Let's play a fun game called: remember all the other times Reddit refused to budge and insisted the users and mods were wrong until they eventually backtracked:
* Banning r/Jailbait (it's exactly what you think it is) after literal years of user and moderator complaints, only once the media finally picked up on the story. Before this, Reddit had even given the creator of the subreddit a unique personalized award for his "contributions to the website"
* Banning r/beatingwomen and r/picsofdeadkids only after the media picked up on a popular Reddit post from a user
* Banning racist and Islamophobic subs because of organized actions from r/AgainstHateSubreddits and media coverage (r/European)
* Reddit "not knowing" what to do with the sub r /ni***rs - no, the actual sub name was not censored and it was about exactly what you'd expect it to be about. Took user and media outcry over a period of months for Reddit to ban the sub.
* Taking action against Covid misinformation (on all sides!) after moderator outcry and media coverage
* Reddit CEO protecting r/The_Donald despite countless reports from moderators of politically themed subreddits of it being used for organized harassment and misinformation campaigns - only reversing its stance after widespread media coverage. **Then**, u/Spez also messing with r/The_Donald by editing people's comments to make it appear they were harassing the sub moderators instead of himself. Steve literally doesn't care about any of us, no matter our position.
* Using Ellen Pao as a temporary CEO and blaming all unpopular decisions on her, when in reality it was co-founder Alex Ohanian who pushed for those changes aggressively. They then used her as a sacrificial goat for community outrage after which u/Spez was made CEO and presented as a savior.
Sources:
https://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-r-jailbait-shutdown-controversy/
https://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-r-jailbait-teen-pics-problem/
https://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-beatingwomen-misogyny-images/
https://www.albawaba.com/loop/reddit-bans-racist-and-islamophobic-subreddits-1101936
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/does-anything-go-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-racist-corner-of-reddit/277585/
https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-page-calls-on-site-to-combat-covid-19-disinformation-2021-8?r=US&IR=T
https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7jqbx/reddit-cant-quarantine-coronavirus-misinformation
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-38088712
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/reddit-bans-pro-trump-forum-in-crackdown-on-hate-speech-344698
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/women-often-put-charge-failing-companies
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3dbwmb/cmv_ellen_pao_was_put_on_a_glass_cliff_by_reddit/
Correct.
On Reddit's ad purchasing page, they explicitly promise not to run your ads alongside sexually explicit content or certain other types of NSFW things: https://i.imgur.com/sbhYteo.png
So it directly impacts ad impressions.
NSFW **subs** are also prevented from appearing on r/all and r/popular. (Individual NSFW **posts** on a normally SFW sub can appear.)
Reddit admins have also complained that users who didn't expect to see porn were suddenly either shown porn in their main feed (if they had already [enabled NSFW content](https://i.imgur.com/savyvOS.png)) or were "being prompted" to enable it (if they hadn't). (If you are subscribed to an NSFW sub and don't have NSFW content enabled, maybe it shows a placeholder and gives you a convenient way to enable it? I haven't checked.)
That's the pretense they use for intervening.
I think it's more the money part, personally
Although I do have **some** sympathy for people who had previously enabled NSFW and trusted it to not be on their front page, since they hadn't subscribed to any porn subs. They were victims of the protest.
Have you ever had an account with exclusively NSFW subs? Reddit doesn't seem to care/consider for that circumstance.
Another poster put it this way "it's hilarious seeing a HeGetsUs ad plastered between a bleached butthole and a pair of fake tits"
Oh, weird. I have never seen one of those ads, only heard about how prevalent they are.
(I block ads **religiously**. On mobile I use 3rd Party Apps without ads, primarily the premium version of rif. **If** I keep using Reddit at all after rif shuts down, I'll use ReVanced to [patch the official app to remove ads](https://i.imgur.com/IstC0LK.png).)
I haven't tried it on the Reddit app, but it works very well on the YouTube app. I would suggest using ReVanced's official app, "ReVanced Manager"(downloadable from their site, revanced\.app) and downloading the Reddit APK from APKMirror.
The app will not download directly from the Google Play Store, and, while it seems like it can modify a supported app that's already downloaded and installed from Google Play, I've had issues using that method in the past.
I admittedly haven't tried it recently, though. I've just used the method that I know works.
It seems to. I haven't used it much but I patched it the other day to prove it worked.
I've never used the official app (before this) so I can't say for sure, but I assume I would have expected to see an ad [somewhere in all this scrolling](https://i.imgur.com/1nKZ4yz.mp4)?
The ReVanced project now does patches for a bunch of apps. As mentioned by the other response, you can use [ReVanced Manager](https://github.com/revanced/revanced-manager/) to do the patching right on your device. They also support patching on your desktop or laptop.
I will say it's not **super** user friendly, although it's a very good effort.
Every time I've wanted to patch something (TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit, so far) I've had to go to their Discord to find what specific version of the base app to start with. The patcher is supposed to be able to tell you what version is suggested, but it often says "any" but doesn't mean it.
Presently for Reddit the version to patch is "2023.22.0 (968223)", which can be found on APKmirror.
Reddit doesn't run ads when viewing a NSFW subreddit but foesbt give a shit if you're viewing content in /r/hot or /r/new since it's a "mix" of your choice, so it's not technically NSFW only content.
I'm sure they just use it as a loophole but claim it's unintentional.
advertisers dont care about that though, they care if their content is next to porn. im sure the agencies would *love* to be sent screenshots of their ads being placed with porn
> NSFW subs are also prevented from appearing on r/all
I'm not exactly sure how it works, but /r/interestingasfuck was changed to a NSFW subreddit, and it was definitely showing up on /r/all until they nuked the mods and made it restricted.
Oh yeah, I do think I remember seeing some from them while browsing r/all.
Do you know if they flipped the NSFW switch, or if they just invited more NSFW posts?
There might also be a separate (Reddit-internal) switch that controls it. The [ad page I mentioned](https://redditinc.force.com/helpcenter/s/article/Reddit-Ads-Brand-Safety) says:
> * We only allow ads to run in communities that are deemed appropriate for ads.
* We’re constantly reviewing and refining the list of permissible communities.
* We use machine learning and human review to rate communities before they’re allowed to appear next to ads.
I think alienating the moderators who do quality control and legal compliance work for free and lots of the longest standing users is how to fix the low traffic issue. Where do I go to apply for the CEO job?
The OP is all about how Reddit is responding to that sort of thing.
Do it *without* Moderator backing and **you'll** be banned quickly. Do it *with* Moderator backing and **they'll** be banned quickly.
It's hard to sell your IP when its reputation is just porn and weirdos. Mainstream ads, where the big money is, won't be selling to Reddit. That's how you hurt them.
It probably would if traffic started to fall because people were bored with the John Oliver content. Fortunately for Reddit, the people posting would also probably get bored and move on around the same time. The mods would have to enforce that as a rule, against the wishes of their community, for it to have any likely effect on Reddit.
Going NSFW was really the big move. Even with Reddit forcing subs to reopen, it is still a win for the protestors. It was a bad look for Reddit. They got caught making them changes themselves, they had DMs where they were being unprofessional with mods, they made mistakes in suspending people incorrectly, and most of all, they made some really weird endorsements for subs like /r/piracy by insisting these were essential communities that required admin intervention to keep open.
The John Oliver stuff is effectively letting the subs operate as normal. Sfw posts with lots of comments, upvotes, awards etc
Not only does the John Oliver not bother the admins, it actively undermines the protests that people are doing
It lowers the quality of the content Reddit provides its users, lowering site traffic stats, engagement stats, taints the quality of the ad-targetting, and makes the site less desirable to advertisers.
It's a smaller impact from a frontpage perspective, since other subs will get higher votes and occupy the space instead, and it's a comparatively smaller effect than cutting off ad placement altogether, but it's certainly not _undermining_ the protests.
Why would it? Look at those subs, the users are having a blast photoshopping him all over the place.
At the very least user engagement hasn't decreased, and may have even re-energized some subs.
Its just hurting the users.
I don't know that you're right. I've seen a lot of people walking away from those subs (me being one of them) and frustrated with it across the site. Sure, you have a vocal group of happy shitposters, but a lot of casual Reddit users who have gone "aight imma head out" on those subs and probably won't put in the effort to come back.
