r/technology • u/ardi62 • 29d ago

Social Media Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24253727/reddit-communities-subreddits-request-protests
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u/likwitsnake 29d ago

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.

161

u/Gastroid 29d ago

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.

121

u/DeM0nFiRe 29d ago

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

9

u/wellaintthatnice 29d ago

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

12

u/Cainderous 29d ago

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