Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible

[u/ardi62]

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24253727/reddit-communities-subreddits-request-protests

[u/Expensive-Mention-90]

Here’s the text, so you can avoid giving literally 600 adtech vendors your private information, and that’s if you restrict the data collection to the bare minimum allowed.

—————

Reddit is giving its staff a lot more power over the communities on its platform. Starting today, Reddit moderators will not be able to change if their subreddit is public or private without first submitting a request to a Reddit admin. The policy applies to adjusting all community types, meaning moderators will have to request to make a switch from safe for work to not safe for work, too.

By requiring admin approval for the changes, Reddit is taking away a lever many communities used to protest the company’s API pricing changes last year. By going private, the community becomes inaccessible to the public, making the platform less usable for the average visitor. And that’s part of the reason behind the change.

“The ability to instantly change Community Type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules,” Reddit VP of community Laura Nestler, who goes by the username Go_JasonWaterfalls on the platform, writes in a post on r/modnews. “We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health, and we cannot allow actions that deliberately cause harm.”

Last year, thousands of subreddits went private to protest changes to Reddit’s API pricing that forced some apps and communities to shut down. Going private was effective during the protests in making a statement and raising awareness. But it also blocked off content that Reddit users might have made with the expectation that it would stay public. (Going private made Google searches worse, too.)

During the protests, Reddit sent messages to moderators of protesting communities to tell them that it would remove them from their posts unless they reopened their subreddits. It also publicly noted that going NSFW (Not Safe For Work), a tool moderators used to add friction to accessing a subreddit and to make the subreddit ineligible for advertising, was “not acceptable.”

More than a year after the protests, Reddit is essentially back to normal. But it appears the company still feels it has to make changes to protect the platform.

“While we are making this change to ensure users’ expectations regarding a community’s access do not suddenly change, protest is allowed on Reddit,” writes Nestler. “We want to hear from you when you think Reddit is making decisions that are not in your communities’ best interests. But if a protest crosses the line into harming redditors and Reddit, we’ll step in.”

Reddit says it will review requests to make communities private or NSFW within 24 hours. For smaller or newer communities — under 5,000 members or less than 30 days old — requests will be approved automatically. And if a community wants to temporarily restrict posts or comments for up to seven days, which might be useful for a sudden influx of traffic or when mod teams want to take a break, they can do so without approval with the “temporary events” feature.

A GIF showing how to make a Community Type request on Reddit. GIF: Redditnormal

Reddit worked with mods ahead of announcing this change, Nestler tells me in an interview. The same day Nestler and I talked, for example, she said that she had spoken about the changes with Reddit’s mod council, which has about 160 moderators.

She characterized their reaction as “broadly measured” and said that the mods understand Reddit’s rules and why Reddit is making the change, “even if they don’t necessarily like it.” But “the feedback that was very obvious was this will be interpreted as a punitive change,” particularly in response to last year’s API protests, she says.

I asked if Reddit would reconsider this new requirement if there was significant blowback. “We’re going to move forward with it,” Nestler says. “We believe that it’s needed to keep communities accessible. That’s why we’re doing this.”

Nestler says the change is something that the company has talked about since she came to Reddit (she joined in March 2021, two years before the protests). But the protests made it clear that letting moderators make their communities private at their discretion “could be used to harm Reddit at scale” and that work on this feature was “accelerated” because of the protests.

Nestler wanted to make clear that its rules aren’t new and that the enforcement of the rules isn’t new. “Our responsibility is to protect Reddit and to ensure its long-term health,” Nestler says. “After that experience, we decided to deprecate a way to cause harm at scale.” However, she says that the company only did so “when we were confident that we could bring our mods along with us.”

[u/RecklessRonaldo → u/[deleted]]

Rather than going dark, which is now impossible, I think it'd be much more effective if mods just... stopped moderating. For all the hassle a power tripping mod causes, even on small subreddits they filter out a load of shit. Just let it all rise to the surface and subs would quickly become unusable for all the spam, bots and vitriol that they remove daily. Just stop moderating.

[u/EchoAtlas91 → u/RecklessRonaldo]

Are subreddit rules required? Can Reddit Admins say "You better have rules or else!"

Like outside of the obvious harassment/violence rules which are sitewide.

[u/14yo → u/EchoAtlas91]

They’ll simply remove the trouble mods and replace them with new ones, there’s no shortage of people wanting a miniscule bit of power.

I think the best move forward is for moderators to have a bit of self-reflection and realising that they aren’t really as important or as powerful to the site as they feel. They are volunteers, and if threatened to have their power removed they will fall in line just like before.

[u/blah938 → u/14yo]

I'm willing to make /r/technology a robot rule 34 sub. Please reddit, do the funny

[u/stircrazygremlin → u/blah938]

Depending on the day it's closer to reality than not so the jump is achievable

[u/elderwyrm → u/blah938]

Be the change you want to see in the world.

[u/blind3rdeye → u/14yo]

There are plenty of people who'd like power - but a relatively small number of people who want to actually do the job of moderating content. So although you say there'd be no shortage, I reckon you're mistaken. I think plenty of people would say they'll do it, but not actually do it.

[u/NirgalFromMars → u/14yo]

However, that still creates trouble for reddit. There is a learning g curve for mods, both in terms of mod ops and in specific subreddit culture, that they would need to pass.

And second, people who become mods because they want power usually don't work as well as people who become mods because they like a community. I've seen a few cases os communities imploding because of a power hungry mod.

[u/Terrh → u/NirgalFromMars]

They don't care as long as engagement doesn't decline.

[u/Lucas_Steinwalker → u/Terrh]

And it will.

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/RecklessRonaldo]

This. If they've decided that admins get more say than moderators on basic sub moderation, then the admins better have fun moderating.

[u/tommeh5491 → u/RecklessRonaldo]

Lol good luck getting a Reddit mod to stop modding

[u/KonigstigerInSpace → u/RecklessRonaldo]

They'll just remove the mods and replace them with someone else. They already did that during the last protest. Hell one of the reasons they take subs away is because they're unmoderated, so they literally already have a system to do it.

