One thing that's surprised me about the Reddit shitshow

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.

Zaphodquixote,
@Zaphodquixote@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

sxan,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

Fighting the good fight.

cedarmesa, (edited )
@cedarmesa@lemmy.world avatar

💀

Mastersord,

This was bound to happen. As long as someone at reddit could override the mods, there’s no way the subs could stay private indefinitely. At least not without the entire community in agreement.

The goal is to make sure all this drama stays public so everyone sees how pissed everyone is and investors see reddit as the sinking ship it is.

SamC,

Yeah, we always knew Reddit had the power to end the protests overnight if they wanted to. I just thought they would have to exercise more of that power directly rather than just threaten to do so.

pory,
@pory@lemmy.world avatar

Well, the idea would be that when Reddit forces new moderators in, that there'd be a severe lack of people that are all of the following:

  • Ideologically aligned with Reddit's CEO and new plans
  • Willing to perform unpaid labor for extended periods of time without any reward or payment other than "a job well done"
  • Not just a user that has no idea what it means to be a moderator and assumes that it means "i have power" before finding out it's basically a janitorial position
  • Not going to get bored in a week
  • Not an intentional bad actor (remember, the current mod team in this scenario is all gone so they can't vet community members)
  • Cares enough about their subreddit to become a moderator
  • Does not care enough about their subreddit to be bothered by the existing moderator team being forcibly removed
  • Knows the subject of the subreddit well enough to be an informed moderator
  • Once again, willing to accept a workload and responsibilities for a COMPLETELY UNPAID job, where at least some of the users you're moderating actively hate you for being a scab
  • Actually good at the task

I moderated /r/smashbros for a few months. It was thankless work but it felt nice making the page prettier and removing hate and spam, and I helped the subreddit prepare for the release (and pre-release leak) of Smash Ultimate in a way that I think almost all the users found agreeable. The existing mod team did a great job onboarding me and teaching me how all the tools work, which way the mod culture usually swings in grey areas, and all of that. Scab mods won't get any of that. If they remove every mod on /r/pics and throw five new guys in (selected by, uh, wibbly magic?), the sheer torrent of spam and off-topic/rule-breaking content (even with the normal rules and not in the middle of Reddit going apeshit) will make it pretty much impossible for any of the new mods to find a stable footing.

Which is kind of the point of a strike - you can always hire inexperienced scabs to replace experienced and dedicated workers, but it turns out there's a reason those experienced/dedicated workers are valuable. And it turns out there are more people out there willing to get stepped on than there are willing to devote two to ten hours a day actively licking the boot.

ferrisoxide, (edited )

If moderators were paid, and Reddit wasn't simply monetizing the community's content and goodwill, it wouldn't be too hard to see the company's coercive tactics as akin to strike-busting.

Lorez,

If moderators were paid

They're not, that's what makes unpaid moderation a hobby. Usurping Labor rhetoric to discuss hobbies is either funny or offensive, not sure which.

Pogogunner,
Pogogunner avatar

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.

PrinceHabib72,

Nah, there are still a lot protesting, they just know that if they don't do things a certain way they'll be replaced with bootlickers. Pics, gifs, aww, interestingasfuck, iOS, wellthatsucks- all are bringing attention to the admin's bullshit while technically doing as admins asked.

SamC,

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/

StaggersAndJags,

I get where they're coming from, kind of. If they're going to make another move in the future, they need to still be moderators of the subreddit or no one will pay attention.

But they need to realize that 99.9% of people will only hear about their actions, not their reasons. And their action has been to surrender to the admins' demands and return to normal operations. They've contributed to the growing narrative that the protest has failed, which puts more pressure on the remaining holdouts to fold.

A couple news stories of moderators of prominent subreddits being forcibly removed by reddit would have been a thousand times more effective than these vague promises of future actions that might never happen.

Jo,

Can you cut and paste the text for those of us trying to avoid giving reddit any traffic? Thanks

SamC,

(Please don’t give any awards for this post - although it’s a kind gesture, that’s money that goes to Reddit!)

Hello r/LegalAdviceUK.

As you may have noticed, the mods have taken part in the Reddit blackout for the last week.

For those not in the loop of the drama, there are a lot of concerns about Reddit's recent changes and their response to user concerns.

LAUK took part in these protests, not only in solidarity with other subs and their issues, but we feel that these Reddit changes make moderating more difficult, and therefore present an increased risk of our users being exposed to harmful and dangerous advice, or influenced by idiots or directed by people looking to make financial gain.

The mod team of LAUK are mostly employed professionals either directly working in law (e.g., Solicitors, Police Officers,) or in related professional fields (HR, finance, etc); who rely on well developed mobile apps to moderate, which the official Reddit app has never, ever been good at.

Last month, the moderators manually removed over 5,500 unique comments that broke the subreddit rules - this is a very different subreddit to more casual subreddits and the mods take delicate care to balance the regulatory environment of giving legal advice in the UK, the Reddit platform, and trying our best to help people in need. This task would be impossible without 3rd party tool and applications.

