Is how easily mods have caved in once the admins threatened to remove them. I had thought we’d see quite a few cases where Reddit would have to step in an replace entire mod teams (effectively killing the community). But it seems like that hasn’t happened at all - the closest we’ve got is mods being reordered.
I guess I didn’t appreciate how much moderating means to some people, especially people who are marginalised or otherwise have shitty lives… (which makes Reddit’s behaviour even more abhorrent! Exploiting the most vulnerable in society to provide free labour they are making huge profits off).
That said, it seems like Reddit has crossed the Rubicon now. They have now forced mods to run their subreddits in a certain way. Mods now know they are operating in some tight boundaries, and the admins can - on a whim - change the rules and force them to comply. i.e. any illusion of the power they had is now massively reduced. I’m sure a lot of them will be in denial, but this more than likely won’t be the last time we see this happen.
I am not surprised that the mods gave in, not only because of egolatry, but because I don’t think anyone wants to see the fruit of their efforts taken away and in the hands of anyone. I have been more surprised by the users.
A little over a week ago people were voting massively everywhere in favor of the protest, but nowadays everywhere I go, I only see people saying how stupid the protest is, that this is a whim that the mods are forcing on the users, that the mods are doing it for their selfish interests, and that the whole thing makes no sense.
The worst thing is that the mods, instead of toning it down and settling for effective measures that don’t generate as much opposition, like shutting down one day a week (that should have been the initial and permanent proposal), they keep pushing to vote proposals that no one wants like restricting everything but silly pictures.Users against mods while admins rub their hands together, and the only alternative is a couple of platforms in too early development with hardly any users. Reddit handled this extremely poorly, but will come out winning :-/
I’m not surprised.
Many mods are hugely invested. I was a reddit mod of a long standing sub until Tuesday when I de-modded myself and abandoned it after reading Apollo’s creator’s rebuttal. I was apalled by Spezz’s behaviour and simply could not stand being associated with Reddit’s management any longer. I walked away.
But my sub was low traffic, I hadn’t had it for that long, I hadn’t invested a lot of life into it. Being in that position is large part of your day, your routine. Stopping leaves a void. Many mods have invested years into Reddit and they genuinely care what happens to it. I understand and cannot blame any mod for wanting to stick with it, even through this insanity. Reddit knows that, of course, and even bad mods save them a lot of work. They know they can push them around, bully them into line and most will suck it up and take it.
As for users - the vast majority don’t feel ownership, or even particular involvement, and don’t want to. They just want to browse stuff and move on with their life. Spectators, and that’s fine.
Sorry to be negative, but for myself, I just want to be much less involved. I’ve always used aggressive adblockers everywhere and probably earn Reddit very little money, but I’ve generated a lot of content and done much volunteer work for them. I’m not interested in fighting them, only in distancing myself and finding other ways to spend my time. I do find it more than a little sad, however.
Change doesn’t happen overnight. As long as the shitshow continues, it’ll affect Reddit. Plenty of mods still protesting, and many are contemplating their next moves.
I personally am thinking of stepping down, I haven’t done much moderation in the past year or so anyway.
I expect another exodus when the apps shut down at the end of the month as well. Things happen in stages.
Wow that’s actually an incredibly depressing screenshot, and pretty much vile for how reddit is using them
Many mod teams are biding their time while they make plans in private, so that’s also something to consider.
Several of the big subs have switched to a malicious compliance though where they’ve reopened but are nothing like their normal content. It’s not actually against the rules, and seems kind of clever unless I’m missing something?
Only thing I have to say to that is that this form of protest still brings activity to Reddit which means ad money in spez‘s pocket. It‘s as if the workers during a strike still go to work and produce the things that makes the company money, but painted pink or something, so people still buy it (maybe even more cause that is unusual) and spend. No strikes would be effective if that is how they went, which is why usually the workers withdraw their labor entirely.
That said, it‘s not a job, the mods can do what they want with it and I can do what I want too, which is not give views and build community here.
Nah, I think you’ve got this all wrong. Nobody’s going to Reddit for pics of John Oliver. What this does is render the larger subs effectively useless. A more apt metaphor would be a sandwich shop doing only one, fairly unappealing (sorry John) style of sandwich. People are going to stop coming in right quick.
These mods are still fighting and I applaud them. Reddit might be a flawed model but I am ALWAYS down for frustrating the aims of people like spez.
Well, consider how some subs have changed to be about John Oliver. Many who stayed are still trying to fight the good fight for us.
But it’s up to us to build good communities here, so when reddit inevitably flexes its muscle and starts steamrolling, those mods will have a place to flee to. The best way to help the mods out now is to build a good alternative for them.
Tbh, on my mod account, I’m staying just inside where they’ll try to something. Not so that I don’t get removed, but to drag things out as long as possible. In the meanwhile, I’m dismantling and changing the automod little bits at a time, making small deletions of popular posts, etc so that when they inevitably catch on, whatever scab they throw in has to work harder than I did to set it up.
Fuck spez, and fuck reddit.
Fighting the good fight.
Because calling internet moderation “unpaid work” is intellectually dishonest. It’s a hobby, at best. They know they’re getting paid, just not with money. They get paid in the only currency they actually care about: arbitrary internet police power. Whats funny is most of them probably hate actual police for their arbitrary abuses of power. As soon as admins threatened to “fire” them they largely fell in line because they know for each degenerate power tripping reddit mod, theres 100 degenerate lurkers who would happily replace them. They are fully aware of that fact, and that’s why threatening to remove them worked.
Moderations who weren’t cowards got their subreddits quarantined/banned. Only Mods who agree with the admins politics or are too weak-willed to resist remain.
In some cases, it’s more complex than that. e.g. see this very interesting post by the r/LegalAdviceUK mods: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/14cr5zc/were_back_and_heres_whats_happening/
This reddit lies person is pro-forced birth?? wtf???
yeah that twitter thread was mostly a shit show and not the crowd I want to have around
