I have deleted all my posts/comments on #Reddit ahead of deleting my entire account tomorrow. If you are leaving as well, don't just leave your comments and posts in limbo! That allows reddit to profit off your content through ads. #redditmigration#redditblackout
The guys from the Open Source Security Podcast are right about the fiasco of Twitter and Reddit shutting down their APIs:
"The people who are using these APIs are not the kind of people you want to push out of your ecosystem - they are the people that literally built the ecosystem."
What do most TikTok users and Reddit users have in common? They still have understand anything about how to check Reddit, TikTok (and other socials) properly, even without need to see a single ad. But obviously they react like if the end of Apollo is equivalent to the end of the world.
#reddit tells the mods that if they want to stay closed, the users will have to vote on it. Users vote to stay closed and then Reddit says they have to open up anyway.
So this is new or I have never seen it before. The message comes up when I open a link to #Reddit in my browser.
What is this? The content could be inappropriate but it isn’t inappropriate anymore if you open it in the official Reddit app? This doesn’t make sense at all except that they want to force people into their app.
First they came for /r/pics ... now Reddit are coming for the individual personal subreddits
Quite some years ago I'd realised that amongst the problems with using Reddit as a personal blogging space (my avatar here is a relic of that, if you'd not put the two together) was that I do not in fact have any permanent claim to that space.
Reddit's previous policies of moderator re-assignment bothered me. The policies apparently instituted September 2022 and being rolled out aggressively in recent days ... have not weakened my concerns.
And, checking in now, I find a day-old modmail to /r/dredmorbius, a subreddit which only ever was my own personal posts with comments from a few friends, and about 1,000 subscribers ... has received a notice to reclaim by /u/Modcodeofconduct, screenshot attached here.
I have not abandoned the sub. I had closed it in protest of Reddit's continued failings and war against its volunteer moderators and general community.
As my toot notes, I'd been very aware that Reddit could reclaim the subreddit according to its rules then in place. The pinned posts on the sub, for 2 and 3 years respectively as of this past February, discussed that amongst other concerns. The Wayback Machine shows those here:
One of those posts specifically addressed my preferences for how my subreddit should allowed to die and rest in ... ouch, typo, "piece". That post received an admin response saying that it would be a good candidate for just that.
The Reddit story goes deeper, and drags in Ycombinator and its popular news aggregator Hacker News
My submission earlier today about Reddit seeking to seize my personal subreddit of going on ten years drew 405 votes and 299 comments, but ranked 42nd on the archive page https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2023-06-22&p=2, well below posts with far fewer votes and/or comments.
I note that this conflicts with, and contradicts, a comment from a week ago reiterating HN's policy of moderating less not more on stories concerning YC companies, specifically noting that this was despite the somewhat distant-in-time and tenuous present relationship between YC and Reddit.
And that comment appears to be the first HN's mod team bothered mention the fact, as an HN site search reveals:
And yes, that can be repetitive and annoying and repetitively annoying ... but ... it is often one of the only viable venues for those who are disempowered to be heard.
HN's present Reddit policy both amplifies an existing power discrepancy (that of Reddit members against the company) and puts HN's own credibility at risk.
HN cannot simultaneously claim to:
moderate YC companies less,
impose a penalty for submissions concerning a specific YC company, and ]- fail to disclose the existence of that penalty at all.
The fact that HN have now put their thumb on the scale without notifying either submitters or the general readership concerns me greatly.
How about HN:
De-thumbs that scale
Clearly and prominently disclose the fact of the penalty, and the dates at which it was applied and lifted.
Applies a case-by-case assessment based on new significant information.
Provides a mechanism for aggregating similar classes of stories. E.g., the tens to hundreds of thousands of small and/or personal subreddits which Reddit are now acting to seize control of.
Hacker News's own credibility is very much at risk here and that itself is a serious concern to the site.
(Communicated to HN's mod team via email, toot here adapted slightly.)
Oh. Reach out #reddit admin about "what next steps will take place" if I don't reopen.
The lights aren't on anymore. I've left.
I was the creator & sole mod of most of my communities. We aren't "stewards in a position of trust with our users." We made a house & invited users in if they liked the way it was run.
I still mod a few #fannish reddit comms close to my heart in the hopes I can find a decentralized self-hosting option to redirect them to. I want my own damn house. #redditblackout
@scarpentier Right, lol. True. Altho I was always supportive of #Reddit before now. Starting with my appreciation of Aaron Swartz; their content policy allowed for NSFW; RES and Toolbox extensions were fantastic; a plethora of 3P apps...
I spent $$ on Reddit supporting it - gold & badges, etc. in the same way I've spent $$ on Tumblr supporting it.
For-profit companies aren't evil until they start pulling this greedy shit sacrificing users for $$ and (fuck) u/spez goes off praising #ElonMusk