They're currently gathering subreddits for an indefinite blackout: https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinite_blackout_next_steps_polling_your/
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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I really appreciate how reasonable (IMO) the demands are in the stickied comment in that thread.
Honestly it would be a good business move to accept those terms exactly as presented in that stickied comment. Nothing unreasonable is being suggested there.
Those comments though, wow. There are a whole lot of people who don't understand anything about this and blame the mods and app developers. And we're all over here on Lemmy instead of correcting them.
That's the problem with leaving out of protest. The predominant voices on Reddit will be the ones who don't leave. It will become the popular opinion that Reddit is in the right. We can't control that. We just have to know that we are doing what's right for us and move on to better things
In which Reddit will eject the mods and turn them back on
Ejecting the current mods, is kinda like going nuclear. It will damage the trust Redditors have in a subreddit. However, should Reddit do that, then I would imagine they will do that on a larger subreddit and a consequence of that, that news will spread like wildfire. That in turn will, most likely, cause moderator walkouts.
I know current Reddit management is acting like they are stupid. That doesn't mean that they are THAT stupid.
But that's just my 2cts.
Edit: grammar be hard yo.
Apparently they've already done it. Can't remember the sub, but they kicked a mod, made it public for a couple hours, then switched it back off. I'm assuming it'll be one of the 48 hour ones instead of the permanent ones now.
There was apparently a situation on AdviceAnimals where all the mods agreed on a blackout but one. That mod was low ranked in the mod chain. Suddenly this mod became head mod of the sub... funny how administration works?
I found the subreddit on which it happened. It was /r/AdviceAnimals. Apprently /u/LegWeed got ejected. But apparently there is some SubReddit drama from that.
Sources
https://lemmy.ml/post/1250165
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/147eaw3/rsubredditdrama_is_in_restricted_mode_for_the/jo0eoqw/?context=3
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It's amazing what subreddits exist that I had no idea about. I don't know if humanity will ever recover from this loss.
Thank you for posting that, really happy to see so many subs supporting the effort. Hope more will join too but regardless of the outcome, I think I'm staying on lemmy, the interactions here feel different than those on reddit and I enjoy that
Thank you for linking this. Glad to see so many subs continuing indefinitely.
Did you see the comment about r/adviceanimals and r/Tumblr have been forced public by Reddit?
Edit: Anecdotal comment states r/Tumblr had all of its mods leave and was forced public.
Yes, I did read that just now. Earlier on the blackout tracker I did notice it was back online and I was wondering why. I wouldn't consider adviceanimals to be a particular important subreddit (compared to the much bigger ones that are offline), so I wonder why? I kinda wonder if something else was going on there for the admins to do that.
edit: /r/tumblr is private
Feels like everything will be over soon and it's going on like before.
This is why scheduling it ahead of time to last for 48 hours was a monumentally stupid idea.
If workers form a union and they go on a strike, and they told the boss they're striking for 2 days, The boss can just wait it out and get back to whatever they were doing before after the strike.
This is essentially a content creators strike from Reddit, telling the admins that everything will be back to normal in 2 days gives them the opportunity to wait it out without having to cave to any of the demands.
I really enjoyed this community so far and watching it grow immensely over the past 24 hours or so, and it kind of feels depressing that most of the people are just going to leave and go back to Reddit tomorrow.
They’ll be back here again in 2-ish weeks when Apollo and RIF are done.
And when mlem and other apps start rolling out for Lemmy, we’ll start seeing shifts. Apps that have proper accessibility, a clean UI, lack advertising and don’t eat data. And they give you the same Reddit experience without Reddit’s predatory business strategy.
When the blackouts stop, a lot of users will be able to search for Reddit alternatives and will find Lemmy… through Reddit.
I mod a sub with 65K users or so, I plan to go dark indefinitely. Also considering Read-Only with a sticky redirecting here. I know I’m not the only mod.
The Digg > Reddit migration wasn’t overnight. It was fast, though.
