hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout, its aftermath, and what’s happening going forward, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! thanks! we’ll see if we need to cycle the thread again before the end of this week, but i don’t know that we’ll need to
BlackCat claims they hacked Reddit and will leak the data
Operators broke into Reddit on February 5, 2023, and took 80 gigabytes (zipped) of data. Reddit was emailed twice by operators, once on April 13 and one again on June 16.
There was no attempt to find out what we took.
In our last email to them, we stated that we wanted $4.5 million in exchange for the deletion of the data and our silence. As we also stated, if we had to make this public, then we now demand that they also withdraw their API pricing changes along with our money or we will leak it.
We expect to leak the data.
To be honest, maybe I should care about Reddit politics but I don’t really. And so I feel like the mods of the communities I enjoyed are forcing me into protest against my will. But seemingly they have the power to effectively shut Reddit down and so here we are.
The biggest loss is tech support topics. Most useful Google searches lead to Reddit.
Troubling update from the Reddit admins. They are planning to remove mods from any subs that decide to stay private and hand them over to scabs. This goes back on their previous statements that subs had a right to protest and go private. Mods of one large community have already been contacted by the admins and told that “if you decide to close your community going forward, our Code of Conduct team will reach out with next steps”. Which is a fresh take on “nice kneecaps, shame if something happened to them”.
privately, i’ve kind of wondered whether Reddit does even care if all of its subreddits are moderated horribly, and if it doesn’t whether that renders anything short of taking your ball and going home moot
They’re shooting themselves in the foot with this stance. Handing over some very popular subreddits to the most aggressive, dissenting voices in a community who have no experience running that particular subreddit is a recipe for disaster. A hostile takeover is not going to set the new mods in a good light from the get-go, alienating them from the groups they’re supposed to be running and creating an adversarial relationship. This will not turn out the way they’re hoping.
r/subredditdrama would be trending ever day. Any controversial subreddit would be subject to astroturfing campaigns. Could you imagine if a political party decided to over throw mods of r/politics or r/news just before an election?
The whole point of a Reddit it is a community that is fostered by the moderators and the voting system. Hostile take overs of a subreddit will result in toxicity and encourage heavy handed moderation, restricted membership and make the popular subreddit echo chambers.
The CEO is changing too much, too fast, and with reckless abandon. You can’t change your pricing model, your business model and your value prop in one go. The best analogy I can come up with that it’s like he’s remodeling the kitchen and decided that a wrecking ball through the front of the house is a good idea.
Reddit users continue their blackout protest against the platform’s new pricing plan, which will force several popular third-party apps to shut down or pay up starting July 1. While some subreddits have reopened, moderators of r/aww, r/videos, and r/music have kept their forums closed, holding out for more movement from Reddit’s executives.
Over 300 other subreddits are still private, and moderators are polling their users to gauge interest before joining the indefinite shutdowns. CEO Steve Huffman’s leaked memo, which warned employees not to sport a Reddit logo in public, has been criticized for “trivializing” the concerns of moderators and volunteers who maintain much of the platform.
source: tldrdaily.news
300? The tracking site is still showing 5k.
It does say “over 300” so I guess technically correct, if misleading
Redditinc.com’s fact(oid)s about the API changes.
Includes such BS as
100,000+ active communities
Technically true. But it’s estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 are NSFW. That is, the subs they don’t want shown at their (mythical) IPO.
Supporting these apps is not free for Reddit; they incur both infrastructure and significant opportunity costs.
Technically true. But so does the official app, and web browsers. API calls are not some sort of special magic that causes extra wear on the systems. If the users never had the third party apps they’d be using something else, causing the same traffic and usage - or using nothing at all.
Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use from our API.
Again, third party apps are no more of a drain on data use than anything else. It’s been proven, but Spez keeps pushing this lie.
Many other platforms have chosen to stop supporting apps like these altogether.