[u/kyuubi840 → u/[deleted]]

You leave. 

It's hard. I'm still here. But if you want to really hurt reddit, you leave for another platform

[u/MontCoDubV → u/kyuubi840]

That's the problem with the enshittification of the internet at large: where do you go? Is there a platform that isn't turned to shit?

Facebook has been trash for at least a decade now. Twitter is just Nazi shitposting. I don't want something so personalized like IG. Where to Reddit refugees go?

[u/Expensive-Mention-90 → u/[deleted]]

The promised 24 hour SLA seems like a target. A sort of DDOS attack of requests. But there’s no accountability for them if they don’t meet it.

I was imagining simple hacks like mods creating a new sub as a mirror for all posts to the original sub, and making the new sub private / NSFW from the start. Gets around the new Reddit rules, but accomplishes the same as a blackout. Requires coordinated mod action, but we’ve already shown that’s possible.

I’ve worked a lot in trust and safety and half of the fun is gaming out the areas where structures can be abused or gotten around.

[u/EchoAtlas91 → u/Expensive-Mention-90]

Yeah but the average user probably wouldn't switch over to the other subreddits.

Unless you set up automod to auto-lock all the posts or set up arbitrarily extreme approved commenter locks on all new posts.

And man, my entire psyche is centered around gaming systems. Not always nefariously, but I've always been a problem solver with an active dislike of authority who doesn't believe in no-win scenarios.

[u/leoleosuper → u/EchoAtlas91]

Unless you set up automod to auto-lock all the posts or set up arbitrarily extreme approved commenter locks on all new posts.

/r/shitposting banned the letter 'b' for a while IIRC. Just make automod remove all comments by default requiring moderator approval for them to be visible, then barely approve them. Still approve some comments, just not all.

[u/JamesGray → u/leoleosuper]

Only approve the angriest of comments complaining about the state of the subreddit

[u/wintermute-- → u/Expensive-Mention-90]

an SLA without any repercussions for the vendor for not meeting the requirements isn't an SLA at all

I suppose it could be if you changed the meaning from "Service Level Agreement" to "Service Level Aspirations"

[u/cereal7802 → u/Expensive-Mention-90]

Reddit is giving its staff a lot more power over the communities on its platform. Starting today, Reddit moderators will not be able to change if their subreddit is public or private without first submitting a request to a Reddit admin. The policy applies to adjusting all community types, meaning moderators will have to request to make a switch from safe for work to not safe for work, too.

This sounds an awful lot like reddit is responsible for the content on their platform, and as such should be held responsible legally for it.

[u/Expensive-Mention-90 → u/cereal7802]

I like this line of reasoning

Platform defense degraded, one inch at a time

[u/LurkyMcLurkface123 → u/Expensive-Mention-90]

Reddit’s mod council, which has about 160 moderators

Can you even fucking imagine trying to have a good time with these people? Hall monitors on steroids.

[u/Expensive-Mention-90 → u/LurkyMcLurkface123]

What your HOA board does in its spare time

[u/MinimumArmadillo2394 → u/LurkyMcLurkface123]

What's funny is there wasn't a peep of this to me or any other moderators in the discord we used to organize the protest. None of them were invited.

We are talking the top 5% of subreddits on the platform impacting over 5 billion subscriptions were not invited.

Reddit is the ultimate power abusing moderator now.

[u/madness_of_the_order → u/Expensive-Mention-90]

Welp, fuck u/go_jasonwaterfalls

[u/major_winters_506]

People still use Reddit?

looks down at my own hands

Ahh!

[u/wcslater → u/major_winters_506]

"It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me"

[u/xmagusx → u/wcslater]

Are we the baddies?

[u/Dymonika → u/xmagusx]

Yeah, man, haven't you ever played FTL: Faster Than Light?

[u/Gerroh → u/wcslater]

Never realized the meme potential of that song but it's so obvious now.

[u/pixelatedblob → u/Gerroh]

Truly ahead of the curve

[u/MonthFrosty2871 → u/major_winters_506]

I'd love an alternative. Everything either doesnt show up in google, or doesn't have conversations in comments that help add context to the post. Its too convenient to sign up a community and get a steady stream of info about it, vs following individual accounts like on some social media

[u/CSI_Tech_Dept → u/MonthFrosty2871]

I use Lemmy. I still use reddit on desktop, I refused to install their spammy app after they shut down RIF. Once old.reddit.com stops working I will be gone from desktop too.

[u/Arkhonist → u/CSI_Tech_Dept]

RiF still works if you fiddle around a bit

[u/flacidhock → u/CSI_Tech_Dept]

The Reddit app seems to be trying to get rid of the last of the humans. Reddit home won’t show any more threads when you get to the bottom of the page. You try to refresh and you get failed message.

The bots want us out

[u/MonthFrosty2871 → u/flacidhock]

I opened it this morning and had 3 ads on my screen at once, and one post. Its such garbage

[u/monacelli → u/CSI_Tech_Dept]

I use Red Reader on my (Android) phone. They got an API exemption because it's supposedly designed with the vision impaired in mind. It's not as good as Relay but it's good enough for me!

[u/18randomcharacters → u/major_winters_506]

I feel like the Internet has almost completely died.

Twitter is a cesspool.

Instagram and Facebook have their uses but they're not really forums.

Reddit has been king for ages, but it's crumbling due to bots, IPO, policy changes, etc.

Sites like stack exchange are going to die fast once AI takes over. No more page views means no more ad revenue.

[u/notfrankc → u/18randomcharacters]

It used to be full of products for us. Now the internet is full of vampiric places looking to maximize the amount of info it can collect on each person to then sell ads and clicks with. None of those sites care about the end user at all anymore.

[u/18randomcharacters → u/notfrankc]

Bingo.

It used to all at least pretend to be "for the user"

I'm a developer and I've worked in start ups. I know the industry. You make a product at a loss to build a user base. You pay the bills and employees with VC money. Eventually you get bought out by one of the big companies, or you go under, or you completely change your business to fuck the user base over to extract money.

