I have a friend that sends me iFunny pictures every day. I hate it.

To quote one of the great orators of our time, Nathan Diaz - " I'm not surprised "

Congratulations, Huffman, for finding another way to keep content creators off your site.

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That's been true from the mobile app for a while. Whenever I save a photo from the reddit app it comes with a watermark that says what sub it's from.

I haven't used the official app in a while but you used to be able to turn that off

Can confirm

I noticed it months (?) ago. When I would do Share -> Copy Image in iOS official reddit app, it would add the attribution/watermark

I just downloaded (the deleted and left a 1 star review) the official app and downloaded an old image and a new image and a watermark didn't appear. Neither on the website

They might be trying it on a select subset of users to see how it goes.

Definitely could believe that, just wanted to report my own findings too

Yeah, they've been rolling out the worst anti-features to small sets of trial users, that's what's happening with the users blocked from accessing the website on mobile

Glad I downloaded all content from /m/RimWorldPorn just before the darkness then!

They started doing this a while ago but it was a tab at the bottom of the screen, similar to an iFunny watermark, and it could be toggled off. I think it was an official app thing?

This new watermark seems much more intrusive.

Yeah it was just a "from r/whateversub" along the bottom. Easily cropped out as well.

It's not super new, they've been doing that for a while. It's pretty difficult to get a direct source to the image even if you dig into your browser's developer tools.

That's wild if true. If I took a picture, created art work, made a meme why would I want reddit taking credit for it. Not to mention a ton of content on reddit is just screenshots from twitter, tumblr, 4chan, etc. How do you get off slapping a watermark on content that originated on another platform. It's like all these websites that host user generated content eventually forget they are just a host for the content. They start thinking they are the content.

I just checked reddit and it doesn't seem to have watermarks. I know for a while on mobile they added like the source/attribution of the subreddit at the bottom (but you could disable it). If they force watermarks on everything that'll just make me use the platform even less...

I am not sure what interface(s) or the conditions are, but apparently every post now has a reddit watermark. Presumably for people trying to repost their work to other sites.

Obligatory “fuck Steve Huffman.”

I know that for a while now saving stuff off the official app has had a banner on it. This is a logical extension.

Dunno if it’s true, and not crossing the picket line to find out.

I just tried it with the official app. It does have a banner by default if you download an image. The banner says what sub it's from on the left, and it says "Reddit" and has the logo on the right. You can turn the banner off in the settings. But the banner also doesn't cover up any part of the image itself, so you could also crop it out.

I actually don't hate this implementation. Having a Reddit logo cover the content would be dumb, but this post could also be rage bait, since I haven't seen this happen personally.

Edit: I want to clarify that the first time I downloaded an image it told me there was going to be a banner, and that I could turn it off in the settings.

Not rage bait, I haven't used the official app...well ever and I trust that my source is telling me the truth. Here's a fuller screenshot with context (though credentials blurred out) if it helps.

Edit: added a image with more context