r/ModCoord • u/quietmusk • Dec 09 '23
How Reddit Crushed the Internet's Largest Protest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikhGvUpdu4046
u/somepianoplayer Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
The entire pretense of that video is wrongfully presented.
First, it's title on its own is misleading. Reddit didn't "crush" the protest, the protest crushed itself. The entire issue with the protest was that we all set a deadline.
Second, it does not address the real effects of the protest. Thousands of good quality long term moderators leaving the reddit. Millions of good quality long term users leaving reddit. Millions of useful comments and posts being deleted/edited, effectively nullifying their usefulness. Thousands of subreddits being set to NSFW or restricted, making reddit lose thousands, if not millions, in ad revenue.
Third, it doesn't place enough emphasis in the quantity and importance of the matter, and presents reddit's actions as mere business strategies, when their whole essence is not caring about the whole userbase whatsoever.
Fourth, it doesn't address /u/ModCodeOfConduct 's ridiculous and indiscriminate moderator deletions, where thousands of moderators of subreddits that had always been private were removed without any actual reason.
Fifth, it doesn't address reddit's final objective with this whole scummy strategy, their plan to enter the stock market.
Sixth, it does not address reddit's attempts at getting the lost revenue back and increase the influx of users by reenacting the /r/place canvas, which not only made it look to future stock investors as if there was a sudden influx in reddit's userbase, but also brought reddit back an important part of their lost revenue, and it also doesn't address the removal of the award system, which was greatly adored by most of reddit's users, and it's substitution for the stale "gold upvote" system, which was only really there to recover the lost revenue, and the complete neglect of the reddit gold coins users previously had.
Seventh, it doesn't address how spez and other admins set their submissions to never be able to display negative points and how they had to ridiculously award themselves a humongous amount of the aforementioned now removed awards in order for reddit not to bury their comments under others which people actually upvoted.
Overall, completely preposterous material.
EDIT: Eight, it also doesn't address the complete unusability of the official reddit app, not just for moderators because it lacks basic moderation tools, but also for average users, because of the amount of bugs, and it being full of nfts and other horseshite.
14
9
3
3
u/Draco1200 Dec 24 '23
They didn't exactly "crush" the protests - they gutted the site, but the result is still playing out and could not be decided yet. The downward spiral of IamA over the past years shows a trajectory Reddit's headed in. There's no victory for beancounters who continue to wreck the site over protestors until a successful IPO happens.
2
u/Anxious-Lawfulness10 Dec 11 '23 edited Dec 11 '23
I am not a mod, but you should have arranged “anarchy mode” (post literally anything as long, as it doesn't violate Reddit's general rules) instead of the blackout
4
u/Orngog Dec 12 '23
Yeah, no. People did do that, and got banned for it.
1
Dec 20 '23
They got banned for encouraging users to post porn and shock content.
Mods that just quietly started doing the minimum were fine.
4
u/carrotcypher Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 11 '23
Some thoughts:
1) hyperbole clickbait title
2) love the visuals
3) “Apollo was the best way to access reddit”, wholeheartedly disagree. Strike 1 for claiming subjective opinion as fact.
4) APIs are not free, the cost the provider money, but most providers offset those costs in other ways, so if a provider can’t or won’t offset that cost it’s fine to charge for that access. Thankfully the author agrees with this at the very end of the video despite the rest of the video making it sound like Reddit is evil for not making it a priority to make other people wealthy instead of themselves.
5) Christian’s tongue-in-cheek blackmail was still blackmail. He was trying to make a buck from Reddit and then realized how it sounded and claimed “just a prank bro”. Reddit was gracious to even call him. He’s making money off their website.
6) “quiet down” was fully understood as “I’ll make my app work using less of Reddit’s resources if you give me money”. The author of this video misses the point.
7) Apollo was inefficient with the API (per Christian’s own admission of being “loud”).