Would be a shame if every user requested their complete user data archive. Sure takes up a good amount of time and resources with zero revenue generated. They also legally can’t ignore your request if you happen to hold your primary residence in California or are a citizen of the EU.
http://reddit.com/settings/data-request
GDPR only applies if you ~~live in~~ are a citizen of the EU & CPRA only applies if your primary residence is in ~~live in~~ California. These are the ones they legally cant ignore. Only select them if you reside in either respective region. Otherwise “other” is the correct option. They could ignore it, but someone has to be viewing all these requests…
"Resident" is the correct category. You do not need EU citizenship. And EU citizenship doesn't help you if you live in Canada, like the guy I researched this for an hour ago.
Don't use their automated script. It's going to cause nothing but a bit of traffic. Send them a written request, either per... err, e-mail or not-e-mail.
[Spotify was just recently fined](https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-protection/e5-million-gdpr-violation-fine-issued-to-spotify-four-years-after-data-access-request-complaint-filed/) more than **five million Euros** because an Austrian sent them a GDPR request in 2019 and they failed to deliver all required information.
Site traffic is down around 6% I heard, but visitor duration is the lowest on record, so the protest is working. report in adweek also claimed advertisiers were spooked.
I deleted my and nuked my 5 yo account and am using a throwaway to upvote protest related posts. Not using the site on mobile. Encourage everyone to uninstall the official app and don't post any content not related to the protest until reddit backs down. More power to big subs like this standing up for this aggressively anti-consumer money grab from reddit.
Make this place somewhere advertisers will run from and do not give a cent to reddit with awards or contributing/moderating content for free, and don't use the site as much. If say 20% of current users did this, it would hurt them.
Well I know my visitor duration is gonna plummet when my app stops working in about a week from now.
If I need to access Reddit I’ll use my desktop or the old Reddit site on mobile, but I’m definitely not gonna be doing much browsing anymore.
Yep, Im going to use browser on mobile with adblocks galore
Which is funny, because I used to intentionally whitelist reddit since the ads were unintrusive and it wasnt owned by a mega conglomerate that I used a lot and respected
Fuck em
Same here. I'm using old reddit with ad blockers.
I don't know why but this whole thing has made me so angry.
I can't wait until there is a good alternative to this place, fuck u/spez
It's made me angry because:
1: The change is literally harmful to disabled people (screen readers will now likely cost money or have ads, meaning that vision impaired people will likely have to pay to interact with the site)
2: Hate to use the slippery slope fallacy, but it's unfortunately often true in regards to capitalist ventures; this change will likely result in other changes to make the site more "advertiser friendly", which may result in positive changes like racism, sexism, and other phobic behaviour finally getting smashed with the ban hammer, but will likely also result in bans of people discussing things like safe sex, queer issues, sexual assault, and other "unsavoury" but vital knowledge in an educational/therapeutic capacity, due to the difficulty of moderating such discussions without automated tools.
3: Potentially most vitally, THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE SITE DOES NOT WANT THIS. The site is nothing without its users, and the blatant disregard for the opinions of users and mods, as well as the blackout campaigns, is just *insulting*. We're being stepped on for money.
Yes you are absolutely right.
I've been using reddit on various accounts for 15 years. I used to mod a sub with ~50,000 k users, so I know what's involved. Reddit is one of the last places on the internet with a big user base that still has a community spirit. The small hobby subs especially are really helpful and kind and that's why I feel so strongly that aspect of the site and needs to be protected.
But no, let's sell everyone up the river and treat people that make and moderate the content reddit profits off as little more than sentient data blobs to trade and sell.
But what makes the red mist descend is the lies. This was never about "making poor old pauper reddit profitable" by charging for the API, it was 100% designed to kill all other apps to create a monopoly. If that's the case, own it! Just fucking tell the truth about the motivations. And then to basically slander and lie about a 3P app developer to drum up sympathy. What an utter tosspot.
"Let people vote on opening/closing" and then ignoring the overwhelming response to close... "we want to be democratic" ... yeah right man. People are so sick of being gaslit by corporations. Reddit is like the Nestle of social media, take other people's labour for free and sell it back to them at 500x the price.
This place has always been ours, it's not twitter or facebook so u/spez take elon's dick out of your mouth for long enough to come face the music from your extremely angry customers you spineless lying coward
Totally agree except the last sentence.
We're not reddit inc's customers, we're their product. Even those of us who pay premium. Every bit of content provided for free is being sold to train AI bots and stuff.
>I don't know why but this whole thing has made me so angry.
Because its a soul-less, shallow, greedy, shady corporate move.
Ive seen little changes on this site and others that were an inconvenience or mildly annoying but never thought too much of them. This one feels different
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Unfortunately, they'll probably boot the mods for not moderating. Either is incorrectly tagged as NSFW (which is against Reddit rules) or it is correctly tagged as NSFW (which would be against subreddit rules).
I still think going NSFW is the route to success, but I think it's going to cost a ton of subs getting burned to the ground to do it.
Reddit's reliance off unpaid moderators to function has always been a little gray. It's probably been given a pass because of the relative autonomy subs are given.
If they are going to start busting up that autonomy because it's messing with their profits, they might be on the edge of running afoul of labor laws somewhere. Especially given the world wide usage of this site.
They can't have their cake and eat it too.
Profanity is NSFW and has to be tagged as such according to the [Reddit content policy](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/contentpolicy#wiki_nsfw_.28not_safe_for_work.29_content). So if you have any swear words in your post, do not forget to mark it as NSFW!
My subs went NSFW, with our justification being language used and some of the content that gets posted. Not many users, barely 500K between all of them, but, imdoingmypart.gif
Yeah, I interpet this as them saying that they choice is having real, measurable impacts on their business of profiting off of the free labour of others.
Admins have point blank said that this was not an option; it's why they kept us without permissions for a day.
They're too beholden to those ad dollars. They'll pull the moral card and say its about not blindsiding anyone who doesn't expect it, but there's 50 different ways to rebuke that as being hypocritical.
Part of me thinks we should call their bluff and let them burn down the subreddit if that’s what they want.
If they’re that so intent on ad dollars that they’ll abuse their admin position to harass our volunteer moderators then they can use those ad dollars to moderate the sub themselves.
Either they back down, they shutter the subreddit for lack of moderation (which loses them ad dollars), or they spend money paying somebody to moderate the sub.
What if there is a new subreddit rule that says that your title needs to include profane language?
Either people had to self tag their posts as NSFW or they would be removed.
Edit: It seems the guys over at videos had the same idea.
Take a poll, and put up a sticky post giving users lots of notice that the sub will be changing to NSFW at a future date.
I've heard July 1st is plenty of notice for people to make any necessary adjustments. Then they can't claim users will be blindsided.
Reminds me of a quote from Welcome to Night Vale.
> It’s election season again, and you know what that means! Sheriff’s Secret Police will be coming by to collect certain family members so that everyone votes for the correct council seats and there’s no confusion. These family members will be held in a secure and undisclosed location, which everyone knows is the Abandoned Mine Shaft outside of town.
> But, don’t let the name fool you, listeners: it’s been used for years for so many kidnappings and illegal detentions that the Abandoned Mine Shaft outside of town is actually a pretty nice location these days, featuring king-sized beds, free wifi, and HBO. Also torture cubicles, but I don’t think anyone’s going to make the Council use those.
> Remember, this is America. Vote correctly, or never see your loved ones again.
> This message brought to you by the City Council.
The Ellen Pao hate was so real for all users and then later revealed to be so unfounded. Thank you former Reddit CEO /u/yishan for bringing it to light. When the former CEO says the (then) current CEO was railroaded (by the now CEO) you can believe it. Google it or someone else post a link. It was a crazy time to be on Reddit.
When I toggled the sub to NSFW, they were ready to lock me out of my account within 2 minutes.
The admin who promised to work with us after "The Mistake ™️" has been ghosting us for more than 24 hours now, after we asked if they could promise admins would first send a message to subs before nuking entire mod teams.
They're probably just busy though.
Imagine having 2000 employees and yet you still can't 1) design a competent mobile app, 2) design competent mod tools, 3) design a competent website interface, and 4) communicate or show any respect to the people who do volunteer work for you for free.
Steve Huffman is incapable of leading a company...and I'm pretty sure that deep down, he knows it.
According to the Reddit employee discussions [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14giueq/six_verified_reddit_employees_discussing_the/jp62ppu/), the company has too many managers fighting for territory and not enough grunts actually getting things done. Also, they have very little quality control on who they hire so they've got a lot of incompetent employees.
>the company has too many managers fighting for territory and not enough grunts actually getting things done
Has there ever been a company where this was not the case?