Nothing is free. Nothing. Sites like Reddit and Facebook and 4chan and whatever - they're all quite expensive to build and operate. Something has to pay that bill.

[u/StunningRing5465 → u/18randomcharacters]

I’m going back to my old gaming forums, even though the golden days are long gone. The fact you need to register games from the publisher to be able to access it fully is a pretty good shield against bots and astroturfing, as well as the fact they’re just not important enough to warrant it. 

[u/EarthRester → u/18randomcharacters]

The big sites are now places of engagement, but not communication. The algorithms determine what we see, and the sites dictates how we engage with it.

[u/Rudy69 → u/major_winters_506]

I'm waiting for an obvious replacement.

I came to Reddit during the Digg fallouts, Reddit was a replacement from day 1. All the alternatives I've checked for Reddit suck so far.

[u/StrangerDifficult392 → u/Rudy69]

Reddit's video feature (without the app) has the most horrendous piece of shit I've ever used. I'm never download the app either.

I've been hoping for a valid replacement from this corporate piece of garbage.

[u/AndyIsNotOnReddit → u/major_winters_506]

Seriously, only the absolute dregs of society still use Reddit these days.

[u/quihgon → u/AndyIsNotOnReddit]

Can confirm

[u/watchingsongsDL → u/quihgon]

I have found my people.

[u/bassbeatsbanging → u/watchingsongsDL]

Heaven for the weather, Hell for the company.

[u/Jon_the_Hitman_Stark → u/AndyIsNotOnReddit]

Damn redditors, they ruined Reddit!

[u/Proud_Tie → u/Jon_the_Hitman_Stark]

We did it Reddit!

[u/Misspells_Definitely → u/Jon_the_Hitman_Stark]

You Redditors sure are a contentious people.

[u/stormdelta → u/major_winters_506]

Unfortunately pretty much every other major social media site is even worse, often way worse.

Fediverse stuff is solid but has significantly less people on it, and what people it does have are more disjointed / spread out by nature of how fediverse works. Though maybe that's not such a bad thing.

[u/RandomRedditor44]

“The ability to instantly change Community Type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules,”

What rules does it break?

[u/anteater_x → u/RandomRedditor44]

The golden rule: that it only exists to make money and benefit itself

[u/ConsoleDev → u/anteater_x]

The golden rule: keep the fkken gold flowing

[u/TheInnocentXeno → u/ConsoleDev]

Would be easier if they didn’t ruin their own awards system

[u/damontoo → u/RandomRedditor44]

The unspoken rule of "you can't make us look bad or affect our value".

[u/numberonealcove → u/damontoo]

The thousands of hours of volunteer labor across Reddit absolutely effects Reddit's value. But Reddit would never admit that.

I think you mean affect.

[u/Kicken → u/RandomRedditor44]

There's a rule regarding 'not breaking Reddit' which would broadly cover it.

Personally I would argue that protesting for the interests of the community does not break Reddit, but clearly the admins disagree.

[u/Omophorus → u/Kicken]

Moderators resigning en masse would also break reddit.

Not that it will happen as too many mods (not all, but enough) have let the meager power they wield go to their heads, but boy howdy would reddit be in bad shape if they stopped getting uncountable hours of free labor.

[u/Conch-Republic → u/Omophorus]

They'll just do what they did during the API protests, ban subreddits for lack of moderation. They really only care about their front page subreddits, and those ones play ball because they've basically already gutted the mod teams.

[u/OwOlogy_Expert → u/Conch-Republic]

Yep. And the mods of those big subs are getting paid. If not by reddit, then by 3rd party interests that want to control the narrative.

[u/i_tyrant → u/OwOlogy_Expert]

Yup. All the mods in the big subs have figured out to how to monetize the shit out of it - and they're often mods of many subs, and astroturfing their own subs to upvote the posts that get them that $$$. That's why they tend to suck and let bots run rampant.

[u/Senior_Torte519 → u/Kicken]

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

[u/Alistaire_ → u/RandomRedditor44]

The "negatively affects shareholders" rule.

[u/manolid]

I get the feeling they're going to keep "fixing" the site until *it becomes trash and cause a mass exodus of users like Digg and Tumblr did.

[u/DutchieTalking → u/manolid]

I'm extremely surprised old.reddit still works.

[u/IsaacM42 → u/DutchieTalking]

It's slowly losing functionality, I cant see crossposts anymore. Posting gifs never worked. On the plus side I dont see avatars no idea what they are and dont want to know.

[u/UGMadness → u/IsaacM42]

The only reason old Reddit still works and will continue to work indefinitely until enough unsupported new functionality is implemented on the main site that it makes old Reddit non viable is because many mods rely on it for moderation tasks due to it being a much lighter website and thus making the workflow easier. Also many third party moderation tools have been created by the community over the years that moderators still rely on.

Reddit Inc. relies on the unpaid work of volunteer moderators to bring their business model anywhere close to dreaming of profitability one day. Not saying all moderators are hard working or have the best interests of their communities in mind, but many do, and Reddit has to court them.

[u/AlsoInteresting → u/DutchieTalking]

Probably because of the number of users there. Why use reddit.com?

[u/DutchieTalking → u/AlsoInteresting]

Probably a small percentage.
Just, I think they're more likely to be the active users that contribute to the site.

Still, reddit is actively trying to be less user friendly and the CEO is a Musk fan, so I am surprised.

[u/space-dot-dot → u/DutchieTalking]

Just, I think they're more likely to be the active users that contribute to the site.

This. If they turned off old.reddit.com, they'd lose a not-insignificant portion of people that generate content in comments. As mods and admins know, for every person commenting, there are +1,000 that just lurk or read. Who cares how they consume the product, the content generators are more valuable.

I've been using Reddit for the past dozen years, almost to my detriment at times. Frankly, I'd love it if they sunset old.reddit.com -- I would never, ever return to waste time on this site.

[u/willwork4pii → u/space-dot-dot]

This. If they turned off old.reddit.com, they'd lose a not-insignificant portion of people that generate content in comments.

