One thing that's surprised me about the Reddit shitshow
Reddit Migration@kbin.social – 117 points – Is how easily mods have caved in once the admins threatened to remove them. I had thought we'd see quite a few cases where Reddit would have to step in an replace entire mod teams (effectively killing the community). But it seems like that hasn't happened at all - the closest we've got is mods being reordered.
I guess I didn't appreciate how much moderating means to some people, especially people who are marginalised or otherwise have shitty lives... (which makes Reddit's behaviour even more abhorrent! Exploiting the most vulnerable in society to provide free labour they are making huge profits off).
That said, it seems like Reddit has crossed the Rubicon now. They have now forced mods to run their subreddits in a certain way. Mods now know they are operating in some tight boundaries, and the admins can - on a whim - change the rules and force them to comply. i.e. any illusion of the power they had is now massively reduced. I'm sure a lot of them will be in denial, but this more than likely won't be the last time we see this happen.
Tbh, on my mod account, I'm staying just inside where they'll try to something. Not so that I don't get removed, but to drag things out as long as possible. In the meanwhile, I'm dismantling and changing the automod little bits at a time, making small deletions of popular posts, etc so that when they inevitably catch on, whatever scab they throw in has to work harder than I did to set it up.
Fuck spez, and fuck reddit.
Fighting the good fight.
This was bound to happen. As long as someone at reddit could override the mods, thereโs no way the subs could stay private indefinitely. At least not without the entire community in agreement.
The goal is to make sure all this drama stays public so everyone sees how pissed everyone is and investors see reddit as the sinking ship it is.
Yeah, we always knew Reddit had the power to end the protests overnight if they wanted to. I just thought they would have to exercise more of that power directly rather than just threaten to do so.
Well, consider how some subs have changed to be about John Oliver. Many who stayed are still trying to fight the good fight for us.
But it's up to us to build good communities here, so when reddit inevitably flexes its muscle and starts steamrolling, those mods will have a place to flee to. The best way to help the mods out now is to build a good alternative for them.
Yeah true, there's some malicious compliance going on. But in some cases the admins seem to have also told mods they have to "operate normally", i.e. telling them not only do they have to open up, but that they have to moderate in a certain way.
Ouch. Totally believable, unfortunately. But then again, who defines normal?
Would be interested to hear more specifics, as this is the first I've heard about "normal"
An r/Steam mod saying they were told they had to return to "normalcy": https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/14bvwe1/comment/johskj2/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I guess that could just mean "open up". But I suspect Reddit is just focussed on forcing subs to come out of private for now. Once they've done that, they'll force them to start moderating "in good faith" or whatever phrase they want to use to make mods behave in a certain way.
r/Steam is cracking me up with their malicious compliance. Their front page right now is filled with posts about actual steam.
Outrageous what reddit admins are doing, but not unexpected.
Is steams mod team part of the corporate hierarchy as many brand subreddits are?
If so, we might not be getting the full picture because I can't imagine they are behaving this way with companies who are otherwise considered brand partners.
Not as far as I know... but don't know for sure.
Moderations who weren't cowards got their subreddits quarantined/banned. Only Mods who agree with the admins politics or are too weak-willed to resist remain.
Nah, there are still a lot protesting, they just know that if they don't do things a certain way they'll be replaced with bootlickers. Pics, gifs, aww, interestingasfuck, iOS, wellthatsucks- all are bringing attention to the admin's bullshit while technically doing as admins asked.
In some cases, it's more complex than that. e.g. see this very interesting post by the r/LegalAdviceUK mods: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/14cr5zc/were_back_and_heres_whats_happening/
I get where they're coming from, kind of. If they're going to make another move in the future, they need to still be moderators of the subreddit or no one will pay attention.
But they need to realize that 99.9% of people will only hear about their actions, not their reasons. And their action has been to surrender to the admins' demands and return to normal operations. They've contributed to the growing narrative that the protest has failed, which puts more pressure on the remaining holdouts to fold.
A couple news stories of moderators of prominent subreddits being forcibly removed by reddit would have been a thousand times more effective than these vague promises of future actions that might never happen.