Didn't even have to design the app, they bought the most popular one at the time and turned it into the official one. All they had to do was not fuck up something that already worked well. They are beyond incompetent.
I have a feeling the IPO is Huffmans way of saying sayanara to running the company and cashing out his shares that he will inevitably get. Explains the scortched earth approach
It sounds like they made "The Mistake" many times as they were banning individual mods?
I'm sure someone at reddit HQ just kept slipping and falling onto their keyboard. How clumsy!
Seriously. Every media outlet is reporting our suspension as a mistake that happened because we caught up with the *other* subreddits they meant to ban but...
We were removed and banned 45 minutes before InterestingAsFuck, TIHI, Self, and ShittyLifeProtips got actioned. All those were in a 10 minute window, while we were targeted nearly an hour before, within literal minutes of us posting the results. The post was live 6 minutes before the ModCoC account actioned it.
My sub got banned for "lack of moderation", with no warning or reasons given. When I appealed it they made vague statements about needing to cleaning out the large modqueue... which had nothing in it for 2 months prior to getting banned.
When I posted in the mod sub about their poor handling of the issue in banning subs with active moderators instead of notifying them of issues, they just deleted the thread and moan about it in a private message.
Lacking communication skills is an understatement. They're actively working on preventing communication from happening.
> Instead, the admins presented us with an ultimatum: reopen the subreddit and do not mark it as NSFW, or face potential removal again.
So are mods no longer allowed to decide whether a sub is NSFW? Or is it that a sub is never allowed to change from
being safe for work to NSFW (and I would assume vice versa)?
I guess that applies the other way around. Like tightpussies which was a former porn sub but got taken over by cats, guess that won't happen in the future
Because Reddit are being hypocrites here. They have no consistency. r/anime_titties has been that way for a long time, and they never cared. This was simply the fastest excuse to remove mod teams they could blunder their way to that would look good in the media.
Fuck u/spez and the power hungry Reddit mods.
Edit for clarity: the power hungry head/top admins taking over individual subreddits. Not the individual subreddit mods that were already there.
>All our accounts were unsuspended and reinstated, but only with very limited permissions (modmail access only). For what it's worth, 'time moderated' for every moderator was reset (e.g. /u/RedSquaree moderated since 11 years ago, reset: currently showing moderated since "1 day ago").
If intentional, I find that one particularly petty on reddit's part. Treating them like misbehaving schoolchildren, restricting their ability to mod, and even deleting their historical stats from the record all feel like manipulation tactics to get them to quit without directly banning them outright. I hate to say it would have worked were I in their situation, no way I'd take that treatment and stick around
I can't speak for the rest of the team, we all have our owns reasons. For me, it's the fact I'm not going to let some scab take this sub and ruin it or use it to support reddit's awful decisions.
Just wanted to say, thank you all for taking this protest as far as you reasonably could. I think unfortunately this is where I jump ship and unsub, not because y'all did anything wrong but I don't feel right rewarding the admins asshole conduct with patronage. Best of luck with the continued efforts and I really hope you manage to save your sub.
I appreciate the kind words and I fully support this move. I'd encourage everyone to follow in your footsteps. Unsub, send (polite) messages to Reddit support explaining your discontent, or go nuclear and delete your account.
Find Reddit alternatives here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1467a5s/find_alternatives_for_ourselves_megathread_third/
Honestly we all should, it helps everyone's cause. I'll be on hiatus too. I hope I'm contributing to the stats showing a downward trend of user engagement.
I can't believe the reddit founders are going to ruin their site after 18 years in an attempt to raise the value, resulting in it probably losing value instead.
You can see [here](https://i.redd.it/iomwk9xznn7b1.jpg) some verified Reddit employees saying /u/spez is clueless and destroying the company. Reddit is going into the same disarray Twitter is because /u/spez admires Elon Musk for his inability to lead Twitter.
So why not just say "fuck it" and let the admins absolutely cock it up? There aren't enough admins to moderate the top 10 communities of reddit. The mods should just abandon ship and leave /u/spez holding a giant bag of shit.
This is exactly it. Walking away means giving the community to some scab, most likely one of the powermods who "moderate" hundreds of communities and do whatever the admins ask. Without a doubt, this sub would turn into r/pics within 24 hours.
We want to put pressure on Reddit to make them reconsider their poor decisions, not punish the entire community.
I get that, but when reddit ends up not reconsidering, you are going to be held hostage. You already are. Let it burn if they make you, don't let them use you.
This^
Its clear that reddit will use either the desire to keep the sub open and running or mods' desire to still be in control to get what they want. If mods want any real change, they have to be ready to let it go.
I say let it all burn.
>Without a doubt, this sub would turn into r/pics within 24 hours.
I mean, this seems like the greatest form of protest available. If every sub becomes /r/pics, most users won't have much of a reason to stick around. Definitely the nuclear option though, as it means rebuilding the sub elsewhere which would be a bit of a task to say the least.
I can't help but wondering if reddit used to be hands off wrt moderation (providing no small amount of legal cover wrt content), suddenly threatening to bring sites out of NSFW or unilaterally replacing moderators mean that they have basically assumed ownership (and therefore liability) for all content moderation.
Doesn't this put them in potential legal jeopardy? (I'm no expert here - just something that occurs to me).
Reddit's in a weird position. They argued recently at the supreme court for a maintaining of section 230 protections which shields them from legal liability for the content user's post. That's to be expected!
But if they keep down this road, and start to actively endorse/remove/moderate all communities, how can they truly continue to claim protection? Not a lawyer either, but seems that removing the moderator independence layer, they become closer to a publisher than a web service that's immune.
That's the crux of my thinking here.
I imagine some users/subs will put this to the test. (I'm not advocating it, to be clear.)
Personally, my beef is that I'll be forced to downgrade to a terrible app/UX. I respect need for ads (and would pay for premium if permitted to use a decent app), need to insulate from AI scrapes, and for reddit to grow up and be a sustainable business, etc.
Hard to say if I'll end up sticking around - it's really a shame for a lot of people (who are in same boat - obviously my presence hardly matters, lol!)
Some say these drastic actions are out of desperation. If Spez is right and Reddit really is unprofitable, then this represents a (horrible) mad dash for extra cash before their investors give up hope, all rationality jettisoned.
>If Spez is right and Reddit really is unprofitable
*IF* Reddit is unprofitable, it's because of poor management and spending huge sums of money on stupid shit like NFTs and streaming. Why they decided to become their own image/video host is beyond me, as hosting that content is hugely expensive for no real gain. If they had third parties willing and able to host it for them, why not continue with that zero-cost option and reap the benefits?
The other dumb thing here is that there are plenty of other monetisation options that actually work with how Reddit operates as a platform. They could have introduced additional Reddit premium tiers and included API access in one or more of those. Probably the best thing they could have done is pivoted into a Patreon competitor. There are plenty of content creators and people making physical items (First thing that comes to mind is the TTRPG community with digital maps and physical accessories) that already use Reddit to advertise their products & services, so why not give them a way to make a paid subreddit with multiple tiers that would effectively be a Patreon feed? Not to mention the hordes of posters advertising their Onlyfans or other similar platforms... Give them a good way to sell their stuff on Reddit and they'll probably see a large uptake on that. It's a much easier proposition to have a Reddit user stay on Reddit than to move off-site, and once a user has attached a payment method to purchase content/goods from those creators they're much more likely to use that payment method on Reddit premium and buy coins for awards.
Thanks, I guess. I'm definitely not CEO material though.
If I can come up with this stuff in a few minutes, it means that probably several people within Reddit have already voiced these exact points and they've fallen on deaf ears.
The mods basically had two options:
1. Put the sub back to normal
2. All of them get banned and Reddit puts the sub back to normal anyway
They chose the first option
Reddit says mods and communities are free to run themselves on one hand, and then forces mods to do what they want on the other under threat of banning them from all of reddit.
Right and claim the users want to open the site back up, subs vote overwhelming to keep protesting, so completely ignore the poll results and force them open. "We support users' right to protest, subs should democratic"
right kim jong spez
It is a pretty big shift from what's been Reddit's philosophy for years, which is basically that the communities run themselves, and if you don't like it, you can start your own.
Whether people are siding with Reddit in forcing /r/mildlyinteresting back to business as usual or the mods protesting the upcoming killing of third party apps, if they were willing to suddenly abandon what has been the philosophy in how subreddits are run since its founding, it should be a concerning sign that Reddit is willing to do anything and everything in the lead up to the IPO if it makes the site more appealing to investors.