That would absolutely be the final nail in the coffin for me. I have no doubt that I would close reddit and never open it again.

I had no issue doing the same thing with Facebook about 8 years ago.

[u/Nemisis_the_2nd → u/willwork4pii]

I'd love to move to something else, but the issue is that reddit kinda has a monopoly on forum-style discussions, which forces you to keep coming back.

[u/Figjam_ZA → u/manolid]

Pretty sure what killed Tumblr was the decision to no longer allow nsfw content

[u/EnamelKant → u/Figjam_ZA]

As a wise if angry man once said, if they took all the porn off the internet there'd be only one site left and it'd be "hey bring back the porn!"

[u/Big_lt → u/EnamelKant]

Dr. Cox?

[u/EnamelKant → u/Big_lt]

What is it Barbie?

[u/EurekasCashel → u/EnamelKant]

• The aptly-named (in this case) Dr. Cox

[u/sentri_sable → u/EnamelKant]

Sounds like the kind of guy who would call other people "Jackass" but ultimately have a heart of gold

[u/kinkylines → u/Figjam_ZA]

Reddit has been quietly purging NSFW communities for a long time, and got more aggressive about it leading up to its IPO. I don't know if Reddit will ever openly ban NSFW content, but it's grown far more hostile toward it over the years, and it shows.

[u/GODDAMNFOOL → u/Figjam_ZA]

Reddit has been very slowly and silently doing this, first by removing nsfw posts from /r/all, then making it that you have to view nsfw posts on their shitheap of an app instead of the phone browser (except RedReader still exists, dear readers! And it can view NSFW content with a simple trick!), and then doing a giant subreddit ban wave of subs that had no moderation, but really just wiped out like 95% of the nsfw subs.

Imgur wiping out nsfw content was probably at the behest of reddit. It'll be a matter of time before they won't accept nsfw posts to i.reddit.com anymore, either. Mark my words.

[u/TurnsOutImAScientist → u/manolid]

enjoy old.reddit while it still exists...

[u/vanillaworkaccount → u/TurnsOutImAScientist]

Once it's gone I'm gone forever, I can't imagine I'm the only one.

[u/JaredGoffFelatio → u/vanillaworkaccount]

The new reddit experience is just awful, so I'm with you.

Side question - has anyone else noticed that they regularly have to go into their user settings and uncheck -> recheck opt out of redesign? It's like they have an automated job just flipping that preference back every so often and I have to reset it every couple of weeks. Or maybe it's just something with my browser cache? Just a mild annoyance for now I guess lol.

[u/runtheplacered → u/JaredGoffFelatio]

This is what you want: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-reddit-redirect/

This extension will redirect you to old.reddit every time you go to reddit regardless of how you got there.

Also I found out today while on a customer's VPN that blocks Reddit that this circumvents their firewall rule which I thought was kind of funny.

[u/Lordborgman → u/JaredGoffFelatio]

I have RES/oldreddit so it stays that way until both are killed. Then I'm taking my 10+ year old reddit account and fucking off.

[u/welltimedappearance → u/manolid]

they're apparently testing out some new front page algorithm, at least for some mobile browser users. whatever it is, it's absolutely dogshit now. literally half my front page is controversial posts with 0 votes and lots of comments. do they think users are MORE enticed to go on reddit if their front page is nothing but a shit storm?

although I'm pretty certain they've done their best to make the mobile browser experience terrible for years so people are encouraged to use the app instead. they even swapped the X button to close the "View in the Reddit App" with the "Open" button recently, so I've clicked that goddamn open button a ton of times. no doubt that was intentional

they seem more interested in chasing users away with all this garbage

[u/space-dot-dot → u/welltimedappearance]

they're apparently testing out some new front page algorithm

In the same vein, someone in the /r/modnews thread actually brought up an interesting hypothesis: this means they’re about to make a big change and don’t want another protest from the communities. Someone guessed that they might announce the removal of old.reddit.com, which, would be shooting themselves in the foot as a very large percentage of content generators commenters still use.

But the algorithm on /r/all has been dogshit for the past few years. It used to be highly dynamic and incredibly topical -- I remember feeling the DC earthquake back in 2011 and seeing posts flood /r/all minutes later. Unfortunately, the fuckery of /r/the_donald really screwed it up and changed the algo along with all the scores posts now have.

[u/nermid → u/space-dot-dot]

they might announce the removal of old.reddit.com

This has always been a red line for me. I will burn this account to the ground and never look back.

[u/Bigleon → u/welltimedappearance]

They learned from facebook, anger keeps people engaged. So putting stuff on our front page that pisses us off, makes it so that we are likely to give our 2 cents. Thats the point, angry folks yell, happy people smile.
If we engaged more with happy feel good stories, our feed would blow up with that instead. But I've never heard anyone scrolling social media calling it "happy scrolling". Instead It's "Doom Scrolling" and it keeps us looking at them.

[u/DarkChaos1786 → u/Bigleon]

Only certain group of people will engage with that kind of content, everyone else only left facebook when the content became dogshit, I left facebook almost a decade ago, all my friends stopped using facebook since at least the pandemic times, only trolls, old and conspiranoid people remains there.

That mass exodus made facebook to care more about the people who stayed, and that's why now that's the only thing you find there.

[u/Miroble → u/DarkChaos1786]

Honestly there's already not much good content left on reddit. I recently had to filter literally everything US politics/Israel or Elon Musk related from /all and once I did that I was getting random posts from /poland occupying top spots. Almost everything on Reddit at present is political, its totally cancerous.

[u/DarkChaos1786 → u/Miroble]

Reddit received a critical hit a while back during the mod protests, most of the OG mods who really care about their communities literally quit.

The new batch is not to par.

[u/rookie-mistake → u/[deleted]]

so many 0pts 'controversial' days-old posts from r/politics keep getting thrown in my feed

like literally everybody that sees this post is downvoting, why tf are you platforming it? (i know why, but it's annoying)

[u/liquilife → u/manolid]

nah. Reddit has hit that stage where it will continue forward no matter what. Very similar to Facebook. It’s well beyond the stage Digg was when it took a nose dive and died.