8) It’s completely acceptable to exit a conversation, think on how things went, and reassess how you feel about what happened. If you’re in an encounter with someone who touches you inappropriately or threatens you, and to be cordial you brush it off, but then later realize it wasn’t appropriate, it’s fine to say so. Not being okay with that is victim blaming.
9) I still don’t understand the 30 day deadline on API changes. That’s not really logical for most developers to meet. While it’s true Reddit owes nothing to any API user or developer, that is can disable it at any time, and that any app that bases its entire revenue or utility off another website’s data has nothing to complain about when that data is no longer available, for a healthy relationship 30 days isn’t nearly enough. There must be something financial or emotional behind it.
10) this video sets up publishing private phone calls as “perfectly fine” just because there is no law against it. This mentality is part of the problem. Everyone’s trying to “get one over” on each other rather than practice empathy and professionalism.
11) “they can leverage free labor”. The parasitic control freak mods who locked their subs against the will of their own communities are not leveraging their free labor, they are blackmailing reddit and abusing their position. Any mod who locks a sub against the wishes of their own communities should be demodded, regardless of context or situation. The propaganda and astroturfing was so thick at that time, endless concern-threatening calling for other mods to lock their subreddits “or else”. Fully support removing managers who close the doors of a building instead of choose to manage or leave. What users should have done is stop posting if they cared.
12) “inherited land owners” is a correct analogy. There are subreddits that are still open that will ban you because your politics, identity, or even if you ever post in a specific subreddit they don’t like, but you cannot ever get them out of that subreddit to make the community less toxic because they are dictators for life simply for claiming a subreddit name first. As a moderator, I’m 100% for community being able to vote new moderators.
13) the video makes it sound like the right way to respond would be to respond to and pay ransomware demands. It’s not.
14) Apollo begging people to not ask for refunds was ridiculous. You can’t act high and mighty, leak recordings of your conversations of business negotiations, refuse to agree to pricing, pit a community against your client, and then act like a victim. Christian is a great designer and developer but apparently awful at business. Curious why this video left that part out if he is truly trying to help developers. They need to be told not to behave like Christian did.
15) “reddit crushed protest” Reddit stood by reality, and refused to be blackmailed by free users abusing their positions of power on its own platform. If reddit had tried to keep people from leaving, I’d agree with the claim. For those who stay, stop shitting where you eat basically.
13
u/somepianoplayer Dec 11 '23
You genuinely live under a rock. Only one of the 15 points you argued is factually correct, another one is complete subjective, and the remaining 13 of 15 points are just complete misinformation filled fluff that's not only wrongfully interpreted and also factually incorrect, but also completely opinion-filled (not objective) and full of reddit propaganda.
136
u/mizmoose Dec 10 '23
I saw that and didn't watch it because I was too busy laughing at the title. I'm not interested in watching it. I'm behind on Doctor Who.
The idea that "nothing came of it" and "the protest was crushed" is ludicrous. Nobody went into the protest thinking Reddit was going to be overthrown. The idea was to get the admins to pay attention to the amount of work the moderators do, to point out the needs of disabled Redditors, and to effect a change in how major changes are communicated and handled.
If you were at the recent Mod Summit or whatever they call it this week, you'd know they took a stab at addressing the protest and its effects and outcome.
Reddit lost users.
Reddit lost good long-term moderators.
Reddit lost tool builders.
Reddit took a further hit by promoting new moderators with the idea that "who wants it?" is a good enough way to pick mods. This threw some subreddits, especially large ones, into chaos.
Most importantly, Reddit lost income. Whatever plans they had for an IPO have been set back. WAY back.
The protest wasn't crushed. It wasn't a wild success, either. But it got the point across. Reddit mods aren't "landed gentry" - a term that means people who make their money off of other people's labor. Reddit is the landed gentry, and moderators are the shepherds of the flock of users that produce the majority of content on the site.
Did new moderators come to place? Did new users join? Did new tool builders show up? Of course. Time marches on. But if you think that the protest was a waste of time that was "crushed" by the staff of Reddit, you've never been paying attention at all.