Many mod teams are biding their time while they make plans in private, so that's also something to consider.
They had better be. The mods at the larger subreddits clearly aren't safe as long as Reddit is this profit-driven. If it helps their bottom line, they will step in and reorganize mod teams one at a time.
Part of the problem as we've seen with a few subreddits is all it takes is one mod who is swayed to reddits side to end the blackouts and probably will happen with these protests that have been happening as well. One mod that either doesn't support the blackouts or says they don't but really is just using it to gain full control of the subreddit is all it takes.
Yeah, which in the long run is a recipe for disaster.... putting the most power hungry mods in charge
Yes, it's inevitable but stretching out the pain to draw more people to the fediverse is useful. The more news it makes, the more people will want to check it out, and a wee bit of viral, newsworthy drama could make a significant impact on the adoption trajectory. Plus, for petty people like me, it's a great source of entertainment.
Prisoners dilemma, do all the mods trust all the mods to not defect? Because it only takes one.
Change doesn't happen overnight. As long as the shitshow continues, it'll affect Reddit. Plenty of mods still protesting, and many are contemplating their next moves.
I personally am thinking of stepping down, I haven't done much moderation in the past year or so anyway.
I expect another exodus when the apps shut down at the end of the month as well. Things happen in stages.
Just change the rules of the sub to include NSFW and then set the whole sub to NSFW. Reddit doesn't advertise on NSFW subreddits, so the sub is open, but you impact reddit's bottom line.
The Toyota subreddit did that earlier today and then it went private. I don't know if Reddit turned it private to clean it up or if the moderators did.
That would make no sense, right? I mean I could get it if the admins put it private, but not with that specific message:
Unless it was never changed, I guess.
It's still an odd response if it's admins.
Seems contradictory. Not that that's a reason for it not to be true of course.
Yikes. Those are absolutely not objectively true.
You might even say objectively false.
If moderators were paid, and Reddit wasn't simply monetizing the community's content and goodwill, it wouldn't be too hard to see the company's coercive tactics as akin to strike-busting.
It's exactly equivalent.
Several of the big subs have switched to a malicious compliance though where theyโve reopened but are nothing like their normal content. Itโs not actually against the rules, and seems kind of clever unless Iโm missing something?
Only thing I have to say to that is that this form of protest still brings activity to Reddit which means ad money in spezโs pocket. Itโs as if the workers during a strike still go to work and produce the things that makes the company money, but painted pink or something, so people still buy it (maybe even more cause that is unusual) and spend. No strikes would be effective if that is how they went, which is why usually the workers withdraw their labor entirely.
That said, itโs not a job, the mods can do what they want with it and I can do what I want too, which is not give views and build community here.
Nah, I think you've got this all wrong. Nobody's going to Reddit for pics of John Oliver. What this does is render the larger subs effectively useless. A more apt metaphor would be a sandwich shop doing only one, fairly unappealing (sorry John) style of sandwich. People are going to stop coming in right quick.
These mods are still fighting and I applaud them. Reddit might be a flawed model but I am ALWAYS down for frustrating the aims of people like spez.
You hit the nail in the head. I suspect that the mod protest is not about the stupid surcharges on third party API users, but a combination of:
My reason for taking part is the fact that the cheap fuck, spez, wants to sell our content, place ads on seeing the content, mine tracking data to sell more ads, but only let us do it on the app that's the most invasive, least developed, buggiest possible heap of shit that's available for reddit.
He does all of that while crowing about reddit's corpus of data, wanting to lock nsfw content to the official dumpster fire of an app so he can be a cyberpimp, and then repeatedly refusing to admit that he does nothing useful for the company that the mods and users actually keep going.
Fuck spez.
The api pricing is just the head of the zit. He's the pus inside.
Agreed. Unfortunately on my local sub (just a bit over 250k users) the mods are the ones trying to push for continued protest through malicious compliance. Most users are completely clueless and find the protest cringe and useless. I've gone back twice since the blackout, only to voice my opinions and it was not well received. A lot of people just don't see a problem with having the platform getting revenue off their own content. I don't think I'll ever go back to Reddit and will most likely delete my account after 12 years.