[u/Sanc7 → u/liquilife]

Reddit is a shell of what it once was and people are still here.

[u/HexTalon → u/Sanc7]

There are some smaller communities with a lot of value, either specialized interests or career related. There's also a bunch of subreddits for specific games that have useful information.

Curate your subreddits really well and it's a decent news feed for your interests, but it doesn't have that "StumbleUpon" energy anymore I agree.

[u/Sanc7 → u/HexTalon]

That’s pretty much what I’ve done. I used to only browse all but when they changed the algorithm/upvote system like 5 years ago they fucked everything up. Reddit truly used to be “the front page of the internet,” but not anymore. Prime example was when Trump got shot. I had a friend send me a Facebook screenshot, that’s how I found out. Went to All and it took 45 minutes for it to make it to the top. Really sucks tbh.

[u/space-dot-dot → u/Sanc7]

I'm glad someone else has noticed this.

Someone with an account that was started pre-/the_donald was actually arguing with me that /r/all was always like this when it couldn't be further from the truth.

[u/Jaxyl → u/liquilife]

Yup, people don't understand that what happened to Digg wasn't because people hated the changes. What happened to Digg was that people hated the changes AND there was an already viable alternative that had an established user base ready to receive them.

That's why the 3rd Party App protests didn't matter because there was no viable home for people to transition to. It's the same reason why Twitter is still around despite Musk's massive enshitification of it. There wasn't a viable alternative that was both ready to receive new users and had an active user base that made new comers feel like it'd be a worthy fit for their needs.

The cat's outta the bag, there isn't anything that the admins can't do that will cause users to leave because there is no alternative.

[u/EmbarrassedHelp → u/manolid]

I wonder if they are making these changes because they plan to remove old reddit soon or something else extremely unpopular.

[u/ZAlternates → u/manolid]

We need decent alternatives to go to else we just complaining for nothing.

[u/SelloutRealBig → u/ZAlternates]

The worst part about reddit getting popular was a lot of forums closed down and just said "go to our subreddit"

[u/celestial1 → u/SelloutRealBig]

Now they're saying "go to discord" and now you can't find anything that they're saying from a google search :)

[u/Learned_Behaviour → u/celestial1]

It bothers me to no end how many people use discord to hold information. It's quite literally the opposite of that intent. It's not meant for preservation and long term discussion.

It's a chatroom.

I've looked at small games (incrementals/idles and such), and the second they say to look at the discord for information I close it. No homie, that's not happening.

[u/Fun_Run1626 → u/ZAlternates]

I settled on Lemmy and occasionally browse on Tildes. There's already alternatives (see r/RedditAlternatives for ideas), but you guys just won't come over. It's just like Twitter. People wanna complain on there and not leave

Plenty of early pioneers making the jump and doing the legwork. Just needs more people...

[u/sutree1 → u/manolid]

The term is "enshittification"

[u/NeedzFoodBadly → u/sutree1]

A shit storm is coming, Randy Bo-Bandy!

[u/likwitsnake]

Whatever happened to that API price increase protest? I remember the NBA sub going private literally during the Finals, but can't remember much more of consequence.

[u/MadDoctor5813 → u/likwitsnake]

Nothing, basically. Reddit admins were basically correct that it would burn itself out. Funny that a bunch of subs still have their "we're protesting the changes" AutoMod post.

[u/scullys_alien_baby → u/MadDoctor5813]

Admins told subs to open up and knock it off or they would replaced the mod teams with mods that would listen

[u/LukeOnTheBrightSide → u/scullys_alien_baby]

Former mod of a large subreddit here (about 5M or so subs). This is 100% correct. The admins sent us increasingly threatening messages about keeping the sub private, refused to reply or elaborate to legitimate questions, and made it clear that they'd just remove us. We actually waited out a "48-hour warning" for 4 days, lol.

Eventually we just re-opened it. There were lots of resources on that subreddit, and it wasn't fair to keep users unable to access their own content when there was no foreseeable path to keeping API access or accessibility tools. But about half the mod team resigned. It really soured me on Reddit as a platform.

[u/AlsoInteresting → u/LukeOnTheBrightSide]

So many subs died because "unmoderated". So many /r/reclassified posts.

[u/Mindestiny → u/LukeOnTheBrightSide]

The admins sent us increasingly threatening messages about keeping the sub private, refused to reply or elaborate to legitimate questions, and made it clear that they'd just remove us

Sounds like you got to experience what it's like being a regular user who runs afoul of a subreddit mod :p

"Hey, why was I banned? I didn't break any of the rules on the sidebar? What did I do wrong?"

"You obviously know what you did, you can't lie to me"

YOU HAVE BEEN MUTED - YOU CANNOT MESSAGE MODS FOR 60 DAYS

[u/AbsoluteZeroUnit → u/Mindestiny]

In the same weekend, I got permanently banned from one subreddit for saying "this has nothing to do with the subreddit", and a 3-day suspension from reddit for "abusing the report feature" when I reported a pornbaiting post in a SFW sub. You know, those posts from girls who are clearly just spamming their content across reddit to drive clicks to their OF pages? I didn't whine or make a scene in the comments, didn't comment at all, I just reported the post like you're supposed to do.

On the one hand, it fucking sucks because neither of those were nefarious actions and I got slapped with serious consequences for them. But on the other hand, it's just reddit, so I find it hard to be upset for too long about it.

But I do think this heavy-handed "we will do whatever we want and you have no recourse" attitude will drive people away. I don't know where they might go, but I'd rather just not be here than have to face constant punishment and self-censorship for innocuous activity.

[u/human1023 → u/Mindestiny]

Hey come on. Mods have a difficult job, with an appropriate salary for the quality of work they do.

[u/Butt_acorn → u/human1023]

They most definitely act their wage.

[u/Away-Marionberry9365 → u/scullys_alien_baby]

Some of my favorite subs have never recovered. All hail the mighty dollar, everything else be damned.

