this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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A post from r/apple explaining why they were forced to reopen their subreddit after planning to close indefinitely.

Quotes from the r/apple announcement:

Reddit’s asshole CEO u/spez made it clear that Reddit was not backing down on their changes but assured users that apps or tools meant for accessibility will be unharmed along with most moderation tools and bots. While this was great to hear, it still wasn't enough. So along with hundreds of other subreddits including our friends over at r/iPhone, r/iOS, r/AppleWatch, and r/Jailbreak, we decided to stay private indefinitely until Reddit changed course by giving third-party apps a fair price for API access.

Now you must be wondering, “I’m seeing this post, does that mean they budged?” Unfortunately, the answer is no. You are seeing this post because Reddit has threatened to open subreddits regardless of mod action and replace entire teams that otherwise refuse. We want the best for this community and have no choice but to open it back up — or have it opened for us.

NOTE: The URL linked to this post is a web.archive.org archive linked to a Libreddit instance to prevent Reddit from taking down that post from the internet + prevent giving Reddit direct traffic. Other links linked here go straight to Libreddit urls or to news articles. No links here lead directly to Reddit.

Libreddit is a third-party web client hosted by third-party servers.

Link to full post

EDIT: fixed grammar.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly, they should just force Reddit to replace them. Let's see how long Reddit lasts without experienced moderators.

[–] hyperyog 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is what I said to another person:

I’m assuming just current reddit admins are going to take over or getting some certain moderators from subreddits (that aren’t even of high ranking) to take over and remove the higher rankings from power, which then they will be the ones reopening the subreddits.

Now that I read it this sounds like a coup d’état

where I got the idea from: https://lemmy.world/post/101237

[–] axtualdave 52 points 2 years ago (4 children)

If reddit employees start engaging in actual content moderation, reddit will run up against the DMCA's safe harbor protections, which means reddit becomes responsible, as a company, for all the content on the site. Or, at least, in those subreddits.

Ain't no way the legal team is going to let an employee do the actual moderation work. But you're right, they'll find someone who will do it for the power.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

of they remove mods because they don't do the job the way they like, they're still under the same law...

You can't sidestep laws by simple workarounds

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

It's crazy that some people in these enormous subs pretty much run moderation as a full time job for nothing. Like I totally understand hobbies or contributing to something for the greater good, even I contribute where I can in the open source arena! But to religiously undertake a role like this daily just for the title of MOD is insane to me....

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Haha oh shit then all the current mods really should let themselves get overthrown. I am loving this popcorn

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

As far as I'm aware, this isn't necessarily true.

The DMCA sets out several requirements for eligibility for the "safe harbor" provisions, but they basically boil down to "you can't be the entity that posts infringing material, and you need to remove infringing material when notified of the infringement" plus some legal stuff around having a designated agent to receive complaints, etc.

Having the moderators be Reddit themselves doesn't present a problem here. If Reddit themselves start actually uploading infringing material, then they'd have no protection against a complaint on that material, but that's it.

Consider Twitter, YouTube, etc. All of them do 1st party moderation of copyrighted material, and they haven't lost their protection there either.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It is similar to a coup but from the top, so it‘s more like "consolidating power" phase which dictatorships do go through. Dissenters get removed and replaced by willing servants until the platform is more spez and less "The People". Meanwhile he pretends like somehow the mods are the actual dictators or some shit to make all this palatable to those that still use Reddit, which in my cynical view they will eat up. Reddit is dead and done for anyone who values actual community over ads.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

he pretends like somehow the mods are the actual dictators

Classic and blatant DARVO strategy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

he gets us

/s

[–] [email protected] 76 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Spez also apparently called the mods "landed gentry" which is hilarious coming from a rich fuck behaving like a king towards some people who work for him for free!

[–] ewe 9 points 2 years ago

Yeah, that elicits a comparison to the feudal system that I don't think is flattering to him.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

That dude is cringe af

Most of those mods aren't property-owning with titles of nobility so spez is wrong on more levels

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (1 children)

To me its the same as people who removed about Elon on twitter.

You hate the guy? Thats fine.

But why are you still using his product? Stop paying him.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Does Kbin have a banned word list or something?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Spez is now being outwardly hostile toward the community. His plan isn't working and he is afraid. From a strategy perspective, he should negotiate and for moderators, they should continue until he negotiates.
This doubling down by the moderators will work. The doubling down from Spez will only damage Reddit further.
When they IPO (assuming it is more than 50% equity) we could probably buy enough shares to force him and the board to resign.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He'll still get his golden parachute, which is all he cares about

[–] Marxine 3 points 2 years ago

Only chance for the community to win is if the IPO is a complete fiasco and not bought by Musk (he'd love to)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

The subs should do rolling blackouts on important dates to their communities, Apple announcement day, blackouts... Iphone update days, blackouts... and so on.

It seems quite clear that nobody at Reddit has ever had any form of PR training, The Verge says their PR person was basically saying two different things and contradicting themselves the article goes on to say "I don’t know how to interpret that, or his other replies explaining that the current actions might be a pastiche of interpretations of different rules instead of just Rule 4 — but it all makes me wonder if the conspiracy theorists among us were correct."

