It’s not like they couldn’t put a stop to blackouts before, as seen with the third-party app fiasco, but Reddit has now made that tactic entirely impossible. Mods will now need to get permission from Reddit admins before they can make a sub private. Makes me wonder if they’re about to do something controversial again soon.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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    3 days ago

    We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health, and we cannot allow actions that deliberately cause harm.

    Truly, a harm for the platform when the moderators of /r/assesgonewild take their subreddit private for a week in protest. So far up their asses.

    Read: “Our users got so pissed at us that it jeopardized our IPO. Now it could actually effect something like our stock price, so fuck 'em”. Seriously people, just leave

  • rhys@lemmy.rhys.wtf
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    3 days ago

    Reddit’s decline through enshittification has been fascinating to watch.

    This new stage appears to be utterly remarkable — an aggressive and hostile approach to its userbase and volunteer mod community on which the company is entirely reliant.

    I think the harm reddit did in consolidating web discussion into a single platform that fostered a horrible, reductive culture online is immeasurable but deeply regrettable.

  • garrett@infosec.pub
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    3 days ago

    I truly don’t understand how anyone does the free work for a corporation to moderate a subreddit. Steps like this seem to treat them like employees and they’ll largely just chug along with it for… what? Notoriety?

    • Swallowtail@beehaw.org
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      2 days ago

      I remember wanting to be a forum mod when I was like 15 and thought that it would make me cool on the forum. As a grown adult… no way. I am so busy between work, grad school, and my personal life, I have no time for such silliness. I have a lot of respect for mods that donate their own time to run communities.

  • TehPers@beehaw.org
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    3 days ago

    Reddit makes an anti-user change. In other news, grass is green.

    I haven’t been on the site in over a year and nothing since then has convinced me to go back. Maybe I’m lucky that I’m not in any Reddit-only communities, but it could also just be that I treat those communities as though they don’t exist and never had a reason to join one as a result.

    • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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      3 days ago

      In other news, grass is green.

      I didn’t saw this news. My news only tell me that the rice bag fall over. It happens over and over again. Predictable, like Reddit.

  • Suppoze@beehaw.org
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    3 days ago

    What remains as methods of protest after this? I wonder what would happen to a subreddit if it’s moderators would simply stop moderating all together…

    But I guess admins could always make someone a moderator, there’s always someone willing to have a power trip.

    • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
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      3 days ago

      What remains as methods of protest after this?

      Deleting your account and leaving the site. Reddit clearly doesn’t care about the users, and hasn’t for a very, very long time. Remaining there justifies their actions.

      • Lad@reddthat.com
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        3 days ago

        I remember a couple of people on Reddit smugly saying I’d be back soon after I talked about leaving during the third party app shitshow.

        I’ve never went back, so eat a bag of dicks random Reddit users!

        • Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org
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          3 days ago

          Same. There’s been a few times I’ve needed info from reddit subs, but I’ve never interacted since. I miss some of the activity in the more niche subreddits, but I’m more productive with my time now so I guess that’s good lol

    • Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org
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      3 days ago

      If I’m recalling correctly, a couple of the larger subs had mods stop completely, and reddit just replaced them with power mods

      • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        That wasn’t just larger subs. They changed the rules for requesting a takeover of a sub, and there are hundreds of subs it affected. There are even cases of it being really dangerous, there’s a shroom hunting sub that is poorly moderated and has had life-threatening advice left up.

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      3 days ago

      In every community, there is always another power-hungry asshole ready to jump on the opportunity to have a tiny bit of control over somebody else.

      Mods not modding is nothing new to reddit. The only impact they would feel is if users stopped posting. I don’t see that happening though.

    • Barky@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      It won’t. Most people are not lemmy users, not aware of the issues, they just consume content. Others will take up the reigns and the place will be noticably worse for those of us who care about community. Those who care about consuming content will not.

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      That’s what we tried during fuck spez protests. Spez kicked the mods off and enacted new ones. Which makes mods shitty or kicks good mods out and enact shitty mods.

  • araneae@beehaw.org
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    2 days ago

    Oh so its now completely impossible to stop a brigade by shuttering a subreddit for a day or two without begging some pea brain Reddit stooge. That won’t lead to anything putrid happening to small and medium subreddits on a regular basis I hope.

  • tias@discuss.tchncs.de
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    You know what? I don’t care and I stopped reading this article after one paragraph because I found that I couldn’t be bothered to go on. During the reddit exodus I was pissed off about how they would ruin something good, but I’ve long since lost interest in what happens on that site. Honestly I was a tiny bit surprised that it still exists. Like who the heck goes there still?

  • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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    Reddit is giving its staff a lot more power over the communities on its platform. Starting today, Reddit moderators will not be able to change if their subreddit is public or private without first submitting a request to a Reddit admin.

    More power by having less power. I stopped reading here. Yeah, The Verge never disappoints. Edit: My bad. The Verge was correct this time. Guess if I read the article then I would understand.

    • duramu@beehaw.org
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      Community mods are not the same thing as reddit staff (admin)… I mean probably sometimes they can be the same person, but not normally.

      • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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        I see. Well then my bad for misunderstanding this. To me moderators are Reddit staff working for free. But I see that the word “staff” was used literally.

        See you in the oblivion. xD

    • rhys@lemmy.rhys.wtf
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      I think you might have misinterpreted that. Moderators are volunteer users, not reddit staff.

    • LedgeDrop@lemm.ee
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      Welp, I guess this means something bad is gonna happen and Spez is trying to get in front of the inevitable protests.

      I wonder what it could be…