Objection! Facts not in evidence.
more than 98% of apps do not pay and will continue to access the Data API for free so long as apps are not monetized […].
Emphasis mine. This is the real story.
Our pricing is based on usage levels comparable to our own costs
Either this is an outright lie or Spez is admitting that the official Reddit app is an inefficient, data monching, piece of garbage.
We’re working to improve the mobile mod experience
Spez has been promising rainbows for years but all we ever get is poop. Or just the smell of poop. That the mobile apps were released without proper moderator tools tells you what he thinks of moderators.
We have a unique system of checks and balances, and we respect the communities right to protest.
Clearly a lie, given that Spez is going to change the rules to force out moderators who choose to follow their sub’s wishes to protest.
r/nottheonion is asking users to vote, including a fun option that encourages people to take Tuesdays off
The “fun option” is an official means of joining the protest. Can he stop lying for 10 seconds?
We conducted an accessibility audit with an external consultant and have been working on improving accessibility on the site and in our apps.
Yes, much smarter than actually TALKING TO YOUR OWN USERS AND SEEING WHAT THEY WANT. Oh, they want what you refuse to do? Gee, what a surprise!
Nothing says ableism more than telling people with disabilities that they have no agency in how or if they get accommodations. (Sadly, the ADA does not apply to Reddit as a website.)
In summary, Spez needs to be fired. Preferably out of a cannon, into the sun. (Edit to add, because I am newbie here: This is hyperbole. I do not actually advocate violence against anyone.)
And so, it begins https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14aeq5j/new_admin_post_if_a_moderator_team_unanimously/
Reddit CEO slams protest leaders, saying he’ll change rules that favor ‘landed gentry’
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said Thursday that he wants to bring an end to a user-led protest that has made large parts of the influential website inaccessible this week. Huffman said in an interview that he plans to institute rules changes that would allow Reddit users to vote out moderators who have overseen the protest, comparing them to a “landed gentry.”
The protest took down thousands of message boards, known as subreddits, starting Monday, and some communities say they plan to continue the action indefinitely. The action has been led by Reddit’s unpaid, volunteer moderators, who have a high level of control over how their subreddits are run. Participating communities went “private,” making them unviewable even to members. The protesters oppose changes that will most likely cut off their ability to access Reddit through third-party apps, and their action has hobbled much of the site.
Huffman, also a Reddit co-founder, said he plans to pursue changes to Reddit’s moderator removal policy to allow ordinary users to vote moderators out more easily if their decisions aren’t popular. He said the new system would be more democratic and allow a wider set of people to hold moderators accountable.
Reddit’s current policy says moderators may be removed by higher-ranking moderators or by Reddit itself for inactivity or violations of Reddit-wide rules. They may also remove themselves. Many have held their positions for years.
“If you’re a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders,” he said.
“And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.”
Moderators have argued that the high level of control over their communities is well-deserved because of the hours of free labor they’ve put into making and enforcing rules on their subreddits. Any plan to reduce their influence might result in another backlash.
Huffman, who co-founded Reddit 18 years ago this month, said he believes the leaders of the protest may have had popular support when it started Monday but have lost most of it since.
Can users vote out the CEO?
Interesting point about the future of Reddit in that article:
Huffman said, however, that he’d like some form of revenue-sharing.
“I would like subreddits to be able to be businesses if they choose,” he said, adding that’s “another conversation, but I think that’s the next frontier of Reddit.”
The long-term goal is monetization of subreddits. I’m glad I won’t be there to see that happen.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/15/reddit-blackout-third-party-apps/
Loving the Reddit dumpster fire thumbnail image they included. Mostly covering TheVerge’s Huffman interview and pointing out how dumb he sounds as CEO.
This article is absolutely scathing, great read.
A nice summary of why everyone is so angry, by Christian Selig:
https://mas.to/@christianselig@mastodon.social/110572053161618054
Candidly, I am surprised Reddit waited this long to start taking things over - they are definitely out of touch with what made their community.
