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Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

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Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#211

Post by jarfil »

satvikpendem wrote: post #115
ddtaylor wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mods have always been told that subreddits are their spaces to operate and that as long as they're not breaking any of the site-wide rules, they are free to do whatever they wish. This is a violation of that trust.

How can anyone sincerely believe that being a user, even a mod, on another platform by a corporate entity lets them have their own space? I mean, of course the company owns everything one does or publishes on said platform. There is no trust because the premise is faulty in the first place. The fact that people actually believed that is not really the problem of the platform, there is always inherent platform risk.

It is an issue of trust precisely because a third party controls the platform. If mods actually owned the infrastructure for their spaces, there would be no trust involved, they'd just own it.

In this case, mods trusted the company making a promise about the platform, breaking that promise breaks the trust in the company, and makes the platform risk plain to see for all.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#212

Post by than3 »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #27
gareth_untether wrote: post #7

Another day and another nail in another awesome online community that has terrible leadership. Where will the communities move to? What new areas of the Internet will be created?

Not sure I follow why they should move.

They are likely planning on eliminating external apps from using their API. Upon doing that, it no longer becomes feasible to delete your content. They get to keep it forever since they make it so hard to go post by post and delete it.

You also won't have any new features that you actually want, because they haven't listened from the get go and have never been responsive because you are the product not the client.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#213

Post by TechBro8615 »

bbor wrote: post #136
stalfosknight wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this is a more a reflection of our current state of development as a species than a mistake we consciously chose to make. As gross as Reddit's behavior has been, it doesn't change the reality that nothing at all in this scarcity-based economy is free.

“Is capitalism at fault? No, surely it’s the kids!”

Communist Cuba doesn't have a social network, but they do have a "sneakernet" [0]:

> El Paquete Semanal ("The Weekly Package") or El Paquete is a one terabyte collection of digital material distributed since around 2008 on the underground market in Cuba as a substitute for broadband Internet. Since 2015, it has been the primary source of entertainment for millions of Cubans

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#214

Post by George83728 »

monksy wrote: post #37
ardit33 wrote: post #16

Sorry... but this was handled very poorly by reddit and its CEO. Should have just disabled the 'go private' option. A subreddit, is not 'owned' or property of a moderator. Eg, https://www.reddit.com/r/Brooklyn/ , should not be own by one person that decides what to do. The questions and answers are made by common people that want to see their content that they posted into the subreddit. They are not property of some…

> A subreddit, is not 'owned' or property of a moderator. That is exactly how reddit works. Reddit does not compensate the mods.. this is a minor compensation that they get to maintain their fiefdom. Don't like it, create a new sub.

This seems like a canned retort intended for usual cases of randos complaining about how a subreddit is run. But it doesn't work in the context of this discussion; if Reddit admins don't like how a subreddit is run they don't have to "make their own sub", they can just take control of the sub they already own. Make no mistake, moderators do not own these subs, reddit owns all of them. There is no compensation deal between reddit and the moderators, the moderators have no rights from the perspective of Reddit's owners.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#215

Post by cm2012 »

Good! I'm tired of drama from 3% of the Reddit population (or less) impacting the other 97% negatively.

I just don't think either side has the moral high ground. The mods like the convenience of 3rd party apps. I get it. It's not a real moral issue.

Reddit has both said moderator-specific as well as disability related APIs will still be free.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#216

Post by than3 »

satvikpendem wrote: post #71

> If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but at least one mod wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team. Moderators exist to moderate a community, not to shut it down wholesale. Reddit's respon…

Why does this remind me so much of:

https://youtu.be/o5d_navtr80?t=172

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#217

Post by rtpg »

harryf wrote: post #139
moskie wrote: post #76

We (the internet community) made such a terrible mistake with social media. We formed connections and communities and friendships on sites like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit, but those companies need to make money, so those connections are only allowed to exist as long as they are part of a profitable system. How awful it is to reduce human connection to that. To think that I am only allowed to maintain certain soc…

What gives me hope is if you ever take a break from social media you realize how worthless it all is. It really doesn’t hurt to disengage. For similar reasons it’s possible for new networks to show up which disrupt the old, such as TikTok. The point is as individuals we are way less dependent on social media than we imagine.

I mean I get that for absent-minded browsing but even just...having a hobby and talking about it with people feels pretty much like Normal Person Behavior(TM) and Reddit's subreddits worked well for that in the same way that forums in the past did.

Not the end of the world but as a kid who only could find other people to talk about certain hobbies with online up until college sounds like a lot of pepole will be more bored.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#218

Post by Rebelgecko »

r2vcap wrote: post #153
minhazm wrote: post #117

Reddit has handled this pretty terribly but I also think people are being unreasonable. This is no different than me creating a third party YouTube client, charging for it and displaying no ads. Why would YouTube allow me to do that? And why should Reddit allow third party apps to do that? Reddit screwed up in the first place allowing third party apps that they have zero control over to build a full frontend replacem…

I also agree. I was using the rif premium version. third-party apps removed Reddit's ads and offered a paid version instead. I'm not saying rif is a bad app. It is uch easier to use than the official app. However, it is self-evident that it would have contributed to the deterioration of monetization on the reddit side. It is not a civilized way to blow up huge communities by inciting people and setting fire to their…

That's not really true. 3P apps don't strip out ads. The API never included them in the first place.

I think it would've been interesting f reddit let the API exist in an ad-supported way and had a TOS that would prevent apps from removing the ads for non-premium users

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#219

Post by EA-3167 »

moskie wrote: post #124
hn_version_0023 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost enough to make one reconsider the use of social media entirely. My hope is that one day the kids will just stop using it and it dies it’s natural death.

I've wondered for a long time if social media is just a fad.

I think anonymous social media as the mainstream is a fad, the end-point is going to be more like Snow Crash, minus the artistic flair. I think text-based, possibly anonymous social media will persist, but it won't be what billions of people are doing.

Most of the problems with social media come down to the ability of people to separate themselves from the consequences of their speech and actions. I don't think that lack of anonymity should be enforced, I just think it's the natural progression of people trying to gather in groups on or offline.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#220

Post by camdenlock »

moskie wrote: post #76

We (the internet community) made such a terrible mistake with social media. We formed connections and communities and friendships on sites like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit, but those companies need to make money, so those connections are only allowed to exist as long as they are part of a profitable system. How awful it is to reduce human connection to that. To think that I am only allowed to maintain certain soc…

There is no such thing as “the internet community”. There is just humanity.
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