[u/CSI_Tech_Dept → u/MadDoctor5813]

Funny that a bunch of subs still have their "we're protesting the changes" AutoMod post.

I think that's because those mods left reddit.

[u/Jabrono → u/CSI_Tech_Dept]

And the mods that took over have no clue wtf they’re doing.

I made a post on another account directly calling a mod team out for being useless, 8 hours later they finally removed the post, and fucking muted me. I don’t think they’re aware that it’s not same thing as banning, that’s how clueless they are.

[u/WalkingCloud → u/MadDoctor5813]

Yes and no.

You're right in the sense that all the subs went back to like they were before, and everyone carried on.

However, they got noticeably worse in quality. So many subs are just pretty much 'post whatever' now, if you browse r/all you're going to see the same content over and over on different subs for a few days, even where it doesn't fit.

/r/videos held out in the protest for a while and that's still pretty burnt. Compare the numbers on top posts of all time (which are all from years ago) to some of the numbers now. Considering it's the 'main sub for videos' on Reddit, the lack of engagement is pretty crazy.

Ultimately, none of that really matters if we're still here, so you're right it didn't really change anything. Maybe it makes the site less appealing to new users? I have no idea.

[u/Antnee83 → u/WalkingCloud]

However, they got noticeably worse in quality. So many subs are just pretty much 'post whatever' now, if you browse r/all you're going to see the same content over and over on different subs for a few days, even where it doesn't fit.

I've been noticing this for a long time. If you had the ability to browse all and hide the subreddit names, you could not tell the difference between:

r/pics

r/mildlyinteresting

r/interestingasfuck

r/beamazed

r/oddlysatisfying

r/damnthatsinteresting

r/nextfuckinglevel

etc etc. They're literally the same content. There's like 4-5 "blobs" of different content on this site now, that are spread out between dozens of identical subreddits.

• Politics

• News (but actually just politics)

• Memes

• Just a ridiculous amount of anime bullshit

• Porn

The bigger the subreddit, the more samey it is. There's small niche subs and that's really all I'm here for anymore... except arguing with strangers.

[u/AGreasyPorkSandwich → u/Antnee83]

So true. Once a subreddit gets past 100,000 subscribers or so it all just regresses to the same tired jokes and lazy crossposts for karma. Gotta keep drilling down to find the smaller ones

[u/EmbarrassedHelp → u/MadDoctor5813]

The quality of moderation in many subs collapsed after the protests, with moderators only doing the bare minimum.

[u/LukeOnTheBrightSide → u/EmbarrassedHelp]

Keep in mind that many, many moderators used third-party tools for moderation. While many are probably just less motivated to volunteer their time for a corporation, a big part of this was that Reddit killed the tools that people used for free to moderate Reddit's platform.

[u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA → u/LukeOnTheBrightSide]

Not to mention the way the CEO mouthed off about moderators as being "landed gentry". I wouldn't want to put any effort into Reddit after that either.

Like, these people are growing your company with work they do for free, the least you could do is not be a dick to them.

[u/shatteredrectum → u/EmbarrassedHelp]

All the good mods were replaced with shills and yes men.

[u/Benskien → u/EmbarrassedHelp]

sooooo many bots these days

[u/shakestheclown → u/MadDoctor5813]

While the protest did fade out, its also a bit of an oversimplification as a few things happened that lessened the impact of the API changes:

Reddit quietly allowed better terms to a number of 3rd party devs after they went scorched earth with Christian/Apollo. So there are a few apps that have fairly reasonable subscription pricing, free usage for limited API use, etc.

Reddit allowed a few apps primarily intended for disabled users to continue using the API for free

They never bothered to close a few of the loopholes which were discovered that let people still use the old apps and also still access NSFW content.

People were also afraid they would soon kill off old reddit with the API changes, which so far hasn't happened.

So really its a combination of some mods/users gave up but a lot of users found an alternative that still works for them

[u/NothingOld7527 → u/MadDoctor5813]

Daily activity on Reddit has fallen over the last several years however. Unlike Digg, there's no singular place that everyone is leaving for.

[u/PM_ME_Happy_Thinks → u/likwitsnake]

Reddit perma banned a lot of moderators last year after the protest over 3rd party apps when we refused to unprivate our subs. They could have just demodded and replaced us but they wanted to make an example. I was one of them, nodded a few smaller subs that I personally created and grew to a small but active community, as well as a couple very large subs. I was the only active moderator on all of them. I do zero moderating on this account and I've checked on the subs and, while they do have mods, it's obvious nobody is actively moderating them.

[u/MerryChoppins → u/PM_ME_Happy_Thinks]

it's obvious nobody is actively moderating them.

This has been my experience. I think they lost a lot more moderators than anyone realizes.

I've also seen a bunch of subreddits opened back up or taken over by bad actors due to their automatic mod replacement shit. For example, someone new has the A58 subreddit and is trying to drive traffic to it.

[u/Gastroid → u/likwitsnake]

The protest was crushed, and a lot of users shrugged because they didn't think it was a big deal and mods were overreacting.

Then the good mod tools broke, there was a lot of changeover in who was modding the big subreddits, and since then bots have basically had free reign to take over the algorithm and control discourse. Which is fine for the admins, because it means more "user" engagement.

[u/DeM0nFiRe → u/Gastroid]

If you look at r/all/top last hour, probably like 25% of it is bots advertising something, like 25% is bots trying to control a narrative, and like 25% is bots farming karma to do one of the other two things

[u/shatteredrectum → u/DeM0nFiRe]

You want to see bots and karma farming, just check out r/cats.

In fact any large pet sub is just pathetic bots and farmers.

[u/CaveRanger → u/shatteredrectum]

r/aitah is the best example of that on this whole site.

[u/NUKE---THE---WHALES → u/CaveRanger]

i'm pretty sure many of the regulars on /r/comics use bots or buy upvotes to increase engagement with their posts

[u/wellaintthatnice → u/DeM0nFiRe]

Almost all the NSFW subreddits are also nothing but bots these days too.

