this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023

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Reddit is taking control of large subreddits that are still protesting its API changes (mashable.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Reddit is taking control of large subreddits that are still protesting its API changes::undefined

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[–] db2@lemmy.one 88 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're harassing in the sub-500K range now too.

[–] asclepias@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

I'm sure there is a spreadsheet they are working their way down.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 65 points 1 year ago

One of my fav subreddits is still private, and I'm sure the admins didn't even knew about. r/CheatAtMathHomework, you help me during college, never judge from my stupid questions or tried to give me 'clues' to solve it by myself (shout out to r/learnmath that was for that), straightforward answers to check if I was correct was what I wanted and what you provided. Never forget what they took from us.

[–] yoz@aussie.zone 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Finally reddit employees who get paid will be doing the work.

[–] me_rolling@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

They'll miss the free labor era

[–] Md1501@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

Seems like the, they will be back attitude is not working out for spez

[–] JargonWagon@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Keep it in /c/reddit ffs

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.one 15 points 1 year ago

If you want your mods to do what you want... PAY THEM.

"OMG! These people who somehow got in control won't do what we want??!?!?"

Yeah, they don't work for you, they NEVER DID. You, profiting of people who have no obligation to you is a huge problem.

[–] Im28xwa@lemdro.id 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I doubt these protests will change Reddit management's mind on things, what did these protests change so far? AFAIK nothing, the best thing to do is to migrate to an alternative platform and delete your account and recommend the subscribers to do the same while keeping the subreddit private

Nothing will be as effective as deleting your account and migrating to an alternative platform.

[–] tcj@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

what did these protests change so far?

They pushed people to other platforms.

[–] Im28xwa@lemdro.id 3 points 1 year ago

Yep, u r correct I should have thought about it more, I hope they are still pushing more people away but are there any estimates for how many left Reddit so far I really would like to know.

[–] matlag@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

For many "lurkers" of reddit, the protest brought some attention to the issue and reddit's disdain for the moderators.

I think it helps with the migration if the communities are not taken by surprise when a mod declares a migration.

[–] Thetimefarm@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Even if it fixed it for now you know it's just a matter of time until they try again. Abusive behavior isn't something that can be forgiven without meaningful changes. Best case scenario, the protests force reddit back to the way it was, but that's not enough make sure it doesn't happen again.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 6 points 1 year ago

Nelson-point-and-laugh.gif

[–] dunestorm@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

All it's done is run their reputation into the ground. Trash company run by trash human beings.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

... which gives a peak into ...

Why is this all I see?

[–] EricKendrick@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago

Peek posting, nothing more to sea hear

[–] IAmDekYay@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Literally fascism

[+] graphite@lemmy.world -133 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

What did they really think was going to happen?

They're going to kick and ban people who are trying to hijack the company. That should be a given, because it makes sense.

[–] db2@lemmy.one 78 points 1 year ago (1 children)

trying to hijack the company

wut

[–] EvilBit@lemmy.world 104 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Here, pilot this plane”

“Okay” does

“STOP HIJACKING MY PLANE”

[+] graphite@lemmy.world -73 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How is closing subreddits in protest not basically trying to take control of the situation?

[–] EvilBit@lemmy.world 74 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The subreddits are created, moderated, populated, and maintained by volunteers. The company’s model is fundamentally not under their own control, which is a knife that cuts both ways. Calling it a hijacking when it was never under anyone else’s control is not just wrong, it’s actually entirely backwards. Reddit is the one hijacking the subreddits.

[+] graphite@lemmy.world -47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The company’s model is fundamentally not under their own control, which is a knife that cuts both ways.

That's like saying Facebook's model is not fundamentally under its own control. The same with Twitter, or any other social media.

Calling it a hijacking when it was never under anyone else’s control is not just wrong, it’s actually entirely backwards. Reddit is the one hijacking the subreddits.

Reddit owns the servers which host the subreddits.

Preventing users from accessing your subreddit, as a moderater (who is also not an employee of the company), as a form of protest, is a means of trying to control the website's overall behavior.

So, yes, it is a high jacking attempt. Not an effective one, but one nonetheless.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

Reddit owns the servers which host the subreddits.

And reddit has allowed their users to create subs and become mods. Now they are taking this away.

Preventing users from accessing your subreddit

You may want to consider that these mods' actions are mostly what their users wanted (there have been polls and votes etc), so what they are doing now, is...

trying to control the website's overall behavior.

... is not very different from creating the sub in the first place.

So, yes, it is a high jacking attempt.

Don't confuse things. The Reddit company is the hijacker.

[–] ericisshort@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Giant subs have shut down before, yet Reddit never reopened them prior to June 2023. It was the coordinated action across subs that Reddit saw as a threat, not the act of closing a sub (which had never been against the rules and still isn’t). Reddit saw the protest as hijacking in the same way that other companies feel that the workers are hijacking the company when they try to unionize or strike. Only difference here is that the workers for this company are volunteers rather than paid employees.

