I've seen a few discussions about the "failed" protests and wanted to talk about it

So I've seen a few posts regarding news outlets calling the protests a failure, and I don't really think that's the case. The protests have clearly made an impact, especially if the Reddit CEO is willing to oust MODS to reopen subreddits. I truly believe that something has been jump started here on Lemmy, Kbin, and all of the fediverse. What happened on Reddit has simply pushed those already on the fence, or looking for other social media platforms to jump ship. I truly believe the impact is greater than what the media and Reddit in general want us to believe. Something has started here on the fediverse that simply cannot be stopped, all we can do is inform others and show why it's the future of aggregated news boards and social media.

void,

I know I probably wouldn't have bothered checking all "this" out if that hadn't happened. I was never active on Twitter, but what's happening on Reddit seems similar to how Musk "ruined" twitter (from what I hear from folks who were/are active on there).

xaon_rider92,

The protests have definitely made some sort of impact, even if it's not the initially intended impact. It has drawn media and public attention to the situation, it has dragged reddit's reputation into the ground, and it has exposed Reddit the Company's true colours and intentions for everyone to see, including the casual user who may not have cared about the API situation in the first place. Whether this has been for the good or for the bad is debatable. IMO we are now watching the disintegration of reddit in real time, and a few months later, after everything settles, reddit will still be here but it will no longer be the same. We have seen this happen before with Tumblr, Digg etc. And the Fediverse will grow and expand, and with some luck and effort, hopefully it can become something great.

QuentinP,

Don't care now, found kbin & Lemmy and that works just fine for me!

jakwithoutac,

I think the biggest impact that the protest has had was to reveal Reddit’s true colours, and to therefore split the user base into two groups: the people that give a shit, and those that don’t.

IMO, it’s the people that give a shit that made Reddit a good place to be in the first place and created the attraction for everyone else. I also have a feeling that the GivvaShittas^tm^ are the bunch that are moving to the Fediverse en-masse and I’m happy to be coming with them.

Defaced,

This absolutely, it seems like the people that truly wanted a fully community driven platform have left and found an alternative with kbin and lemmy. I've been enjoying my time so far and will continue to stay in the fediverse for as long as possible.

atlasraven31,

https://danienlared.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/long-live-fighters-zerodarkone.jpg

dune,

"It's been a week and Reddit hasn't ceased operations, the protests were useless!!"

^-guy^ ^I^ ^made^ ^up^ ^to^ ^prove^ ^my^ ^point^

MrComradeTaco,

Not failed at all.

spider, (edited )

https://reddark.untone.uk currently shows 3413 out of 8829 subreddits as dark, five days after the blackout's official end date.

That's 39 percent -- even if adjusted for subs that were always private, still roughly one third.

ShustOne,

I think those numbers are useless without subscribers. It might be 1/3rd of the subs but I bet it's not even 10% of the user count affected unfortunately.

tobor,

They'll keep moving goalposts. It's in their best interest to downplay as much as possible, and unfortunately it's very easy to the misrepresent numbers.

GizmoLion,
GizmoLion avatar

Honestly I feel that the outcome was optimal.

  1. It created animosity towards Reddit.
  2. It exposed major problems with Reddit.
  3. It boosted fediverse's numbers.
  4. It tapered off before the fediverse came crashing down from the influx of millions.
  5. It reinforced the mandate to develop the fediverse, there's clearly something here and it's worth deving towards.
  6. Reddit is guaranteed to shoot itself in the foot again, probably pre-IPO, definitely post-IPO, and now the fediverse is being given some much needed time to flesh itself out before they do.

If Reddit collapsed over this I don't believe the infrastructure exists at this time to onboard all those members, so it's a blessing in disguise.

dune,

To be fair, the protests didn't create animosity towards reddit, just magnified the animosity that was already there. If anything, it created animosity towards moderators (justified or not)

nevernevermore,
nevernevermore avatar

my kbin feed is already indistinguishable from my reddit home page, voat never felt like this. I don't care if it takes ten years for kbin to get to that level, I'm here now and I can only see myself going to reddit if it's the only place that a solution to a problem comes up in a search engine

ExcessivelySalty,
ExcessivelySalty avatar

@Defaced Agree, I don't think Reddit was every likely to die from the protests, in that sense it wasn't a success. However, the fact that viable alternatives exist and more will pop up because of the protest makes it a success in my book.