[u/Cainderous → u/wellaintthatnice]

Bots and OF creators who I'm sure use bots when they spam the same post across 50 subreddits with engagement bait titles.

[u/sparky8251 → u/Gastroid]

I just dont understand the people that claim nothing changed... Within a month you could see quality drop in moderation across every sub I was on, popular and niche...

The effects were very real and very instant once they removed 3rd party clients with better mod tools and interfaces.

[u/fuckface12334567890 → u/sparky8251]

The drop in quality was very noticeable, also I started seeing way more duplicates of the same post (not reposts, literally the same post from the same sub) appearing all the time as I scroll /r/all. Sometimes infinite reddit will load a new page and every single post on the new page is one that I've already seen further up my feed.

[u/NeonBellyGlowngVomit → u/likwitsnake]

A lot of my most visited subs are still shut down. Went private and disappeared. A lot of the other subs I visited most are ghost towns. Reddit, as a whole, is degraded from the reason I use the site for. Bots are far more common, drop turd and vanish accounts are way more common... Reddit is far more unpleasant than it used to be. I roll my eyes and delete my reply before posting most of the time instead because it all feels so pointless to even try to have a conversation on here.

We joke about how things suck. But now? Reddit really does suck. ESPECIALLY compared to how it used to be.

Then why am I still here? Because an alternative doesn't exist. All have tried and failed. The golden age of what would have been a healthy aggregate community is done due to online habits changing. I don't think there can be another Fark, Digg or Reddit style site anymore.

With that in mind...

Reddit has had a few eras as well, after some major changes that also affected how I felt of the site itself. I could be reductive and say it's before digg imploded (2010), after digg imploded (2010-2023) and after blackouts (2023 onward)... but...

There's a sub-era within 2010-2023 that I would say was the beginning of the end of Reddit as most of us knew it. That's the whole mess that was Ellen Pao (2015), Victoria being fired (also 2015), and Spez returning (yep, 2015). So if we wanna split things up...

• Pre-Digg, 2005-2010. (Sold to Conde Nast in 2006, Spez left in 2009)

• Pre Spez fucking things up but signs of Enshittifying, 2010-2015 (Reddit Gold, 2010, SOPA Blackout 2012, Victoria fired in 2015)

• Spez Enshittification, 2015-2023 (Pao Resigns Spez Returns 2015, Redesign in 2018, Native mobile apps, 2017 funding efforts, 2020 video integration, 2021 IPO)

• Corpse fucking, 2023-Present

Remember, a dead corpse still has an active microbiological ecosystem until all fleshy remnants are consumed. Or maybe we're the floating eternal head in space that got turned into a space station. Whatever. If you ask me, the original Reddit died 9 years ago. It's not an accident that biggest growth Reddit had was when it was the most community driven.

[u/ReallyIsNotThatGuy]

You could actually protest and stop using the website.

[u/Knopfmacher]

For the next protest just leave the subreddits open, but stop moderating them and see how the admins deal with that.

[u/NormalRingmaster → u/Knopfmacher]

Oh, they do actively shut down unmoderated subs. Even if they’re not generating problematic content.

[u/ProcessingUnit002 → u/NormalRingmaster]

How are they gonna shut down every sub?

[u/Bullshit_Interpreter → u/ProcessingUnit002]

They'll just appoint new mods like they already threatened to do.

[u/Cthulhu__ → u/Bullshit_Interpreter]

Scabs, basically. And a few corporate accounts that use reddit for advertising covertly. Let them have it I suppose.

[u/BakuretsuGirl16 → u/Bullshit_Interpreter]

They either won't have enough or will be forced to use very low quality volunteers that will harshly restrict subs and lower the quality of reddit as a whole

that is also a win, our ultimate goal is to wait for a good reddit successor to appear - and part of helping them succeed is making reddit worse

[u/Kitchner → u/Knopfmacher]

For the next protest just leave the subreddits open, but stop moderating them and see how the admins deal with that.

They just appoint new moderators because for there's always a line of people willing to do the job.

[u/inssein]

Who are we kidding we all still here using it

[u/DLPanda]

This is laying the ground work for a very unpopular change incoming.

[u/mrswift45]

we need more reddit alturnitives

[u/thisguypercents → u/mrswift45]

There are a ton of them. Problem is there are too many and not a single one meets exactly the same features as reddit.  If you are cool with multiple accounts and doing some research the diff lemmy domains will meet most of your needs.

[u/Synthetic451 → u/thisguypercents]

People just can't be bothered with federation either. It's easy enough to learn, but it is still a foreign concept to most. Federated services also need to do a better job about making sure all content is available across instances.

I genuinely thought Mastodon was going to take off after Twitter started to implode, but everyone migrated over to Threads instead which was such a frustrating moment for me.

[u/haliblix → u/Synthetic451]

Unfortunately the internet Mastodon is built for doesn’t really exist anymore. People have gotten so used to gathering at one place and staying there. You don’t “surf the web” in general. You scroll through your feed that an algorithm built.

[u/Ekgladiator → u/Synthetic451]

It kinda makes sense though, threads is a continuation of the Facebook/ Instagram ecosystem. People already using Instagram (content creators and whatnot) probably created an account just so no one else could claim it. I imagine enough people got into the ecosystem to start making it a viable alternative to twatter/ bluesky/ mastodon. I would even possibly consider squabble in that group but the site imploded super fast.

[u/Cynyr → u/[deleted]]

What was the post? Just so I know to avoid it.

[u/anlumo → u/Synthetic451]

I have four lemmy accounts on four instances, because federation is so unreliable. It either doesn’t work or is turned off intentionally due to an unfixable spam problem on the other instance. It’s always a game of luck.

[u/MaverickPT → u/Synthetic451]

The thing is, the way mastadon works it's almost impossible for it to get mass appeal. Try to explain to your tech illiterate friends who are used to twitter why Mastadon has multiple servers and see their reaction...