Sure, reddit’s a private company, so they can mostly do whatever they want, but that doesn’t change the fact that these actions are unprecedented and a huge betrayal of trust, and there’s nothing wrong with people (especially those that invested a lot of time and effort into building the site into what it is today) being upset at reddit for this.

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Why give moderators the ability to close a subreddit if they didn't want them to be able to close a subreddit? Using a tool that was explicitly given to you isn't isn't "hijacking".

[–] T156@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Because the users can go and make their own subreddits? That's how disputes with moderators used to be solved. The users dissatisfied with the moderators would just split off into their own sub. The moderators have no control over that.

The only thing that has changed is that Reddit is actively stepping in now, which they didn't used to do for these kinds of things.

[–] anlumo@feddit.de 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe they should have paid these people who run the company.

[–] ijeff@lemdro.id 46 points 1 year ago

It's worth noting that protests are a fundamental part of Reddit culture and a large part of how the site became successful in the first place (waves of activism and migration from Digg over several years).

[–] krayj@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What did they really think was going to happen?

I think what they thought would happen was that reddit would relize they have inadvertantly united users, subreddit mods, and 3rd party developrs (many of which are ironically from subreddits that ordinarily despise each other) into a common cause against reddit...and that reddit would reconsider their actions and find a way not to murder 3rd party apps.

[+] graphite@lemmy.world -29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

They don't care about any of that though. They knew this was going to happen before they made the announcement.

Do you really think they were that out of touch?

[–] jtk@lemmy.sdf.org 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The mods and users knew exactly what would happen, either Reddit changes, or they double down. The mods/users were ready to react to which ever Reddit chose. No one is making a surprised pikachu face here, they're just calling Reddit out for doubling down, like they already planned to do, in the event it's the move Reddit makes. It's really not that hard to understand.

[+] graphite@lemmy.world -27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

The mods and users knew exactly what would happen, either Reddit changes, or they double down.

They obviously didn't know exactly what would happen, because if they did, they wouldn't have bothered.

You're listing two possible outcomes and pairing them as a single event, which doesn't make sense.

Reddit was never going to change - that's my point. They were definitely going to double down.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

they wouldn't have bothered.

Have you ever, ever in your life, protested anything?

[–] jtk@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So they should have... done nothing and given in? Everyone was pretty sure that's what they were going to do. The alternative choice is Stockholm Syndrome.

[–] graphite@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So they should have... done nothing and given in?

Given in to what? The same dynamic that the majority of social media companies have imposed on their users?

One thing to remember is TPA users (of which I was one) were 3% of the website. 3%. Not a very large figure.

In this capitalistic environment, the dynamic is built off of the most a-moral "fuck you, we can get away with it" approach to business that operates within legal bounds that ultimately allow for a corporation to come out on top. Maybe they break a law, have to pay fines, whatever; as long as they can still profit and make investors/shareholders happy, they're probably going to get away with it.

Yes, it's fucked up. 9/10 times, it doesn't matter what the media says and it doesn't matter what the users say.

It sucks, but like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc. all of which have screwed their users over on multiple occasions, they're still in business, chugging along, people are still using their services.

The alternative choice is Stockholm Syndrome.

By that logic, what's the difference if, after all of this, still nothing changes and you still use their service?

We have Lemmy, kbin, Mastodon, etc. They're a great alternative.

Yes, the communities aren't as fleshed out, over time it will get better.

Reddit is thankfully more optional than a lot of other services.

You can stop using Reddit and go about your day to day obligations.

Services like Amazon and Google are a lot harder to give up.

I wonder what we could do to prevent things like this from happening in the future?

Maybe looking more into the political frameworks that exist, laws, and thinking realistically about what changes can be made in the near future, while also trying to understand the challenges that we would be faced against.

[–] mindbleach@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

God save us from the delusion that whatever happens was secretly the prediction of assholes in power.

Sometimes... people... fuck up.

Sometimes people fuck up real big.

These people got caught lying on tape. Maybe they're not as smart as you'd like.

[–] graphite@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Maybe they're not as smart as you'd like.

You think I want them to be smart? Lol.

Something controversial happens -> a lot of people get pissed off (understandably so) -> media milks the shit out of the event -> narratives - true, false, embellished, whatever get created -> mischaracterization for anyone who's approach to handling the situation isn't in line with majority rule, blah blah blah -> the bad guys (usually) walk away fine.

That's a very common cycle.

I wasn't happy with what happened, but it's been 2 months at this point, and what I've gathered is that nothing is going to change.

And yet because I say that these protests are fruitless people get mad and go absolutely nuts on the downvote button.

Sorry, I was under the impression we could have an open discussion without making assumptions in bad faith about people who disagree with the rationale.

My bad 🤚

[–] mindbleach@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

'Injustice is fine, actually. I am very smart.'

K bye.

[–] graphite@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

No, it isn't fine.

And no, I don't think I'm "very smart".

[–] Brodude@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I mean, they have a done a new place at the worse time, so yeah lmao.

[–] HollowNotion@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

People think "Reddit" is their friend for some reason.

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