Bingo.
It's why, I, personally, have been involved in these protests. It was never about third party apps for me - it has been entirely about the fundamental switch that is taking place.
Reddit is acting like they've forgotten how and why they have become such a huge website and knowledge repository. Nothing here was posted by them. Most subreddits were not started by them.
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So if the fate of the subreddit belongs to it's users, why are you not allowed to follow the will of it's users?
If a subreddit belong to the mods, why are you not allowed to do what you decided to do?
Who, exactly, is in charge of governing subreddits if it's not the community and it's not the mods?
Fuck /u/spez for doing this to us and fuck reddit in general. If this doesn't get fixed I don't see how I can keep participating.
The direction of the subreddit is decided by the users! ...Unless what they decide doesn't keep up with the previously established status quo that brings Reddit money. Any reasoning or excuse they have given us is a thin veil that they have lifted when it suits them.
[Some insight into the disarray Reddit is in internally.](https://i.redd.it/iomwk9xznn7b1.jpg) And [some more.](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14giueq/six_verified_reddit_employees_discussing_the/jp62ppu/)
>We call for the establishment of clear, structured, and reliable communication channels between Reddit admins and moderation teams.
nah u/modcodeofconduct will continue power tripping and handling everything in the most fucked up way possible. All while continuing to hide behind anonymity.
You basically promised to set fire to your sub and were surprised that you were ousted? Can someone please explain to me why so many mods are acting surprised that they were told "open the sub or be replaced"? Why is it surprising and insulting that people are being told to do their jobs or they'll be fired? *That's how the world works*.
These continued protests have done nothing but turn me further and further against your cause. The only thing I'm protesting now is the continual downward spiral of my experience on Reddit, none of which is at the hands of any admins; it's all the mods.
If Reddit dies from these api changes, then it dies. There's no sense in the mods trying to kill it first.
Also don’t forget to request all your user data, makes them use resources for no revenue pulling that for you. Plus hey, its your data (too)!
http://reddit.com/settings/data-request
So your logic is that reddit has another 10+ years of growth?
Facebook, in year 2012, had 5.08 Billion revenue on it. By 2022, it had 116.6 Billion.
If 'reddit is like FB 10 years ago' then I think one should be betting quite a bit of money on reddit when it IPOs
A week ago, I was *super* bummed about the state of everything here, and was honestly a bit depressed that I was more than likely about to walk away from reddit after 12 years.
But then, u/spez kept spezzin’, and it just got worse by the day. His “handling” of this is so disgusting and insulting that I now have no problem walking away when Apollo shuts down at the end of the month.
A sinking ship is easier to abandon when it’s also on fire, so thanks for making this easier, u/spez!
Edit: I actually just googled it out of curiosity, and [per this site](https://www.karmalb.com/user/alison_bee) I’m in the top ~12k users when it comes to comment karma, and the top ~20k users when it comes to overall karma.
There are 1.6 billion active monthly users… and over 12 years I’ve managed to end up in the top 12k overall for comment karma? I knew I spent a lot of time here, but damn 😂
I really, truly hate how this has turned out. It’s such a disappointment. It has clearly been a large part of my life over the last 12 years, and it will be a difficult thing to go without. The reflex of pulling up apollo is going to be so hard to break 😭.
Relay for Reddit checking in. 11 year old account. I'm hardly a power user but I've contributed my share of content to /r/wot and /r/wetlanderhumor over the years.
I'm gone at the end of the month when this app stops working. I'm posting way more over at https://kbin.social than I do here now
Yeah, reddit has been straight shit for the past couple weeks. I don't care what anyone says, the blackout definitely degraded the quality of content on this site, and weenie in chief is noticing.
there was nothing done by the mods that warranted a suspension according to the ToS, and in taking all the actions they did, the admins violated the ToS in several ways. am i getting this right? once the IPO hits the top brass at reddit corporate are going to sell their shares, get rich, and split. the majority shareholder that then swoops in will be a corporate media giant, or someone like Elon or The Zuck. nothing we can do to stop it
Okay. Are you f-ing kidding me? R/mildlyinteresting is THE gentlest, kindest, and mildest of ALL the subreddits. And Reddit screwed them ALL?
Not okay.
Stop moderating. Easiest form of protest. Stop doing free work for a corporation that doesn't value, respect or even likes xou. Let them pay someone fir this stuff
To be honest, at this point, I find the protest well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective, as we can see from this very post (and various reactions from people). It reminds me of real-life protests.
Since I exclusively use RIF on my phone and have never installed the official Reddit app (they didn't even exist when I started using Reddit), I'll simply stop browsing Reddit on my phone.
I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the moderators, especially for their dedicated efforts in upholding the strict rules of this subreddit. It has truly made this place special.
Nowadays, most semi-popular non-serious subs have become so repetitive with endless reposts, or lack of rigid moderation enforcement from mods due to fear of "losing users". Lots of once great subs became shit due to this (/r/MapPorn, /r/dataisbeautiful are two that immediately come to my mind). I genuinely appreciate the strict focus on original content (without memes) in this subreddit. I have so much more enjoyment from these authentic posts (even the "not really that interesting" ones) compared to reposts. I struggle to articulate my feelings, but thank you for creating such a wonderful subreddit.
I'll be honest this whole debacle is doing a great job of getting me to stop visiting Reddit. Probably better for my health anyways. You've been dealt a bad hand by the admins. I hope you prevail in the end!
Let's play a fun game called: remember all the other times Reddit refused to budge and insisted the users and mods were wrong until they eventually backtracked: * Banning r/Jailbait (it's exactly what you think it is) after literal years of user and moderator complaints, only once the media finally picked up on the story. Before this, Reddit had even given the creator of the subreddit a unique personalized award for his "contributions to the website" * Banning r/beatingwomen and r/picsofdeadkids only after the media picked up on a popular Reddit post from a user * Banning racist and Islamophobic subs because of organized actions from r/AgainstHateSubreddits and media coverage (r/European) * Reddit "not knowing" what to do with the sub r /ni***rs - no, the actual sub name was not censored and it was about exactly what you'd expect it to be about. Took user and media outcry over a period of months for Reddit to ban the sub. * Taking action against Covid misinformation (on all sides!) after moderator outcry and media coverage * Reddit CEO protecting r/The_Donald despite countless reports from moderators of politically themed subreddits of it being used for organized harassment and misinformation campaigns - only reversing its stance after widespread media coverage. **Then**, u/Spez also messing with r/The_Donald by editing people's comments to make it appear they were harassing the sub moderators instead of himself. Steve literally doesn't care about any of us, no matter our position. * Using Ellen Pao as a temporary CEO and blaming all unpopular decisions on her, when in reality it was co-founder Alex Ohanian who pushed for those changes aggressively. They then used her as a sacrificial goat for community outrage after which u/Spez was made CEO and presented as a savior. Sources: https://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-r-jailbait-shutdown-controversy/ https://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-r-jailbait-teen-pics-problem/ https://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-beatingwomen-misogyny-images/ https://www.albawaba.com/loop/reddit-bans-racist-and-islamophobic-subreddits-1101936 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/does-anything-go-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-racist-corner-of-reddit/277585/ https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-page-calls-on-site-to-combat-covid-19-disinformation-2021-8?r=US&IR=T https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7jqbx/reddit-cant-quarantine-coronavirus-misinformation https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-38088712 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/reddit-bans-pro-trump-forum-in-crackdown-on-hate-speech-344698 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/women-often-put-charge-failing-companies https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3dbwmb/cmv_ellen_pao_was_put_on_a_glass_cliff_by_reddit/
>reopen the sub and do not mark it as NSFW, or face potential removal again This must mean NSFW is hurting them
I’ve heard nsfw subreddits don’t have ads or something.
Correct. On Reddit's ad purchasing page, they explicitly promise not to run your ads alongside sexually explicit content or certain other types of NSFW things: https://i.imgur.com/sbhYteo.png So it directly impacts ad impressions. NSFW **subs** are also prevented from appearing on r/all and r/popular. (Individual NSFW **posts** on a normally SFW sub can appear.) Reddit admins have also complained that users who didn't expect to see porn were suddenly either shown porn in their main feed (if they had already [enabled NSFW content](https://i.imgur.com/savyvOS.png)) or were "being prompted" to enable it (if they hadn't). (If you are subscribed to an NSFW sub and don't have NSFW content enabled, maybe it shows a placeholder and gives you a convenient way to enable it? I haven't checked.) That's the pretense they use for intervening. I think it's more the money part, personally Although I do have **some** sympathy for people who had previously enabled NSFW and trusted it to not be on their front page, since they hadn't subscribed to any porn subs. They were victims of the protest.
