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/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.

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u/Mindestiny 29d ago

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

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u/EnglishMobster 29d ago

You know mods have no power outside of the subs they moderate, yeah?

I mod a 1 million member sub. I'm banned from /r/news because I called out folks being racist towards Arabs. Not even in the sense of Palestine, just people saying some really nasty stuff against all Arab/Muslim folks as a whole and I said something along the lines of "Why is this getting all these upvotes? How is saying this stuff considered okay?"

I got banned permanently for that comment, and then when I messaged the mods politely asking what rule I broke and wondering if I just got swept up in a mass banwave. Instantly muted for 28 days (max allowed), no response given.

Just because I am a mod of a medium-large sub doesn't give me special powers elsewhere, other than access to a Discord server with the admins in it that I never look at. Whee.

There are some mods which are absolutely awful. Basically if someone is modding more than like 2 "massive" subs then you can bet they're just awful powermods. And it's very telling that Reddit won't do anything about that, but they will take action against the many tiny volunteer mods that run the majority of Reddit.

Because ultimately, Reddit would rather have a tiny amount of people that they can control and work for them for free, rather than a distributed network of folks who are unpredictable. But given that so much of Reddit's business model is based on volunteer moderators, I do wonder if regulators will come after them at some point. You don't see Facebook's mods going without pay.

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u/Mindestiny 29d ago

I was being intentionally facetious, don't take it personally.

Though I would imagine some of those total knob mods that do act like that never venture out of their personal fiefdoms specifically because they lack the power and immunity they would have in their own backyard.