Like many other subreddits, LAUK was recently sent a vaguely sinister and threatening message from the Reddit admins, attempting to divide and conquer mod teams, re-interpreting their long standing rules in order to desperately leverage them against the moderators who curate and manage their website in their own time for free.

Reddit is both stating the protests are having no or minimal effect, whilst at the same time giving away free ad-space to try and keep advertisers, and doing everything it can to force subreddits to re-open. The protestors are both weak, and strong, depending on which argument makes Reddit look less-terrible at any given time.

In response to these threats from Reddit, the LAUK mods have opened the subreddit under protest.

The mods are in discussion about the following changes:

Encouraging users to look at safer and more regulated advice options than Reddit


Supporting users to minimise supporting Reddit financially (e.g., use adblocks)


Moving our FAQ and wiki off-site out of a Reddit controlled location


No longer constructively working with Reddit admins - e.g., no AMAs, betas, surveys, mod council, etc.

Additionally:

We may decide to operate from whatever Reddit alternative turns out to be the most popular, or move platform entirely e.g. to Discord. This would be over the coming months


Some moderators may stop moderating Reddit to give their free time to the alternatives above

Our initial reaction was - as we suspect it would have been for many of our users if threatened in that way - to refer the admins to the reply famously given in Arkell and Pressdram. However, the primary motivator for moderators (as well as being power hungry neckbeards) was to help people using our professional skills and knowledge. Reddit is actively harming this community but the majority of moderators believe morally we should continue to use the community we have built to help people as best we can.

We encourage any admins reading this to look for other jobs at organisations who are not going to make you actively harm the community you are supposed to support, whilst excitedly looking to treat you like Elon treated 6,500 twitter employees.

For and on behalf of the LAUK mod team,

Fuck /u/Spez and long live John Oliver.

Infiltrated_ad8271,
Infiltrated_ad8271 avatar

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 :-/

digdilem,

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.

Sigmatank,

We'll find out when July comes around. I think to a certain extent there was a section of people who actually thought a 2 day blackout would cause dramatic change. When the actual 3rd party apps goes away I'm expecting a big reaction and possibly them actually leaving/shutting down

osc,
osc avatar

Not sure they "caved". A protest is never rigid, both sides constantly adapt to what the other side is doing. In many instances, the protest hasn't stopped, it has taken a John Olivier sanctioned new form. Or even more subtle forms that will be a lot harder for Reddit to track and fight.

A well-organized protest can last a very long time. And you don't need a lot of people to do real damage. As a French, I'm very familiar with protests and strikes and whatnot. To me, these mods are adapting extremely well to Reddit's threats. Reddit will exhaust itself fighting this protest. spez is a dumbass, as this completely avoidable protest will require Reddit to dedicate a lot of resources to quell it. For a dude so focused on profitability, such a waste of resources and money is a hilarious result.

Cannacheques,

Old school internet forums used to be the same, internet feudalism is what I prefer to call it, not the first, nor will it be the last

Reddit is essentially a big feudal system, it's slowly cruising towards a fork, just waiting to either transform or collapse

hydra,

That's true, chatroom and forum mods/admins sometimes were real power trippers and part of why a vast majority of the Web 1.0 forums decayed is because of that. You need to login to view this assignment. You need to login to download this file. You need to login to view this post. Nowadays a recent incarnation is the "don't post memes in general" discord mod.

raktheundead,
@raktheundead@fosstodon.org avatar

@SamC: In some cases, I can understand it; I've been in one of those situations where I stepped down voluntarily, but we decided to reopen to stop the subreddit from becoming an offshoot of Kotaku in Action.

On the other hand, it unfortunately ties into the worst stereotypes of Reddit moderators, so it's a footgun for the ideas behind the protest.

webghost0101,

In a group of mods theres bound to be different kinds of people. Reddit has demodded people like on r/piracy but i guess it only takes 1 mod willing to take over..

ram,
@ram@lemmy.ca avatar

This reddit lies person is pro-forced birth?? wtf???

b00m,
b00m avatar

yeah that twitter thread was mostly a shit show and not the crowd I want to have around

Falmarri,
@Falmarri@lemmy.world avatar

if you acknowledge that abortion ends a life, or that abortion is commonly used as a form of birth control, (two objectively true statements)

Yikes. Those are absolutely not objectively true.

mathemachristian,

You might even say objectively false.

Saturdaycat,
Saturdaycat avatar

Wow that's actually an incredibly depressing screenshot, and pretty much vile for how reddit is using them

Awhiskeydrunker,
Awhiskeydrunker avatar

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?

Azzu,

It's only clever if they're actively migrating off reddit. Otherwise, all reddit has to do is wait. The majority of users of these subs still have the desire for the content that they originally came for. This may be fun for a few days/weeks, but I'm pretty sure that without an alternative, the public majority opinion will start to change.

It's better than nothing, of course, but I wouldn't call it clever.

LostCause,

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.

MachineTeaching,

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.

Sure but many see it as the lesser of two evils. The admins would reopen the sub anyway and the mods would rather have that happen on their own terms.

Cylusthevirus,
Cylusthevirus avatar

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.

42069,

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.

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