The protest planted the seeds, it might take a while to see the fruit.

EnderWi99in,

Wasn't a fail to me. I moved on from Reddit after 12 years of daily activity. I'm happily settling into Kbin now.

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Iv'e been looking at fedidb's threadiverse page, and ooh-boy... In the last 48 hours that graph is starting to look real ready to go exponential...

And the third party apps haven't even actually stopped working yet.

IninewCrow,
IninewCrow avatar

The big thing that everyone should understand is that there seems to be no negotiation ... no middle ground ... either you stay on Reddit and you suck up all the advertising or you don't

I wasn't quite sure what to do and I drifted in and out of my account for a while and thought protesting, sharing memes or trying to circumvent rules or something ... then I just realized ... the worst thing anyone can do to a social media site is to simply just stop using it at all

Once you abandon Reddit, you've done the most damage you could possibly do

Social media is built on human participation ... of all kinds, positive, negative, hateful, loving, inclusive, exclusive ... it doesn't matter what the participation is, as long as you participate

So once you leave ... you've severed a section of the site to let it die ... if enough people do the same, the rot of users abandoning reddit will turn the site into an empty billion dollar shell that will quickly become worthless

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world avatar

Once you abandon Reddit, you've done the most damage you could possibly do

I would say that's not exactly the case, if you just quietly delete your Reddit account and choose to go peacefully you aren't doing the most damage that you could do. I would say doing the most damage will be to spread the word for other people and try and help them leave the platform, before ultimately leaving yourself.

Just leaving without doing anything is essentially just fucking off, it's exactly what the scabs there want. For anybody who's protesting or against this to just leave quietly without making a big stink.

Ultimately you are right in that leaving is the worst thing you can do, but unless you enlighten people on your way out you won't do the worst damage you could possibly do (legally of course).

Spzi,

Great article with much more detail than what I quote: https://lifehacker.com/the-reddit-blackout-is-over-but-the-protest-isn-t-1850539204

Critics of the blackout wondered how a two-day protest is going to solve anything. My friends, let me speak to you for a moment from my perspective as a person who has more than a little familiarity with taking collective action to get out-of-touch CEOs to do the right thing.

While a strike or a blackout may be the most visible action in a campaign, it’s never the only one. Leading up to both our 2022 strike, and our 2019 seemingly uneventful signing of a fair contract, we lived and breathed by something called an escalation chart (same idea as the one illustrated here). You start with small actions, and build on them, with a clear plan for how you’ll continue if your demands are not met. A strike is almost always preceded by dozens of smaller actions.

Fixed-length walkouts and strikes are one possible step on the chart. The idea is to send a message: This many of us are this committed. After that, you don’t stop. You keep escalating. Even on an open-ended strike, the idea is to become more and more of a problem to the company over time. You get more and more media attention; the company suffers more and more from lost business. Collective actions are effective because they are part of a larger escalation.

The article also mentions some successes the protest already achieved:

  • “accessibility-focused apps” will be exempted from the new policy
  • several advertisers chose to spend their advertising budgets elsewhere
  • exempt certain tools used by “verified moderators” from the new API policy

A (quite impressively long) list of concessions and agreements can be found in /r/ModCoord

And as others mentioned in this thread, it spurred a migration and more people than ever (me included) finally engage with the fediverse.

My summary is: The protest had a huge impact. Sure, we did not (fully) get what we want, and reddit remains committed to becoming evil. But we won some battles, and the war isn't over yet.

It also brought people to things they might never have done before; to engage in protests and to discuss forms and strategies of resistance. Many joined the fediverse in the process, here to stay. I feel the importance of this exercise in self-efficacy and self-empowerment cannot be understated.

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