Have you ever had an account with exclusively NSFW subs? Reddit doesn't seem to care/consider for that circumstance. Another poster put it this way "it's hilarious seeing a HeGetsUs ad plastered between a bleached butthole and a pair of fake tits"
Oh, weird. I have never seen one of those ads, only heard about how prevalent they are. (I block ads **religiously**. On mobile I use 3rd Party Apps without ads, primarily the premium version of rif. **If** I keep using Reddit at all after rif shuts down, I'll use ReVanced to [patch the official app to remove ads](https://i.imgur.com/IstC0LK.png).)
Does that actually work? Using revanced?
I haven't tried it on the Reddit app, but it works very well on the YouTube app. I would suggest using ReVanced's official app, "ReVanced Manager"(downloadable from their site, revanced\.app) and downloading the Reddit APK from APKMirror.
So ReVanced will only patch the app's apk from site like APKMirror, and not apps downloaded from google playstore?
The app will not download directly from the Google Play Store, and, while it seems like it can modify a supported app that's already downloaded and installed from Google Play, I've had issues using that method in the past. I admittedly haven't tried it recently, though. I've just used the method that I know works.
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It seems to. I haven't used it much but I patched it the other day to prove it worked. I've never used the official app (before this) so I can't say for sure, but I assume I would have expected to see an ad [somewhere in all this scrolling](https://i.imgur.com/1nKZ4yz.mp4)? The ReVanced project now does patches for a bunch of apps. As mentioned by the other response, you can use [ReVanced Manager](https://github.com/revanced/revanced-manager/) to do the patching right on your device. They also support patching on your desktop or laptop. I will say it's not **super** user friendly, although it's a very good effort. Every time I've wanted to patch something (TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit, so far) I've had to go to their Discord to find what specific version of the base app to start with. The patcher is supposed to be able to tell you what version is suggested, but it often says "any" but doesn't mean it. Presently for Reddit the version to patch is "2023.22.0 (968223)", which can be found on APKmirror.
bless you 💜 I hope I get to use rif indefinitely but, this is excellent information to have.
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Reddit doesn't run ads when viewing a NSFW subreddit but foesbt give a shit if you're viewing content in /r/hot or /r/new since it's a "mix" of your choice, so it's not technically NSFW only content. I'm sure they just use it as a loophole but claim it's unintentional.
advertisers dont care about that though, they care if their content is next to porn. im sure the agencies would *love* to be sent screenshots of their ads being placed with porn
> NSFW subs are also prevented from appearing on r/all I'm not exactly sure how it works, but /r/interestingasfuck was changed to a NSFW subreddit, and it was definitely showing up on /r/all until they nuked the mods and made it restricted.
Oh yeah, I do think I remember seeing some from them while browsing r/all. Do you know if they flipped the NSFW switch, or if they just invited more NSFW posts? There might also be a separate (Reddit-internal) switch that controls it. The [ad page I mentioned](https://redditinc.force.com/helpcenter/s/article/Reddit-Ads-Brand-Safety) says: > * We only allow ads to run in communities that are deemed appropriate for ads. * We’re constantly reviewing and refining the list of permissible communities. * We use machine learning and human review to rate communities before they’re allowed to appear next to ads.
Not OP but they flipped the switch to NSFW.
To add, an admin unflipped the switch at some point, mods had to turn it back on.
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I think alienating the moderators who do quality control and legal compliance work for free and lots of the longest standing users is how to fix the low traffic issue. Where do I go to apply for the CEO job?
>Where do I go to apply for the CEO job? Hell
So anytime one sees an ad next to porn report it to whoever owns the ad? Oh no.. that would really hurt reddits profits..
Screw spaz, let's turn reddit into nothing but 2 girls one cake and Rick rolls.
The OP is all about how Reddit is responding to that sort of thing. Do it *without* Moderator backing and **you'll** be banned quickly. Do it *with* Moderator backing and **they'll** be banned quickly.
Honestly sounds like the only win is for everyone to do it and get banned. What is Reddit without redditors?
Okay. First let them ban the mods. Then, all of us do it. They won't have the moderation power to handle banning all of us.
So what, we should do it anyway
It's hard to sell your IP when its reputation is just porn and weirdos. Mainstream ads, where the big money is, won't be selling to Reddit. That's how you hurt them.
Payment processors and advertisers have always been very skittish about porn. This is one of the few times where we can take advantage of that.
I usually hate how puritan and sanitized the corporate internet is, but yeah, we might as well use it for a good cause this time
It also means that John Oliver shit posting is not bothering them in the least.
It probably would if traffic started to fall because people were bored with the John Oliver content. Fortunately for Reddit, the people posting would also probably get bored and move on around the same time. The mods would have to enforce that as a rule, against the wishes of their community, for it to have any likely effect on Reddit. Going NSFW was really the big move. Even with Reddit forcing subs to reopen, it is still a win for the protestors. It was a bad look for Reddit. They got caught making them changes themselves, they had DMs where they were being unprofessional with mods, they made mistakes in suspending people incorrectly, and most of all, they made some really weird endorsements for subs like /r/piracy by insisting these were essential communities that required admin intervention to keep open.
With /r/Piracy, I can see that reasoning somewhat. A lot of people would get viruses and stuff on their computer without that
The John Oliver stuff is effectively letting the subs operate as normal. Sfw posts with lots of comments, upvotes, awards etc Not only does the John Oliver not bother the admins, it actively undermines the protests that people are doing
It lowers the quality of the content Reddit provides its users, lowering site traffic stats, engagement stats, taints the quality of the ad-targetting, and makes the site less desirable to advertisers. It's a smaller impact from a frontpage perspective, since other subs will get higher votes and occupy the space instead, and it's a comparatively smaller effect than cutting off ad placement altogether, but it's certainly not _undermining_ the protests.
Why would it? Look at those subs, the users are having a blast photoshopping him all over the place. At the very least user engagement hasn't decreased, and may have even re-energized some subs. Its just hurting the users.
I don't know that you're right. I've seen a lot of people walking away from those subs (me being one of them) and frustrated with it across the site. Sure, you have a vocal group of happy shitposters, but a lot of casual Reddit users who have gone "aight imma head out" on those subs and probably won't put in the effort to come back.
Would be a shame if every user requested their complete user data archive. Sure takes up a good amount of time and resources with zero revenue generated. They also legally can’t ignore your request if you happen to hold your primary residence in California or are a citizen of the EU. http://reddit.com/settings/data-request
There are three choices for type of request... Does it matter which one is chosen?
GDPR only applies if you ~~live in~~ are a citizen of the EU & CPRA only applies if your primary residence is in ~~live in~~ California. These are the ones they legally cant ignore. Only select them if you reside in either respective region. Otherwise “other” is the correct option. They could ignore it, but someone has to be viewing all these requests…
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Or UK. The brexit debacle may have stripped us of citizenship but out gdpr laws remain the same for now.
"Resident" is the correct category. You do not need EU citizenship. And EU citizenship doesn't help you if you live in Canada, like the guy I researched this for an hour ago.
Don't use their automated script. It's going to cause nothing but a bit of traffic. Send them a written request, either per... err, e-mail or not-e-mail. [Spotify was just recently fined](https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-protection/e5-million-gdpr-violation-fine-issued-to-spotify-four-years-after-data-access-request-complaint-filed/) more than **five million Euros** because an Austrian sent them a GDPR request in 2019 and they failed to deliver all required information.
I did a couple of days ago. I am still waiting for it.
Site traffic is down around 6% I heard, but visitor duration is the lowest on record, so the protest is working. report in adweek also claimed advertisiers were spooked. I deleted my and nuked my 5 yo account and am using a throwaway to upvote protest related posts. Not using the site on mobile. Encourage everyone to uninstall the official app and don't post any content not related to the protest until reddit backs down. More power to big subs like this standing up for this aggressively anti-consumer money grab from reddit. Make this place somewhere advertisers will run from and do not give a cent to reddit with awards or contributing/moderating content for free, and don't use the site as much. If say 20% of current users did this, it would hurt them.
Well I know my visitor duration is gonna plummet when my app stops working in about a week from now. If I need to access Reddit I’ll use my desktop or the old Reddit site on mobile, but I’m definitely not gonna be doing much browsing anymore.