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Did we really expect this to go any other way?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago

The r/Videos mods called it from day one, and they at least claimed to accept that outcome. I salute those guys. I suspect other mods like r/Apple were never really serious.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I had hoped that the leader of a community website would be willing to talk to their community.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

he's not the leader of the website. he's the CEO of a company. the mods are the leaders, and he can't tolerate the challenge to his power.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (3 children)

So what would happen if the mods refused to moderate and let anybody post anything they want? It's not like they are getting paid and reddit isn't going to pay anybody to moderate.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago

That's easy - Reddit would simply remove the mods who were refusing to moderate. That's long been against reddit's terms and conditions.

Of course that just brings the conversation right back to how Reddit thinks its subs will cope run by brand new inexperienced moderators.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Reddit would overthrow them.

But I would assume eventually Reddit would run our of mods to replace the mods.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Ideally they moderate enough to not be removed but gradually and subtly use moderation as a way to drive people away.

[–] Zansacu 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Even if they did pay someone the quality of moderation will be extremely poor because those people will be surely underpaid, overworked, and won't have any interest in the subreddit's topic.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

That dude seems to been an even bigger idiot than Musk.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Honestly I kind of wonder if this is all some kind of coordinated power grab to crack down on public spaces in the build up to 2024 elections.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Occam's razor says it's just one arrogant prick being an idiot and dragging everything down with him.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't think Occam's razor would reach that conclusion when you look at all the different services that are in decline. There's no one person tying them all together. At least, no one that is publicly known.

Peter Thiel comes close for Twitter - he financed Trump, along with a few sinister businesses, and he tried (and failed) to make a Twitter competitor. Thus it makes sense that he'd tap in his old business partner Elon Musk to remove Twitter from the equation (make no mistake, Twitter isn't dying because of Musk's mismanagement, it's dying because of a leveraged buyout saddling it with $13bn of debt). However that doesn't really cover any other service, such as reddit, Discord, or whatever else.

Regardless, we, the people, are being dispersed and our ability to organise suppressed.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

bruh, that's been happening. it's part of why the discussion quality on reddit is in such accelerated decline.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I think the real reason the discussions on reddit have been in decline is because

  • reddit promotes controversy and ragebait, as this has been proven to "increase user engagement".
  • more recently reddit has been wielding the ban hammer hard and perma banning people over things they would previously let slide.
[–] lka1988 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Spaz is likely looking at a big bonus when the IPO happens.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Maybe, however there's every chance he could be out before then. At which point the golden parachute will activate. Meanwhile, reddit will throw all the shade on him yet change nothing in the course of action.

However he very well could maintain shares in the company after leaving, which of course means he would benefit from the IPO.

[–] Zansacu 7 points 2 years ago

A feat considered impossible until recently.

[–] tubbadu 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

u/spez said:

We, even in disagreement, we appreciate that users can care enough to protest on Reddit, can protest on Reddit, and then our platform is really resilient enough to survive these things.

Wtf reddit

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

spez is a proven liar, again and again

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

hes really going for gold in the scumlympics

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They should just leave then, along with all the users supporting the blackout. Not bending for that lying piece of shit is the best thing you can do for the community. Doing what he wants and reopening the subreddit only empowers him to continue ignoring and abusing the community. If reddit thinks they can forcefully open up hundreds and thousands of subreddits and figure out the moderation for all of them, so be it, I don't even want to know how it goes. If you genuinely don't like what spez is doing, delete your reddit account now and stop visiting the site, otherwise you're supporting him and his actions.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yeah I think this behavior is my breaking point. Going from "I just don't log in anymore" the last few days to "I'll get home today, nuke my account and overwrite everything". I'm done.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have a few loose ends to tie up before walking away from the explosion as outlined in this comment from a similar thread but at this point, nothing short of the entire chain of decisions that started the API debacle being reversed and anyone involved in the mess, spez included, stepping down and being replaced by competent people would even begin to make me reconsider leaving. Of course, I might as well wish for a meteorite made of solid gold to land into my yard.

Besides, this doesn't fix the underlying issue that led us here in the first place, and the Fediverse might just be the answer to that one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

One thing that I feel is missing a lot in the whole discussion is, I don't NEED reddit. Or any other platform. The whole discussion, especially from reddits POV feels like, "you need to accept this and that and move on". Truth is, I don't need to do anything. I'm using reddit for fun (and sometimes to find solutions to problems). If I don't enjoy what they have done to the place, I just can go. Maybe somewhere else, maybe this part of my online activity is done for now, who know. But I think reddit vastly overestimates its usefulness in my daily life. I can always go back to reading shampoo bottles on the toilet!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Should have decreased reddit's market value in a last hoorah.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

But active communities are relied upon by thousands or even millions of users, and we have a duty to keep these spaces active.

Dont kill 3rd party apps then.

[–] tubbadu 5 points 2 years ago

Please guys, we need a petition "u/spez wants to replace protesting moderators that does not bow to his will: we want to replace him as Reddit CEO then"

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