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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

#541

Post by moskie »

kodah wrote: post #179
moskie wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a fine perspective for inconsequential (-ish) social interactions, but then I start to think about the political organizing that these sites have also facilitated. "The revolution will not be televised" and all that, but... man. I was all over twitter getting real-time information as I participated in Occupy and BLM marches. But, now Elon has it.....

Political organization on the internet definitely has its downsides too. In fact, as the activity has proliferated it's consumed the internet at times and that's been disappointing, to the extent that astroturfing occurs. On top of that it seems that politics has gotten more homogenous in viewpoints since it proliferated; people are now repeating talking points more than nuanced ideas. There's also a lot of harassmen…

I definitely agree, but I would also suggest that the need for social media companies to monetize on engagement incentivises them to exacerbate the issues you mention. Removing those incentives might improve political discussion.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#542

Post by LordKeren »

interestica wrote: post #533

There’s not much stopping Reddit from taking over the user accounts and just reopening the subs with the same ‘mods’ — but run by different users. The scariest part is that they could use those accounts and ‘speak’ for them — “we’re sorry, we changed our minds. we are back. huffman was right”. They’ve already demonstrated that they have the power (and will) to modify existing users’ comments.

A large amount of subreddits also have discord servers under the same alias. This would immediately blow up in Reddit’s face and get them mocked by every new publication

> They’ve already demonstrated that they have the power (and will) to modify existing users’ comments.

Huffman was also immediately caught and has been restlessly mocked about doing that.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#543

Post by wvenable »

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…

I disagree. 3rd spaces are often profit generating businesses.

The problem is that these companies are VC backed enterprises mean to give many multiple return on investment. It's not merely enough to be profitable.

Reddit certain could have been profitable already but they've continued to grow in headcount and stupid ideas (nft.reddit.com) basically chasing an unachieveable goal. It will eat itself to pursue that goal.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#544

Post by cpeterso »

joshvm wrote: post #537
winternett wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therein lies the problem... We spent so many years crowdsourcing these curated knowledge bases on a variety of subjects for free to the point that it's empowered the controlling companies to firewall them now and then make our input a commodity that they can turn around and sell to us. Walled garden sites and apps are the enemy. The only way social media works for certain people is if they are off the main exploited…

The funny thing is that a lot of the stuff people on Reddit are clamouring for was easily supported by forums, and has been done forever. Admins were free to run their own ads or premium posts, they got sponsorship from companies, organised swaps and real-life meetups. I remember getting perks like free shipping from some places in return for being an active user. The communities were also more intimate. You'd intera…

Who is the WordPress of forum hosting on your own domain and customizability? Someone that can make turnkey forums for nontechnical people to create their own communities.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#545

Post by LordKeren »

potsandpans wrote: post #474

do mods on reddit have the ability to wholesale delete posts? I wonder if any are considering reducing the subs to a [removed] wasteland. I suppose reddit would just restore to some prior state.

Funnily enough, yes, it is very easy to mass remove posts on Reddit with both the api and third party extensions. However, removed is not deleted. Another mod can reapprove a removed post and it would be restored.

Reddit already has the tools to undo this kind of sabotaging

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#546

Post by moskie »

aceazzameen wrote: post #483
voisin wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything, including our climate and other basic needs as humans. Wild that it hasn’t been overthrown yet.

I'm hoping when the day comes, it isn't too violent. But history has its own thing to say about that.

It is troubling that, in the US at least, one of the two major political constituencies has a lot more guns than the other....

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#547

Post by moskie »

99_00 wrote: post #538
moskie wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mistake was to commit to a system where social connections are only maintained / allowed to exist if they are profitable for an intermediary.

As opposed to not having those social connections?

As opposed to recognizing these problems ahead of time, and instead creating a (public?) system for forming these social networks that doesn't need to monetize. One that wouldn't be corrupted by the needs for ever-increasing profits.

I don't mean for that system to necessarily be a full replacement for the social networks we have now, but I'd argue there's room for something like a public alternative to them.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#548

Post by michaelmrose »

yanderekko wrote: post #444
michaelmrose wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The community is the only worthwhile thing about reddit. Their IP is simply awful garbage that could be profitably replaced with their own old open source code and their leadership is full of the kind of folks who think they can hire a sex offender then silence community outrage. The last thing they own is hardware not valuable enough to pay severance if a substantial portion of the community leaves. Worse the folks…

The community is exactly why toxic mods should be removed.

Can you explain why you believe the mods are toxic? Reddit allowing autonomy created an entire army of unpaid mods in order to create communities that pay 100% of managements salaries despite current reddit management being basically bad at every aspect of their jobs. They absolutely can crush them if they want to but if they do they stand to crush those communities and end up owning the shell of what they wanted to control.

Ownership of reddit/r/$name isn't a valuable quantity if the people who contribute react badly to replacing the people running the joint being replaced by management stooges. For a case study consider freenode and look how that turned out.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#549

Post by ddtaylor »

satvikpendem wrote: post #460
ddtaylor wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they shouldn't have extended that much trust to Reddit as the company grew and changed, but that doesn't change the fact that Reddit admins are now lying. I don't really like this carte blanche idea that everyone is going to do bad things, so when you trusted them in the past it was your fault ideology.

> I don't really like this carte blanche idea that everyone is going to do bad things It's not about doing good or bad things, it's about following the incentives ( cui bono? ). Corporations are amoral entities that seek to maximize profits, just as living organisms are entities that seek to maximize reproductive success. There's nothing wrong with either incentive, but it's crucial to recognize that those are the in…

> Corporations are amoral entities that seek to maximize profits

The steps they take to obtain that goal matter a lot. If they went around literally stealing money from peoples wallets, we wouldn't just hand-wave it away and say "oh, they're amoral entities"

> just as living organisms are entities that seek to maximize reproductive success

We still consider it unethical to obtain that goal by any means necessary.

> There's nothing wrong with either incentive

I have nothing wrong with either incentive. Making a profit and reproducing are both great things. Doing either of them (or anything!) in unethical ways is the problem.

> Therefore, in this case, there was no reason to trust Reddit admins on what they say

What they have said in the past and what they have done WRT treating subreddits are "your space" is pretty consistent. We didn't just take their word for it. Their actions over the last 10 years in almost every circumstance has led us to believe this is the policy.

> they will simply say whatever they want in order to pursue profit

The public NEED to combat these kinds of problems by holding companies accountable. I would much rather live in a world where a company has to worry about lying to consumers because they will be held accountable than live in a world where anything a company says is ignored because we threw our hands up and said nobody can be trusted to any degree.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#550

Post by sgregnt »

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…

They created the connections, without their facilitation this would probably never exists in the first place.
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