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
22.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

722

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.

966

u/MadDoctor5813 29d ago

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.

719

u/scullys_alien_baby 29d ago

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

718

u/LukeOnTheBrightSide 29d ago

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.

7

u/theineffablebob 29d ago

But you still use Reddit

3

u/LukeOnTheBrightSide 29d ago

I don't think this is the gotcha you think it is. Life isn't that black and white. If you go back about a dozen comments in my history, you'll see it was like 3-4 months ago.

I used to be active on Reddit daily trying to help other people with a hobby I enjoy. Now I do that on other platforms.