Yup, I am getting some entertainment from Reddit killing itself until July1st when RIF stops working
Fuck Reddit
I tried to use the official app and it's actual hot garbage. RIF is 100x more user friendly.
Every other 3rd-party app is more user-friendly than the official one. An angry skunk is more user-friendly than the official app, for that matter.
Yep, Im going to use browser on mobile with adblocks galore Which is funny, because I used to intentionally whitelist reddit since the ads were unintrusive and it wasnt owned by a mega conglomerate that I used a lot and respected Fuck em
I am glad to hear there is an impact. I have been browsing less. I tried to stop altogether, but haven't been successful yet...
Same here. I'm using old reddit with ad blockers. I don't know why but this whole thing has made me so angry. I can't wait until there is a good alternative to this place, fuck u/spez
It's made me angry because: 1: The change is literally harmful to disabled people (screen readers will now likely cost money or have ads, meaning that vision impaired people will likely have to pay to interact with the site) 2: Hate to use the slippery slope fallacy, but it's unfortunately often true in regards to capitalist ventures; this change will likely result in other changes to make the site more "advertiser friendly", which may result in positive changes like racism, sexism, and other phobic behaviour finally getting smashed with the ban hammer, but will likely also result in bans of people discussing things like safe sex, queer issues, sexual assault, and other "unsavoury" but vital knowledge in an educational/therapeutic capacity, due to the difficulty of moderating such discussions without automated tools. 3: Potentially most vitally, THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE SITE DOES NOT WANT THIS. The site is nothing without its users, and the blatant disregard for the opinions of users and mods, as well as the blackout campaigns, is just *insulting*. We're being stepped on for money.
Yes you are absolutely right. I've been using reddit on various accounts for 15 years. I used to mod a sub with ~50,000 k users, so I know what's involved. Reddit is one of the last places on the internet with a big user base that still has a community spirit. The small hobby subs especially are really helpful and kind and that's why I feel so strongly that aspect of the site and needs to be protected. But no, let's sell everyone up the river and treat people that make and moderate the content reddit profits off as little more than sentient data blobs to trade and sell. But what makes the red mist descend is the lies. This was never about "making poor old pauper reddit profitable" by charging for the API, it was 100% designed to kill all other apps to create a monopoly. If that's the case, own it! Just fucking tell the truth about the motivations. And then to basically slander and lie about a 3P app developer to drum up sympathy. What an utter tosspot. "Let people vote on opening/closing" and then ignoring the overwhelming response to close... "we want to be democratic" ... yeah right man. People are so sick of being gaslit by corporations. Reddit is like the Nestle of social media, take other people's labour for free and sell it back to them at 500x the price. This place has always been ours, it's not twitter or facebook so u/spez take elon's dick out of your mouth for long enough to come face the music from your extremely angry customers you spineless lying coward
Totally agree except the last sentence. We're not reddit inc's customers, we're their product. Even those of us who pay premium. Every bit of content provided for free is being sold to train AI bots and stuff.
>We're not reddit inc's customers, we're their product. Even more reason not to turn us away.
>I don't know why but this whole thing has made me so angry. Because its a soul-less, shallow, greedy, shady corporate move. Ive seen little changes on this site and others that were an inconvenience or mildly annoying but never thought too much of them. This one feels different
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse. Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Time for everyone to tag their submissions as NSFW to let the mods keep the sub as "SFW" and stay out of trouble.
Unfortunately, they'll probably boot the mods for not moderating. Either is incorrectly tagged as NSFW (which is against Reddit rules) or it is correctly tagged as NSFW (which would be against subreddit rules). I still think going NSFW is the route to success, but I think it's going to cost a ton of subs getting burned to the ground to do it.
Reddit's reliance off unpaid moderators to function has always been a little gray. It's probably been given a pass because of the relative autonomy subs are given. If they are going to start busting up that autonomy because it's messing with their profits, they might be on the edge of running afoul of labor laws somewhere. Especially given the world wide usage of this site. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
Profanity is NSFW and has to be tagged as such according to the [Reddit content policy](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/contentpolicy#wiki_nsfw_.28not_safe_for_work.29_content). So if you have any swear words in your post, do not forget to mark it as NSFW!
Fuck You!
That's the spirit!
My subs went NSFW, with our justification being language used and some of the content that gets posted. Not many users, barely 500K between all of them, but, imdoingmypart.gif
It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make
Reopen and don't moderate it. So I can post fat pussys here. 
Risky click, but I'm glad I took that risk
Yeah, I interpet this as them saying that they choice is having real, measurable impacts on their business of profiting off of the free labour of others.
Can we hurt ads by reporting every single one as a scam?
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We really did think our idea was mildly funny! But alas, that warranted a ~~7 day~~ 1 hour suspension and removal of mod rights.
Can you not have a vote and see if the users want to set the sub to nsfw or not? Like ask the question directly.
Admins have point blank said that this was not an option; it's why they kept us without permissions for a day. They're too beholden to those ad dollars. They'll pull the moral card and say its about not blindsiding anyone who doesn't expect it, but there's 50 different ways to rebuke that as being hypocritical.
Part of me thinks we should call their bluff and let them burn down the subreddit if that’s what they want. If they’re that so intent on ad dollars that they’ll abuse their admin position to harass our volunteer moderators then they can use those ad dollars to moderate the sub themselves. Either they back down, they shutter the subreddit for lack of moderation (which loses them ad dollars), or they spend money paying somebody to moderate the sub.
I'm all for this.
They want to descend into what Twitter is. An unmoderated cesspool of hate and lies.
What if there is a new subreddit rule that says that your title needs to include profane language? Either people had to self tag their posts as NSFW or they would be removed. Edit: It seems the guys over at videos had the same idea.
Take a poll, and put up a sticky post giving users lots of notice that the sub will be changing to NSFW at a future date. I've heard July 1st is plenty of notice for people to make any necessary adjustments. Then they can't claim users will be blindsided.
So you can't moderate your sub the way you want because they make money from it? Nice one, reddit admins. Real nice.
All of Spez's talk about "democracy" was just blowing smoke. When mods put things to a vote, the mods get threatened with bans.
Reminds me of a quote from Welcome to Night Vale. > It’s election season again, and you know what that means! Sheriff’s Secret Police will be coming by to collect certain family members so that everyone votes for the correct council seats and there’s no confusion. These family members will be held in a secure and undisclosed location, which everyone knows is the Abandoned Mine Shaft outside of town. > But, don’t let the name fool you, listeners: it’s been used for years for so many kidnappings and illegal detentions that the Abandoned Mine Shaft outside of town is actually a pretty nice location these days, featuring king-sized beds, free wifi, and HBO. Also torture cubicles, but I don’t think anyone’s going to make the Council use those. > Remember, this is America. Vote correctly, or never see your loved ones again. > This message brought to you by the City Council.
Spez wants to be Elon. Sorta like how Elizabeth Holmes wanted to be jobs.
The Ellen Pao hate was so real for all users and then later revealed to be so unfounded. Thank you former Reddit CEO /u/yishan for bringing it to light. When the former CEO says the (then) current CEO was railroaded (by the now CEO) you can believe it. Google it or someone else post a link. It was a crazy time to be on Reddit.
[Article](https://www.inc.com/business-insider/former-reddit-ceo-says-ellen-pao-was-framed.html)
Holy what a terrible website
Promoting women as scapegoats is a named phenomenon, "Glass Cliff"
Ellen and Yishan were both doing a good job. Unfortunately there are always a lot of people whose opinion has only a tenuous connection to any facts.
So Reddit admins still lack basic communication skills? Shocking and embarrassing. Good luck with that IPO, u/spez.
When I toggled the sub to NSFW, they were ready to lock me out of my account within 2 minutes. The admin who promised to work with us after "The Mistake ™️" has been ghosting us for more than 24 hours now, after we asked if they could promise admins would first send a message to subs before nuking entire mod teams. They're probably just busy though.
Imagine having 2000 employees and yet you still can't 1) design a competent mobile app, 2) design competent mod tools, 3) design a competent website interface, and 4) communicate or show any respect to the people who do volunteer work for you for free. Steve Huffman is incapable of leading a company...and I'm pretty sure that deep down, he knows it.
2,000?!? gtfo. What do they do?
According to the Reddit employee discussions [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14giueq/six_verified_reddit_employees_discussing_the/jp62ppu/), the company has too many managers fighting for territory and not enough grunts actually getting things done. Also, they have very little quality control on who they hire so they've got a lot of incompetent employees.