This reddit lies person is pro-forced birth?? wtf???
yeah that twitter thread was mostly a shit show and not the crowd I want to have around
In a group of mods theres bound to be different kinds of people. Reddit has demodded people like on r/piracy but i guess it only takes 1 mod willing to take over..
Because calling internet moderation "unpaid work" is intellectually dishonest. It's a hobby, at best. They know they're getting paid, just not with money. They get paid in the only currency they actually care about: arbitrary internet police power. Whats funny is most of them probably hate actual police for their arbitrary abuses of power. As soon as admins threatened to "fire" them they largely fell in line because they know for each degenerate power tripping reddit mod, theres 100 degenerate lurkers who would happily replace them. They are fully aware of that fact, and that's why threatening to remove them worked.
I'm not surprised. Theres obviously a ton of great mods, but also a ton of shitstain mods and people who are dying to become shitstain mods I'm surprised it took them so long, if anything.
Old school internet forums used to be the same, internet feudalism is what I prefer to call it, not the first, nor will it be the last
Reddit is essentially a big feudal system, it's slowly cruising towards a fork, just waiting to either transform or collapse
Wow that's actually an incredibly depressing screenshot, and pretty much vile for how reddit is using them
I am not surprised that the mods gave in, not only because of egolatry, but because I don't think anyone wants to see the fruit of their efforts taken away and in the hands of anyone. I have been more surprised by the users.
A little over a week ago people were voting massively everywhere in favor of the protest, but nowadays everywhere I go, I only see people saying how stupid the protest is, that this is a whim that the mods are forcing on the users, that the mods are doing it for their selfish interests, and that the whole thing makes no sense.
The worst thing is that the mods, instead of toning it down and settling for effective measures that don't generate as much opposition, like shutting down one day a week (that should have been the initial and permanent proposal), they keep pushing to vote proposals that no one wants like restricting everything but silly pictures.
Users against mods while admins rub their hands together, and the only alternative is a couple of platforms in too early development with hardly any users. Reddit handled this extremely poorly, but will come out winning :-/
I'm not surprised.
Many mods are hugely invested. I was a reddit mod of a long standing sub until Tuesday when I de-modded myself and abandoned it after reading Apollo's creator's rebuttal. I was apalled by Spezz's behaviour and simply could not stand being associated with Reddit's management any longer. I walked away.
But my sub was low traffic, I hadn't had it for that long, I hadn't invested a lot of life into it. Being in that position is large part of your day, your routine. Stopping leaves a void. Many mods have invested years into Reddit and they genuinely care what happens to it. I understand and cannot blame any mod for wanting to stick with it, even through this insanity. Reddit knows that, of course, and even bad mods save them a lot of work. They know they can push them around, bully them into line and most will suck it up and take it.
As for users - the vast majority don't feel ownership, or even particular involvement, and don't want to. They just want to browse stuff and move on with their life. Spectators, and that's fine.
Sorry to be negative, but for myself, I just want to be much less involved. I've always used aggressive adblockers everywhere and probably earn Reddit very little money, but I've generated a lot of content and done much volunteer work for them. I'm not interested in fighting them, only in distancing myself and finding other ways to spend my time. I do find it more than a little sad, however.
Not sure they "caved". A protest is never rigid, both sides constantly adapt to what the other side is doing. In many instances, the protest hasn't stopped, it has taken a John Olivier sanctioned new form. Or even more subtle forms that will be a lot harder for Reddit to track and fight.
A well-organized protest can last a very long time. And you don't need a lot of people to do real damage. As a French, I'm very familiar with protests and strikes and whatnot. To me, these mods are adapting extremely well to Reddit's threats. Reddit will exhaust itself fighting this protest. spez is a dumbass, as this completely avoidable protest will require Reddit to dedicate a lot of resources to quell it. For a dude so focused on profitability, such a waste of resources and money is a hilarious result.