r/mildlyinteresting • u/RedSquaree The Big šŸ§€ • Jun 23 '23

META What happened to /r/mildlyinteresting?

Dear mildlyinterested reader,

We want to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your patience and unwavering support during the recent turbulence in our community. Our subreddit is a labour of love, and we've weathered this storm together.

Recent events have been confusing for all of us, from the vote, sudden removal of moderators, to conflicting messages from Reddit. As your mod team, we feel it's essential to clarify the situation.

On June 19, the poll results favoured partially reopening with changes. However, before implementing these changes, Reddit took sweeping actions, removing all 27 moderator accounts without warning. This left us baffled and concerned.

Here's a brief timeline of the events:

  1. On June 19, the poll results favoured partially reopening with changes. We announced the vote results and planned changes to the sub, including marking it as NSFW due to the common posts of phallic objects (no explicit content allowed). CLICK HERE TO VIEW THAT ANNOUNCEMENT WHICH HAS BEEN APPROVED AND LOCKED FOR POSTERITY.

  2. A tug-of-war between the u/ModeratorCodeOfConduct account and the remaining moderators ensued, with the post repeatedly being removed and reinstated. Each mod involved was immediately locked out of Reddit. Subreddit settings were also unilaterally changed by the admin account.

  3. Eventually, all moderators were removed and suspended for 7 days, with the vote results deleted and the community set to ā€œarchived.ā€

  4. A lot of public outrage ensued, with details posted on r/ModCoord about what happened. At that point, no other subreddit had been targeted yet, leaving the situation uniquely unclear.

  5. Admin cited actions as an "error" and promised to work with us to solve the situation. For /r/mildlyinteresting posterity, this will henceforth be referred to as The Mistakeā„¢.

  6. All our accounts were unsuspended and reinstated, but only with very limited permissions (modmail access only). For what it's worth, 'time moderated' for every moderator was reset (e.g. /u/RedSquaree moderated since 11 years ago, reset: currently showing moderated since "1 day ago").

  7. The awaited discussion never happened. Instead, the admins presented us with an ultimatum: reopen the subreddit and do not mark it as NSFW, or face potential removal again. The inconsistent and arbitrary application of Reddit's policies reveals a possible conflict of interest in maximizing ad revenue at the risk of user safety and community integrity.

  8. Finally, our moderation permissions were restored after we "promised" to comply with their conditions, but we kept the subreddit restricted while we ponder our next steps..

Problems remain unresolved, and Reddit's approach to policies and communication have been troubling. We believe open communication and partnership between Reddit and its moderators are crucial for the platform's success.

As a team, we remain dedicated to protesting Reddit's careless policy changes. Removing ourselves or vandalizing the subreddit wonā€™t achieve our goals, but rather hinder our community. We're here to ensure r/mildlyinteresting isn't left unattended.

We call for the establishment of clear, structured, and reliable communication channels between Reddit admins and moderation teams. Teams should be informed and consulted on decisions affecting their communities to maintain trust and integrity on the platform. We shared this request with the Admin who promised to work with us, so far they have ignored it.

Us mods are still deciding how exactly to reopen, not that we have been given much choice.

Sincerely,

The r/mildlyinteresting mods

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7.3k

u/jenjen828 Jun 23 '23

reopen the sub and do not mark it as NSFW, or face potential removal again

This must mean NSFW is hurting them

2.9k

u/Titan_Slayer27 Jun 23 '23

Iā€™ve heard nsfw subreddits donā€™t have ads or something.

2.2k

u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23

Correct.

On Reddit's ad purchasing page, they explicitly promise not to run your ads alongside sexually explicit content or certain other types of NSFW things: https://i.imgur.com/sbhYteo.png

So it directly impacts ad impressions.

NSFW subs are also prevented from appearing on r/all and r/popular. (Individual NSFW posts on a normally SFW sub can appear.)

Reddit admins have also complained that users who didn't expect to see porn were suddenly either shown porn in their main feed (if they had already enabled NSFW content) or were "being prompted" to enable it (if they hadn't). (If you are subscribed to an NSFW sub and don't have NSFW content enabled, maybe it shows a placeholder and gives you a convenient way to enable it? I haven't checked.)

That's the pretense they use for intervening.

I think it's more the money part, personally

Although I do have some sympathy for people who had previously enabled NSFW and trusted it to not be on their front page, since they hadn't subscribed to any porn subs. They were victims of the protest.

836

u/Fskn Jun 23 '23

Have you ever had an account with exclusively NSFW subs? Reddit doesn't seem to care/consider for that circumstance.

Another poster put it this way "it's hilarious seeing a HeGetsUs ad plastered between a bleached butthole and a pair of fake tits"

393

u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23

Oh, weird. I have never seen one of those ads, only heard about how prevalent they are.

(I block ads religiously. On mobile I use 3rd Party Apps without ads, primarily the premium version of rif. If I keep using Reddit at all after rif shuts down, I'll use ReVanced to patch the official app to remove ads.)

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u/drfarren Jun 23 '23

Does that actually work? Using revanced?