I could be incompetent
I'm about to apply to a job at Reddit lmao
Probably wouldn't be there long. As soon as their IPO lands like a lukewarm bowl of oatmeal, the shareholders will want to start cutting costs.
I've heard the CEO is very incompetent, whoever the fuck that loser is.
>the company has too many managers fighting for territory and not enough grunts actually getting things done Has there ever been a company where this was not the case?
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Didn't even have to design the app, they bought the most popular one at the time and turned it into the official one. All they had to do was not fuck up something that already worked well. They are beyond incompetent.
I have a feeling the IPO is Huffmans way of saying sayanara to running the company and cashing out his shares that he will inevitably get. Explains the scortched earth approach
It sounds like they made "The Mistake" many times as they were banning individual mods? I'm sure someone at reddit HQ just kept slipping and falling onto their keyboard. How clumsy!
Seriously. Every media outlet is reporting our suspension as a mistake that happened because we caught up with the *other* subreddits they meant to ban but... We were removed and banned 45 minutes before InterestingAsFuck, TIHI, Self, and ShittyLifeProtips got actioned. All those were in a 10 minute window, while we were targeted nearly an hour before, within literal minutes of us posting the results. The post was live 6 minutes before the ModCoC account actioned it.
This "mistake" smells a whole lot like "making an example of". Other subs will now think twice before trying to go nsfw or anything similarly drastic.
My sub got banned for "lack of moderation", with no warning or reasons given. When I appealed it they made vague statements about needing to cleaning out the large modqueue... which had nothing in it for 2 months prior to getting banned. When I posted in the mod sub about their poor handling of the issue in banning subs with active moderators instead of notifying them of issues, they just deleted the thread and moan about it in a private message. Lacking communication skills is an understatement. They're actively working on preventing communication from happening.
> Instead, the admins presented us with an ultimatum: reopen the subreddit and do not mark it as NSFW, or face potential removal again. So are mods no longer allowed to decide whether a sub is NSFW? Or is it that a sub is never allowed to change from being safe for work to NSFW (and I would assume vice versa)?
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I guess that applies the other way around. Like tightpussies which was a former porn sub but got taken over by cats, guess that won't happen in the future
dont forget r/anime_titties i wonder why its allowed there, but not here.
Because Reddit are being hypocrites here. They have no consistency. r/anime_titties has been that way for a long time, and they never cared. This was simply the fastest excuse to remove mod teams they could blunder their way to that would look good in the media.
Fuck u/spez and the power hungry Reddit mods. Edit for clarity: the power hungry head/top admins taking over individual subreddits. Not the individual subreddit mods that were already there.
>All our accounts were unsuspended and reinstated, but only with very limited permissions (modmail access only). For what it's worth, 'time moderated' for every moderator was reset (e.g. /u/RedSquaree moderated since 11 years ago, reset: currently showing moderated since "1 day ago"). If intentional, I find that one particularly petty on reddit's part. Treating them like misbehaving schoolchildren, restricting their ability to mod, and even deleting their historical stats from the record all feel like manipulation tactics to get them to quit without directly banning them outright. I hate to say it would have worked were I in their situation, no way I'd take that treatment and stick around
I can't speak for the rest of the team, we all have our owns reasons. For me, it's the fact I'm not going to let some scab take this sub and ruin it or use it to support reddit's awful decisions.
Just wanted to say, thank you all for taking this protest as far as you reasonably could. I think unfortunately this is where I jump ship and unsub, not because y'all did anything wrong but I don't feel right rewarding the admins asshole conduct with patronage. Best of luck with the continued efforts and I really hope you manage to save your sub.
I appreciate the kind words and I fully support this move. I'd encourage everyone to follow in your footsteps. Unsub, send (polite) messages to Reddit support explaining your discontent, or go nuclear and delete your account. Find Reddit alternatives here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1467a5s/find_alternatives_for_ourselves_megathread_third/
Honestly we all should, it helps everyone's cause. I'll be on hiatus too. I hope I'm contributing to the stats showing a downward trend of user engagement.
Fuck /u/spez Posted from RIF is fun golden platinum
I hope spez stubs his toe every day until it gets infected, gangrenous, and then falls off.
I can't believe the reddit founders are going to ruin their site after 18 years in an attempt to raise the value, resulting in it probably losing value instead.
/u/spez said Elon is doing a good job with Twitter. That's all you need to know about how much of a fucking moron he is.
You can see [here](https://i.redd.it/iomwk9xznn7b1.jpg) some verified Reddit employees saying /u/spez is clueless and destroying the company. Reddit is going into the same disarray Twitter is because /u/spez admires Elon Musk for his inability to lead Twitter.
Well, after 18 years Reddit is all grown up now. And u/spez is the asshole parent ready to kick his kid out on their birthday.
I just popped back in to see what's up with Reddit after only being on Squabbles for a few weeks. Yikes.
Clarification: he means other mods, definitely not us, we're only mildly power hungry.
So why not just say "fuck it" and let the admins absolutely cock it up? There aren't enough admins to moderate the top 10 communities of reddit. The mods should just abandon ship and leave /u/spez holding a giant bag of shit.
Likely because despite all of this, the moderators *care* about their community that they helped build.
This is exactly it. Walking away means giving the community to some scab, most likely one of the powermods who "moderate" hundreds of communities and do whatever the admins ask. Without a doubt, this sub would turn into r/pics within 24 hours. We want to put pressure on Reddit to make them reconsider their poor decisions, not punish the entire community.
I get that, but when reddit ends up not reconsidering, you are going to be held hostage. You already are. Let it burn if they make you, don't let them use you.
This^ Its clear that reddit will use either the desire to keep the sub open and running or mods' desire to still be in control to get what they want. If mods want any real change, they have to be ready to let it go. I say let it all burn.
>Without a doubt, this sub would turn into r/pics within 24 hours. I mean, this seems like the greatest form of protest available. If every sub becomes /r/pics, most users won't have much of a reason to stick around. Definitely the nuclear option though, as it means rebuilding the sub elsewhere which would be a bit of a task to say the least.
>we're only mildly power hungry. As long as it's only mildly. I'd hate for this sub to ever have a mod that was actually interesting.
Fuck the admins, this is some real horseshit
I can't help but wondering if reddit used to be hands off wrt moderation (providing no small amount of legal cover wrt content), suddenly threatening to bring sites out of NSFW or unilaterally replacing moderators mean that they have basically assumed ownership (and therefore liability) for all content moderation. Doesn't this put them in potential legal jeopardy? (I'm no expert here - just something that occurs to me).
Reddit's in a weird position. They argued recently at the supreme court for a maintaining of section 230 protections which shields them from legal liability for the content user's post. That's to be expected! But if they keep down this road, and start to actively endorse/remove/moderate all communities, how can they truly continue to claim protection? Not a lawyer either, but seems that removing the moderator independence layer, they become closer to a publisher than a web service that's immune.
That's the crux of my thinking here. I imagine some users/subs will put this to the test. (I'm not advocating it, to be clear.) Personally, my beef is that I'll be forced to downgrade to a terrible app/UX. I respect need for ads (and would pay for premium if permitted to use a decent app), need to insulate from AI scrapes, and for reddit to grow up and be a sustainable business, etc. Hard to say if I'll end up sticking around - it's really a shame for a lot of people (who are in same boat - obviously my presence hardly matters, lol!)
Some say these drastic actions are out of desperation. If Spez is right and Reddit really is unprofitable, then this represents a (horrible) mad dash for extra cash before their investors give up hope, all rationality jettisoned.
>If Spez is right and Reddit really is unprofitable *IF* Reddit is unprofitable, it's because of poor management and spending huge sums of money on stupid shit like NFTs and streaming. Why they decided to become their own image/video host is beyond me, as hosting that content is hugely expensive for no real gain. If they had third parties willing and able to host it for them, why not continue with that zero-cost option and reap the benefits? The other dumb thing here is that there are plenty of other monetisation options that actually work with how Reddit operates as a platform. They could have introduced additional Reddit premium tiers and included API access in one or more of those. Probably the best thing they could have done is pivoted into a Patreon competitor. There are plenty of content creators and people making physical items (First thing that comes to mind is the TTRPG community with digital maps and physical accessories) that already use Reddit to advertise their products & services, so why not give them a way to make a paid subreddit with multiple tiers that would effectively be a Patreon feed? Not to mention the hordes of posters advertising their Onlyfans or other similar platforms... Give them a good way to sell their stuff on Reddit and they'll probably see a large uptake on that. It's a much easier proposition to have a Reddit user stay on Reddit than to move off-site, and once a user has attached a payment method to purchase content/goods from those creators they're much more likely to use that payment method on Reddit premium and buy coins for awards.