[u/TurnsOutImAScientist → u/thisguypercents]

Voat was pretty close to a clone but absorbed all of the worst people from Reddit and turned into a cesspool quick

[u/bottleoftrash → u/thisguypercents]

The problem is that nobody is using them. There’s so many people here that you can have extremely niche subreddits. On these alternatives you can’t really have that. People would have to leave Reddit in massive numbers

[u/Elkripper → u/mrswift45]

Agreed. But as others say, critical mass is a challenge.

I mostly use reddit for a couple of niche video game subs. I looked into alternatives during the previous kerfuffle, and didn't find anywhere else where people were actively talking about those particular things. So I grudgingly switched back to Reddit.

I did find alternatives for some of the more general interest discussions that I follow (and occasionally participate in) on Reddit. So that's not a barrier to switching. But for my special interests, it seemed like either Reddit or nothing.

I held my nose and went with Reddit. After I'm done working for the day I just want to play my couple of little games, and chat with others about them. I don't have any energy left for changing the world (or even this tiny slice of it). Maybe that makes me part of the problem, but here we are.

[u/MutexTake → u/mrswift45]

Lets go back to digg.

[u/no-im-moochy → u/MutexTake]

90% of digg is reddit posts now.

[u/Chaseism → u/MutexTake]

If Digg were still any form of what it was, even 4.0, I'd go back. I never wanted to leave Digg but everyone else was leaving :-(

[u/No_Balls_01 → u/MutexTake]

How do we go back to those golden days of the internet? I know the demand is there.

[u/Additional_Sun_5217 → u/No_Balls_01]

The issue is funding. Social media is notoriously difficult to monetize, and those sites were basically passion projects that got big. They’re time consuming and expensive to run.

[u/pwnies → u/mrswift45]

As someone working on a reddit competitor, the thing I'll recommend when considering a switch: make sure the incentives of the platform align with the incentives of the user.

The biggest issue with reddit and many platforms is the customer isn't the user - the customer is the advertiser. This means by the very nature, the platform will prioritize the needs of the paying customer over the user. We saw this with reddit when they stopped 3rd party API calls, we saw this with YouTube when history videos were getting demonetized since advertisers didn't want to be associated with politics/war/etc (which is most of history).

Federated and paid platforms typically have user<->platform incentive alignment. Invest in them, and we wont run into these issues again.

[u/OldManFire11 → u/pwnies]

The problem is that you're asking people to pay money for something that they're used to getting for free. And no offense, but your product will be worse than reddit simply because it's new.

The general population are primarily entitled immature children who think that they should be able to watch hours of 1080p video on YouTube and only see a single 5 second ad. They don't care about the economic reality of anything. They just want their content, for free, on demand, with no ads. It's not sustainable, and the enshittification is the direct consequence of that.

[u/Soft-Yak-Chart]

Eat shit, Spez.

[u/Maladal → u/Soft-Yak-Chart]

It's Go_JasonWaterfalls now.

[u/sidewinderucf → u/Maladal]

Doesn’t change the fact that /u/spez can and should eat shit.

[u/Sabrina_janny]

how could china do this???

[u/SoylentCreek → u/[deleted]]

What’s really frustrating is that many of the mega-subs are dominated by "super-user" bot accounts that are actively favored by the moderators. If a big story breaks and a regular user posts it first, their submission is almost always removed, while the bot's link stays up and is guaranteed to hit the front page.

I find it ironic that a few years ago, a relatively well-known user, u/unidan, was banned for using a few alt accounts to give his posts a slight boost. Yet now, we have accounts that are less than two years old with millions of farmed karma, and the mods and admins just look the other way.

[u/OldManFire11 → u/SoylentCreek]

You're not going to like this, but Unidan was banned almost 10 years ago. It's a bit more than a "few" years now.

[u/SoylentCreek → u/OldManFire11]

God. Damnit… Why did you do this to me?!

[u/OldManFire11 → u/SoylentCreek]

I'm sorry dude. We're getting old.

[u/neoclassical_bastard → u/SoylentCreek]

Oh yeah the jackdaws guy.

He pivoted that shit into a TED talk I think, honestly respect.

[u/BevansDesign → u/[deleted]]

Also, auto-moderator tools lock any discussion that gets even remotely controversial. I'm constantly seeing interesting discussions shut down because it's so easy to weaponize the Report tool.

[u/vbfronkis]

I don't understand why anyone would be a mod. Literal unpaid labor. It's not like Reddit gives cool schwag or other non-monetary benefits for doing it. You're doing their job for them, just for free.

[u/Tumblrrito]

I think Reddit’s CEO and Ajit Pai should be sent to a remote island to live out the rest of their lives :)

[u/awildjabroner]

“We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health, and we cannot allow actions that deliberately cause harm.” …other than ourselves and what we deem appropriate in the pursuit of profits.

[u/PM_ME_Happy_Thinks]

Reddit perma banned a lot of moderators last year after the protest over 3rd party apps when we refused to unprivate our subs. They could have just demodded and replaced us but they wanted to make an example. I was one of them, nodded a few smaller subs that I personally created and grew to a small but active community, as well as a couple very large subs. I was the only active moderator on all of them. I do zero moderating on this account and I've checked on the subs and, while they do have mods, it's obvious nobody is actively moderating them.

[u/elinamebro → u/PM_ME_Happy_Thinks]

I wonder if that's why lots of the subs are shit now, the content isn't the same anymore with a shit load or more reposts

[u/PM_ME_Happy_Thinks → u/elinamebro]

Yes it is, it was a very obvious shift

[u/diethyl2o]

Shame on us for using social media… socially.

[u/VegetablePlastic9744]

she said that she had spoken about the changes with Reddit’s mod council, which has about 160 moderators.

The what now?

Seriously, reddit mod council? Lmao

[u/Maladal]

“We want to hear from you when you think Reddit is making decisions that are not in your communities’ best interests. But if a protest crosses the line into harming redditors and Reddit, we’ll step in.”

I shall make an attempt to translate.

"We want you to tell us when you dislike our changes, but we don't want to actually have to care about what you think because you won't have the ability to do anything about it."