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Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

theverge.com

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Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#61

Post by mike-cardwell »

erellsworth wrote: post #43
ThomW wrote: post #18

... until they just take over the moderation of their largest communities and this whole thing ends. I mean what's so magical about the moderation of something like r/videos other than the mods being free labor for Reddit?

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

Just use Chat-GPT. The future of moderation. What could go wrong?

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#63

Post by bastijn »

prox wrote: post #20
cookiengineer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That awkward moment when spez removes the downvote functions on his profile. Gotta make that profile shine for VCs!?

Spez seems like the latest outed manchild amongst CEOs.

That awkward moment you realize Reddit is in a better position to win this war because people like us just want to have a digital place to spend time, not fight a war.

Truth be told I don't care much about all of this, I just want my subs back or replaced so I can mindlessly scroll them. Wasn't using a third party app, but if I was I'd probably feel unhappy for a week before I simply switch and don't think back.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#64

Post by Alupis »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #53
endisneigh wrote: post #17

What’s stopping Reddit from enabling all the subs?

Having people do the (absolutely necessary) moderation for free.

If they asked random sub users who wants to be a mod - they'll get more free moderators within a heartbeat.

At some point, Reddit will just force all subs to be open again, and any mods that try to delete the sub or do no moderation will just get banned or whatever.

It's pretty hard to fight against the corp using the corp's own platform.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#65

Post by ranger207 »

themagician wrote: post #32

Great opportunity for people to create derivative subreddits without oppressive mods.

There's two problems with this: first, the new mods have a good chance of being just as bad as the old mods. Second, the new subs will not be able to use the good subreddit names and will be harder to find. The latter is core problem: discoverability. If it was possible to just found a new sub and have it show up just as clearly when you search for subs related to a particular topic, then if the mods turn out to be terrible there's not many problems in just starting a new sub. But as long as only one subreddit can have a particular name you can't solve that problem

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#66

Post by pkju62dqmx »

kart23 wrote: post #16

They're getting away with this because there really is no serious competitor for reddit. When people actually start migrating away from reddit and post/comment volume is significantly down, you'll see reddit suddenly be a lot more willing to engage with the community.

You’re right due to the network effects Reddit currently enjoys.

Personally, I’ve quite enjoyed using tildes.net lately. I know everyone is jumping on Lemmy and federation, which is great in practice but Tildes feels more accessible to me and for that reason may have more potential to actually capture a user base.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#67

Post by redmerchant2 »

activiation wrote: post #22
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #3

Does this actually affect subscribers to sub-reddits? If this is extended indefinitely I would expect competing sub-reddits to form.

I unsubscrided from a few subs that weren't doing the blackout

I’m happy that 90% of the subs I sub to joined the blackout.

But some subs like r/comics are strangely boot licky despite how community engaged the mod team seemed to be. Automatically removing requests about the blackout and not even entertaining the discussion.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#68

Post by nielsbot »

milkytron wrote: post #11

This is what is needed to put pressure on Reddit. A two day protest then returning to normal is a blip in the grand scheme of things. But if they do not change their API pricing, stance on third party apps, etc, then a prolonged blackout could lead to an eventual exodus. I hope the communities I used to engage in partake in this prolonged blackout.

This is explicitly what their CEO said. Many subreddits said they'd return on wednesday.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-...

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#69

Post by 1270018080 »

linuxftw wrote: post #57
erellsworth wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

I think you underestimate the ability of AI to literally solve this problem for almost nothing. The large subs can absolutely be automated moderation, if they're not already. Enough flags on a post? Just take it down, there will be 15 million new posts in an hour.

We're in the "this is how blockchain can solve this" era of the AI bubble.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#70

Post by muttantt »

erellsworth wrote: post #43
ThomW wrote: post #18

... until they just take over the moderation of their largest communities and this whole thing ends. I mean what's so magical about the moderation of something like r/videos other than the mods being free labor for Reddit?

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

AI will replace the mods.
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