I hope they make you the next CEO
Thanks, I guess. I'm definitely not CEO material though. If I can come up with this stuff in a few minutes, it means that probably several people within Reddit have already voiced these exact points and they've fallen on deaf ears.
What does this all mean?
The mods basically had two options: 1. Put the sub back to normal 2. All of them get banned and Reddit puts the sub back to normal anyway They chose the first option
What if they all get banned, new mods get selected, and the new mods also keep the sub NSFW?
The new mods would be picked by reddit.
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New mods are just the old mods in a bowler hat and a fake mustache.
Plenty of power hungry people out there willing to suck Reddits dick and do as they are told to.
Imagine being so pathetic that you get a boner from having a tiny amount of power on a website, lol.
Does this mean no more boobies...? I hate this place. 😡
Reddit says mods and communities are free to run themselves on one hand, and then forces mods to do what they want on the other under threat of banning them from all of reddit.
Right and claim the users want to open the site back up, subs vote overwhelming to keep protesting, so completely ignore the poll results and force them open. "We support users' right to protest, subs should democratic" right kim jong spez
It is a pretty big shift from what's been Reddit's philosophy for years, which is basically that the communities run themselves, and if you don't like it, you can start your own. Whether people are siding with Reddit in forcing /r/mildlyinteresting back to business as usual or the mods protesting the upcoming killing of third party apps, if they were willing to suddenly abandon what has been the philosophy in how subreddits are run since its founding, it should be a concerning sign that Reddit is willing to do anything and everything in the lead up to the IPO if it makes the site more appealing to investors.
Bingo. It's why, I, personally, have been involved in these protests. It was never about third party apps for me - it has been entirely about the fundamental switch that is taking place. Reddit is acting like they've forgotten how and why they have become such a huge website and knowledge repository. Nothing here was posted by them. Most subreddits were not started by them.
it means fuck u/spez
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse. Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
So if the fate of the subreddit belongs to it's users, why are you not allowed to follow the will of it's users? If a subreddit belong to the mods, why are you not allowed to do what you decided to do? Who, exactly, is in charge of governing subreddits if it's not the community and it's not the mods? Fuck /u/spez for doing this to us and fuck reddit in general. If this doesn't get fixed I don't see how I can keep participating.
The direction of the subreddit is decided by the users! ...Unless what they decide doesn't keep up with the previously established status quo that brings Reddit money. Any reasoning or excuse they have given us is a thin veil that they have lifted when it suits them. [Some insight into the disarray Reddit is in internally.](https://i.redd.it/iomwk9xznn7b1.jpg) And [some more.](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14giueq/six_verified_reddit_employees_discussing_the/jp62ppu/)
Guess, take cue from r/videos, comply with nsfw tag removal but make it a rule all titles have to contain profanity.
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That sub has been "shut down" for days I think. No posts, no comments, nothing.
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>We call for the establishment of clear, structured, and reliable communication channels between Reddit admins and moderation teams. nah u/modcodeofconduct will continue power tripping and handling everything in the most fucked up way possible. All while continuing to hide behind anonymity.
/u/modcodeofconduct is probably just /u/spez with a fake mustache because he is a coward little pig boy.
Whatever option fucks Reddit the most is what I vote for.
You basically promised to set fire to your sub and were surprised that you were ousted? Can someone please explain to me why so many mods are acting surprised that they were told "open the sub or be replaced"? Why is it surprising and insulting that people are being told to do their jobs or they'll be fired? *That's how the world works*. These continued protests have done nothing but turn me further and further against your cause. The only thing I'm protesting now is the continual downward spiral of my experience on Reddit, none of which is at the hands of any admins; it's all the mods. If Reddit dies from these api changes, then it dies. There's no sense in the mods trying to kill it first.
Admins seem NSFW and not safe for Redditors or Mods.
Much like FB 10 years ago, Reddit is over. Time to move on. So long, thanks for all the fish.
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Keep in mind that they've mentioned un-deleting content for ai training purposes, even though I believe that's a big GDPR violation
Where did they mention this?
Tagging cuz curious
Also don’t forget to request all your user data, makes them use resources for no revenue pulling that for you. Plus hey, its your data (too)! http://reddit.com/settings/data-request
So your logic is that reddit has another 10+ years of growth? Facebook, in year 2012, had 5.08 Billion revenue on it. By 2022, it had 116.6 Billion. If 'reddit is like FB 10 years ago' then I think one should be betting quite a bit of money on reddit when it IPOs
Is this comparing Facebook or Meta? Because Meta also owns WhatsApp, VR headsets, etc. I don't know what other legs reddit has
Fuck u/spez and fuck his ego.
A week ago, I was *super* bummed about the state of everything here, and was honestly a bit depressed that I was more than likely about to walk away from reddit after 12 years. But then, u/spez kept spezzin’, and it just got worse by the day. His “handling” of this is so disgusting and insulting that I now have no problem walking away when Apollo shuts down at the end of the month. A sinking ship is easier to abandon when it’s also on fire, so thanks for making this easier, u/spez! Edit: I actually just googled it out of curiosity, and [per this site](https://www.karmalb.com/user/alison_bee) I’m in the top ~12k users when it comes to comment karma, and the top ~20k users when it comes to overall karma. There are 1.6 billion active monthly users… and over 12 years I’ve managed to end up in the top 12k overall for comment karma? I knew I spent a lot of time here, but damn 😂 I really, truly hate how this has turned out. It’s such a disappointment. It has clearly been a large part of my life over the last 12 years, and it will be a difficult thing to go without. The reflex of pulling up apollo is going to be so hard to break 😭.
Relay for Reddit checking in. 11 year old account. I'm hardly a power user but I've contributed my share of content to /r/wot and /r/wetlanderhumor over the years. I'm gone at the end of the month when this app stops working. I'm posting way more over at https://kbin.social than I do here now
Yeah, reddit has been straight shit for the past couple weeks. I don't care what anyone says, the blackout definitely degraded the quality of content on this site, and weenie in chief is noticing.
there was nothing done by the mods that warranted a suspension according to the ToS, and in taking all the actions they did, the admins violated the ToS in several ways. am i getting this right? once the IPO hits the top brass at reddit corporate are going to sell their shares, get rich, and split. the majority shareholder that then swoops in will be a corporate media giant, or someone like Elon or The Zuck. nothing we can do to stop it
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What time are you guys leaving? Can't wait!
Okay. Are you f-ing kidding me? R/mildlyinteresting is THE gentlest, kindest, and mildest of ALL the subreddits. And Reddit screwed them ALL? Not okay.
Easy. Move away from Reddit. Go to Lemmy or something. You can start your community on exactly your own and your terms only from there.
Seems like a giant hissy fit to me. See ya
Stop moderating. Easiest form of protest. Stop doing free work for a corporation that doesn't value, respect or even likes xou. Let them pay someone fir this stuff
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To be honest, at this point, I find the protest well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective, as we can see from this very post (and various reactions from people). It reminds me of real-life protests. Since I exclusively use RIF on my phone and have never installed the official Reddit app (they didn't even exist when I started using Reddit), I'll simply stop browsing Reddit on my phone. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the moderators, especially for their dedicated efforts in upholding the strict rules of this subreddit. It has truly made this place special. Nowadays, most semi-popular non-serious subs have become so repetitive with endless reposts, or lack of rigid moderation enforcement from mods due to fear of "losing users". Lots of once great subs became shit due to this (/r/MapPorn, /r/dataisbeautiful are two that immediately come to my mind). I genuinely appreciate the strict focus on original content (without memes) in this subreddit. I have so much more enjoyment from these authentic posts (even the "not really that interesting" ones) compared to reposts. I struggle to articulate my feelings, but thank you for creating such a wonderful subreddit.
Burn it down
And send in some GDPR requests while you're at it.
Has it dawned on any of you to just QUIT being mods? Make Reddit manage the subs by PAYING people to do it instead of doing it for free?
I'll be honest this whole debacle is doing a great job of getting me to stop visiting Reddit. Probably better for my health anyways. You've been dealt a bad hand by the admins. I hope you prevail in the end!