Yea, I keep thinking this. Once there’s an app on Android and iOS, one that can explain the fediverse simply and is well designed, many of the Apollo, RIF, and Sync users will jump over.
The average user has poor tech literacy. I mean, the pandemic began over 3 years ago and still people have trouble managing Zoom. "How do I share a screen? Where is the calendar invite? Oh woops, I didn't realize I was unmuted!". These are otherwise smart people. That's why the best apps are super simple and idiot-proof.
I strongly believe that a good Lemmy does not need to explain the federation.
It should not use the word 'instance', 'server' or any of that jargon outside of advanced settings. All that'll do is scare away new users.
All the app needs to do is say, "Hey, you want to connect with communities sharing memes, news and fun stories? Well - download this app!". Let the app point them to a list of communities they might like and keep it at that.
The user doesn't need to know they're commenting on Beehaw or lemmy.world. All they need to know is they're chatting about a cute kitten or whatever.
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I think another major miscalculation is there was no alternatives agreed on by consensus. For example, if they had said to everyone "go to Lemmy", "go to discord" etc. Now there's no alternative to a lot of subreddits, people will just wait it out and go back to the subreddits when they go back, or if they're indefinitely suspended they'll just make new subreddits.
I second this, and it has been bugging me since people started talking about the blackout. I think the big issue is that the people organizing the 48hr blackout are the mods. These are the people that have invested the most into reddit, and they dont want to give up that investment into their subreddits. They don't want to leave reddit, and giving people an agreed upon alternative would be permanently fracturing their little fiefdom. They want to make a statement, and then for things to go back to the way they were, hoping that their tiny act of defiance makes a difference. The migration has to be led by users, but the issue of fractured lemmy communities is going to be hard to navigate unless lemmy introduces a way for communities to link together.
While I don't think this was anyone's plan, I think setting it for two days was brilliant by accident. It was short enough (and long enough) that spez dismissed it and pissed people off even more.
It would have been much harder to rally subs to turn off permanently immediately. By doing this, you ease everyone into the idea that this is an indefinite blackout.
The next step will be Reddit admins forcibly taking control of subs that stay blacked out too long for their liking, which will drive even more momentum to stand up to them.
I think this was actually just about the only way for them to completely fuck Reddit over. At this point, spez will need to be fired and the changes rolled back or Reddit has zero chance of a meaningful recovery.
Not to mention this will likely damage their attempt at an IPO later this year. Advertisers and potential stock owners won't want to deal with a company who can't "control" its users. It's too volatile. Stockholders want their revenue to always increase, but even potential for something like this after Reddit potentially goes public would cause Reddit's stock to go down.
It's only a bad idea if you think you could win concessions with an indefinite strike.
Reddit might get a bunch of subs back tomorrow, but the admin were always going to reopen the good names via reddit request anyway.
And the mods and users aren't likely to go back to happily posting and working for free on a platform that's turned. Communities will be planning organized migrations, and a lot of people here who came because of the strike will discover they like it better here actually.
The 2 day window might at least show that there's a definite interest to join a protest from a wide array of the community. I see it as a warning, meaning if the changes aren't being reversed, there's going to be a lot more communities going dark forever then there is now.
Maybe I am being pessimistic, but asking volunteer reddit mods to drop tools for more than 48h during such an interesting time for the platform is feeling about as realistic as asking your alcoholic uncle to stay sober at a wedding reception with an open bar. Can they really stay away?
Yeah, that was a really dumb idea. The subreddits closing indefinitely like r/videos are probably not gonna be enough to make Reddit cave. I wonder if they can even cave though. Maybe believing spez is a dumb idea but if Reddit really isn’t profitable they might need the money from ads and selling data since they are going public
I'm considering the blackout to be like massive natural disasters: most leave, some stay behind, some people come back periodically but it's never the same.
I think the biggest impact is if we all delete our accounts, comments and content. Leaving half of Reddit threads filled with [removed] comments and dead Links.
After my first full day of Lemmy and Mastodon, I'm just about ready to delete my reddit account.
