Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible - eviltoast
  • SSTF@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Not like the privating protests ever had much in the way of teeth anyway. The overwhelming majority of mods weren’t willing to actually leave, so it was just puffery. Any mod who was on reddit during the API protests and is still there has proven they will cave to whatever rules reddit throws at them.

    • CMLVI@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      This is the stupid part. I left and didn’t go back. I still end up there searching the odd problem online, but I don’t necessarily need it. The one sub I modded, when I was last checking, has had quite a bit of spam and self-promotion “watch my new YouTube video” shit going on. I wasn’t the only one doing anything on the team, as it was like 30k+ members, but it was alow traffic sub. But they don’t do the weekly discussion threads, the repost bots were rampant.

      All to make more money. I don’t know why people stayed. All that huffing and puffing, just to cower and fold.

    • Piwix@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Privating protests definitely had some teeth in the short term, but not in the long term. In the short term, it targeted what Reddit and other social media sites value most: user retention. By privating subreddits, people would be denied access to the content they want (while being served ads), so they’d click off the website. That’s why it’s gone now. It’s sad people are still volunteering their time for the profit of investors. I would, though, argue that privating subreddits was one of the most effective online protestings of recent history

      • SSTF@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Privating protests definitely had some teeth in the short term, but not in the long term

        Toothless.

      • Bonifratz@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        Effective how? Reddit went through with everything they had planned. It could have been an effective form of protesting if more mods had actually been willing to leave the site or at least their modding job for good.

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          mods had actually been willing to leave the site or at least their modding job for good.

          A lot of mods left. You can definitely see the quality of moderation dropping

          • Bonifratz@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Ok granted, that may be true. I wouldn’t be able to tell as I left in June '23 and never looked back. But from what I read about the protests back then, I seem to remember that only few subs had to have their mod team replaced by Reddit. I think if more mod teams of big subs had been willing to call it quits as a team, the disruption could have been bigger.

            In the end though, I don’t know if any form of protest can be effective in this kind of situation as Reddit holds all the cards, and if they are dead set on enshittifying, nothing will stop them. What mods and users should do is just walk out.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    It’s spez and his board’s site now, and they’re making that very clear. It’s kind of sad that everyone keeps contributing their time for free to a company that hates them.

  • lemme in@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    It also publicly noted that going NSFW (Not Safe For Work), a tool moderators used to add friction to accessing a subreddit and to make the subreddit ineligible for advertising, was “not acceptable.”

    Easy solution here, post NSFW content in every sub 👍

  • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Well duh, it hits their bottom line now when mods black-out major subs in protest.

    But yall already know that…

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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    1 month ago

    As I mentioned in another thread, about the same link, whoever is left moderating that shithole lacks dignity and care about the userbase to do anything.

  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    So the form of protest will be deranged shit posting and flooding the subreddits instead because mods will just let it happen. Will be good for the quality.

  • Sunshine @lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    Let’s tell people on the reddit posts discussing this to switch to Lemmy.

    • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      I quickly had a look on /r/modnews, nobody mentioned any alternative of any kind.

      Maybe those mentions get shadow banned

      • Sunshine @lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        That’s suspicious though I didn’t know you could get shadow banned on there.

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          You definitely can, I got shadowbanned when I talked about Lemmy on some subs, now I mostly post about /r/Redditalternatives

  • redditrassholes9344@discuss.online
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    1 month ago

    I’d say that’s a kinda a stretch, peaceful protests maybe, but peaceful and legal protests aren’t the only type of protest as anyone who knows their history would be aware of. Violent and illegal protests are very much still possible even under this change, and they can very much hurt Reddit depending on how far they go.

    Events like this could be considered a type of protest in the future, and while this one didn’t do very much damage, ones which are more extreme very well could.

    This shouldn’t be surprising, do cyber companies think they are immune to the nasty kind of protest just because they can put artificial limits on the peaceful kind? Violent protest has happened all through history, it will no doubt continue into the cyber age, and it may get a whole lot uglier than just a few broken windows or a few cuts and scrapes.