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Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

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Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#72

Ha. There were some weird posts from new users in subreddits I frequent. 'we need to rise up against the mods the blackout is an outrage!' It was met with unanimous wtf is wrong with you, go outside. I get the feeling spez is creating new accounts and posting as them again.

Americans (and terminally online Europeans) have a hard time understanding that people outside their social bubbles can disagree with them without being sockpuppet accounts or bots.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#73
post #43

Every day that passes I’m getting more convinced that the best move to improve the likelihood of a successful IPO (which IMHO this whole API clusterfuck is all about) is to fire spez and install a sane CEO. How can it be that he is still in charge and hasn’t been fired years ago?

Because the talent pool more broadly is probably lacking quality, lol.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#74

Ha. There were some weird posts from new users in subreddits I frequent. 'we need to rise up against the mods the blackout is an outrage!' It was met with unanimous wtf is wrong with you, go outside. I get the feeling spez is creating new accounts and posting as them again.

It's a pretty common sentiment that opinions that differ from our own must be corrupt, bought, sock-puppets, etc. People on virtually every side of any issue feel this way because it's comforting to imagine that our own opinion is the only authentic one. Loads of reddit users are annoyed by the blackout thing and find the arguments for it unconvincing. I mean personally I think all of the blackout people should just…

> delete your comments

Given reddit is apparently restoring deleted comments, that's going to be a useless gesture.[1]

I agree with the sentiment though; if people en masse migrated away from Reddit the way they did with Digg, that would be the only really impactful long-term gesture.

Edit: Regarding the sockpuppet thing, I mean, we've literally seen that happen a number of times. When you see an account created in 2023 with no comment activity at all post, sure, that could be a lurker deciding to comment on this one very contentious issue. When you see a dozen in a sub that has 100k subscribers, that's odd but probably not unreasonable. When you see thousands, maybe something is going on.

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/14av2z3/reports_of...

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#75
Good.

If mods want to withhold their own work and resign in protest, power to them. But right now they're hanging this all on mass censoring the work of their users. Screw that.

Now, if users want to take down their own content in protest, also power to them.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#78
post #27

Good riddance. The moderators are the worst part of Reddit. Just pay someone to do their job.

A lot of well run subs would never exist in the first place without good mods. A very good example of that is /r/askhistorians, without a heavy enforcement of their guidelines the quality of that sub would be absolute trash. There are definitely a lot of bad mods, even more in popular subs, and even more in popular subs that are not centered around a community of hobbyist and/or fans. The value of reddit is not this…

/u/mrgrimm founder of IMGUR should be charging Reddit for their API/'infra' (as spez was on NPR saying they pay "10s of millions per year for infra" to support third party apps - but they are "still talking to several apps"...

IMGUR should pull a protest and charge reddit (although I assume they are already deep in bed together... you can type in any /r/ into IMGR.com/r/pics for example and get all the pics posted to /r/pics -- or any other sub....

The point being that IMGUR should be charging reddit for all the "infra" costs their traffic has on their "infra"

--

EDIT :

Can I sell my reddit accounts to some EU citizen for $1 (eu) such that you then own my account and can use GDPR laws to demand reddit delete my account/comments/history? (I have 17 years worth of comments on there) GDP-[REDDIT-COMMENT-DELETION-AS-A-SERVICE] GPT-GDPRCDAAS

---

EDIT2 :

/u/spez was again on NPR, where NPR stated that still "50% of the largest subs are still in protest" -- and then Spez stated that the business hasn't been impacted.

So riddle me thus ;;

If you can shutter 50% of your top subreddits without "significant impact to the business" , then how can you claim that you're paying "10s of millions" to "support" 3rd party API call apps, in 'infra' -- and this is 'unsustainable' yet killing '50% of top subs' has no impact on the business?

/u/spez might want to consider subscribing to /r/theyDidTheMath

EDIT3 :

"https://gizmodo.com/subreddits-retreat-api-war-as-ceo-steve-...

Has Reddit paid mods for un-blocking? Has Reddit paid ANY MODS EVER? Shouldnt this be in an SEC filing, if they are hedging for an IPO payout so /u/spez can go off into the tech sunset?

Shouldnt Reddit be required to report which mods they paid off in the past? Should reddit be required to announce which MOD accounts are held as alts by actual employees (admins) of reddit?

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#79

Ha. There were some weird posts from new users in subreddits I frequent. 'we need to rise up against the mods the blackout is an outrage!' It was met with unanimous wtf is wrong with you, go outside. I get the feeling spez is creating new accounts and posting as them again.

There's a silent majority - "lurkers" - that the mods have completely ignored over the course of their tantrum. I've commented more in the past few days than i have in the past few months, because it's obvious the mods have completely lost perspective of the average user experience.

Lurkers should also realize that their experience is shaped by mods decisions. For the better or for the worst, that's a good question, I guess we will soon find out. But given what FB groups look like, I have my own opinion.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#80

Quote from him in the NBC interview: “…a business owner can be fired by its shareholders…” You know, I think he may be on to something there. Maybe someone should look into that for oh, say, the CEO of Reddit.

He doesn't seem to have a great way with words. If you are the owner (implying >50% ownership), you can't be fired by the shareholders. If you hold less than 50%, you are not the business owner.

Under a few specific conditions minority shareholders can oust an owner CEO. Beyond board seats and voting rights, there is a duty to protect the interests of all shareholders not just the owner. So for example if the owner sells off assets to themselves below market rate it’s not ok.

Similarly, if the owner CEO is in a coma, mental institution, etc they can be ousted.

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