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Reddit is still a useful resource for me (most of my googling is with "reddit" appended to get actual answers vs. clickbait for ads). But for casual browsing I'm making a conscious effort to stick to Lemmy/Kbin as much as I can. And it'll only get easier with time as more quality content comes on the platform!
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I feel reddit corp still dgaf and when the majority of subreddits are back then the blackouts will be but a memory..
For me personally - I gaf, so I deleted my 12YO reddit account, wiped my comments and now going to be a lemmy & mastodon main.
I think that the fediverse will continue to grow nicely, especially as existing reddit apps start to point to lemmy as a backend. Also places like tildes.net will grow nicely too with things like the fact the reddit is fun app dev has stated he's building an app for it.
They'll no doubt survive, but Reddit really fucked their monopoly with how this was handled.
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The Reddit blackout got me to delete my 12 1/2 year old account. Then I jumped into Lemmy to give it a try and I really like the potential. Spez has made a bad error in judgement basically to fill his wallet. The platform was built by a community and should be owned by that same community.
Did the same for my 2 accounts, 8 and 12 years old. Really hope spez will regret his decision but I’m not very hopeful.
I just saw this, highlighting my own
"In an internal memo sent Monday afternoon to Reddit staff, CEO Steve Huffman addressed the recent blowback directed at the company, telling employees to block out the “noise” and that the ongoing blackout of thousands of subreddits will eventually pass."
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman
It's so nice of Stevie boy to refer to his userbase as "noise". Proof of how little he values the people who use his corner of the internet. Hopefully this wording of his will show how little he thinks of everyone.
Good point, I do wonder what % of userbase are in support of these protest and what % don't care? Seems like ~100k has joined these fediverse alternatives out of reddit's 50,000,000 daily active users 0.2% if my tired maths hasn't failed me.
Not that I want the same userbase as reddit, far from it...
My 50pence is that what reddit has fucked up is their monopoly on where these communities reside.
What really matters is the mods and users that submit quality content. A million lurkers don't really contribute.
+1... I'd wager that a significant portion of that 0.2% (if indeed the number) is the most active / dedicated reddit users (power users). It's the mods, active posters, etc that are creating and fostering content on the whole site. The rest of the lurkers won't stay if there's nothing engaging being posted or if the subs are an unmodded mess.
Zuk called his users "dumb fucks" and Facebook is still as popular as ever.
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Most everyone who left will return. Some thousands of users will actually leave Reddit permanently—but they will be replaced by users who have never used a third-party app, don't care about privacy or accessibility or anything but memes and boobs and endless scrolling.
I wish them no ill will, but I no longer wish to be in their company.
If it turns out like that, I'll be permanently leaving Reddit behind. But for now, there is still just so much good content and good community there, so for me it all depends on the quality subreddits thriving or not. I have 14 years of history there, it's much harder for me to burn my bridges with Reddit than it was with Twitter or Facebook. I'm kind of hoping Reddit switches tack and finds a way to run a sustainable business without becoming an ad-driven hellhole, but for now it seems like they don't really care about their most valuable users, the moderators. I fear we'll be seeing a steady decline in quality subreddits in favor of whatever brings in the most ad money. Pretty sure that won't be /r/askHistorians or its ilk. The IPO is a bad omen, imho. It means revenue and profit will never be enough, and they will be chasing money forever.
Why not go back and encourage your favorite subreddits to make the jump to similar communities over here? Lemme just needs continued infusion of content and a little time.
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Just checked and a bunch of the defaults are front-paging the same modpost about reddit killing third party apps. So it's still ongoing in some capacity.
Pretty much. Reddit is too big, and even these big subs going dark is only a drop in the bucket for what reddit is at this point. There's too much traffic on too many small subs, not even talking about all the porn subs still bustling with activity. The only thing people can do is move somewhere else and not get sucked back in.
Yup, I think it will go back to how it was. But some people have found a much nicer place than reddit and will stick around. :)
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