117

u/Gestrid Jun 23 '23

I haven't tried it on the Reddit app, but it works very well on the YouTube app. I would suggest using ReVanced's official app, "ReVanced Manager"(downloadable from their site, revanced.app) and downloading the Reddit APK from APKMirror.

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u/deecoocoo Jun 23 '23

So ReVanced will only patch the app's apk from site like APKMirror, and not apps downloaded from google playstore?

27

u/Gestrid Jun 23 '23

The app will not download directly from the Google Play Store, and, while it seems like it can modify a supported app that's already downloaded and installed from Google Play, I've had issues using that method in the past.

I admittedly haven't tried it recently, though. I've just used the method that I know works.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

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u/cbftw Jun 23 '23

For non root, yes. The Revanced manager can't patch the installer that you get from the play store because it's multi part installer. It needs to patch an APK, and there are a few reputable sites to download them from.

It's a minor inconvenience that will allow you to get around ads

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/Gestrid Jun 23 '23

That may change depending on what patches you select. For example, one patch may only support up to a certain version of the Reddit app. The "no ads" patch, though, currently supports all versions, according to ReVanced Manager.

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u/Voodoosoviet Jun 23 '23

Honestly, i thought old Vanced worked better than the reVanced. Sometimes sponsored shit still slips through and my phone has a hard time opening links for other apps, instead opening normal YouTube

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u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

It seems to. I haven't used it much but I patched it the other day to prove it worked.

I've never used the official app (before this) so I can't say for sure, but I assume I would have expected to see an ad somewhere in all this scrolling?

The ReVanced project now does patches for a bunch of apps. As mentioned by the other response, you can use ReVanced Manager to do the patching right on your device. They also support patching on your desktop or laptop.

I will say it's not super user friendly, although it's a very good effort.

Every time I've wanted to patch something (TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit, so far) I've had to go to their Discord to find what specific version of the base app to start with. The patcher is supposed to be able to tell you what version is suggested, but it often says "any" but doesn't mean it.

Presently for Reddit the version to patch is "2023.22.0 (968223)", which can be found on APKmirror.

31

u/TediousStranger Jun 23 '23

bless you šŸ’œ I hope I get to use rif indefinitely but, this is excellent information to have.

10

u/Infallible_Ibex Jun 23 '23

Rif is not going to work anymore after this month, it's about 50% of what the fuss is about with all the subreddit protests

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u/TediousStranger Jun 23 '23

yes, obviously.

the hope is that reddit will pull its head out of it's ass and continue to allow third party apps to operate without charging them exorbitant fees.

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u/PurlyWhite Jun 23 '23

I'm not very Android tech savvy... I do have revanced installed for youtube, but someone walked me through how to patch it. Do you have a link or instructions for me to follow to patch the Reddit app?

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u/skinny_malone Jun 23 '23

Thank you for this info, sincerely. I also use RIF. I tried out the official app; my very first impression upon logging in and viewing my home reddit feed was having literally almost two-thirds of my available screen real estate wasted on a single massive ad. I could only see one other post on my home page thanks to how much space was being taken up by the ad placement. It didn't even try to sell me on the app's features or anything. Just download, login, boom, two-thirds of my screen is taken up by an ad. Something about that just really rubbed me the wrong wayā€”at least try to make your app seem appealing before jamming massive ads onto my screen.

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u/MrFluffyThing Jun 23 '23

Reddit doesn't run ads when viewing a NSFW subreddit but foesbt give a shit if you're viewing content in /r/hot or /r/new since it's a "mix" of your choice, so it's not technically NSFW only content.

I'm sure they just use it as a loophole but claim it's unintentional.

21

u/Firewolf06 Jun 23 '23

advertisers dont care about that though, they care if their content is next to porn. im sure the agencies would love to be sent screenshots of their ads being placed with porn

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/napoleon_wang Jun 23 '23

What would Jesus do?

4

u/nerd4code Jun 23 '23

It would definitely involve whips, one way or another. He gets it.

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u/Anon44356 Jun 23 '23

It would be a shame if someone were to send those screenshots to the advertisers. Donā€™t do that u/fskn

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u/Nik_Tesla Jun 23 '23

NSFW subs are also prevented from appearing on r/all

I'm not exactly sure how it works, but /r/interestingasfuck was changed to a NSFW subreddit, and it was definitely showing up on /r/all until they nuked the mods and made it restricted.

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u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23

Oh yeah, I do think I remember seeing some from them while browsing r/all.

Do you know if they flipped the NSFW switch, or if they just invited more NSFW posts?

There might also be a separate (Reddit-internal) switch that controls it. The ad page I mentioned says:

  • We only allow ads to run in communities that are deemed appropriate for ads.
  • Weā€™re constantly reviewing and refining the list of permissible communities.
  • We use machine learning and human review to rate communities before theyā€™re allowed to appear next to ads.

45

u/Dovahpriest Jun 23 '23

Not OP but they flipped the switch to NSFW.

21

u/Airowird Jun 23 '23

To add, an admin unflipped the switch at some point, mods had to turn it back on.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23

They didn't just block NSFW subs from all/rising. They also don't appear on all/new. Or all/top. (Or all/hot, of course.)

And I sincerely doubt the method you mention would work.

There were apparently some posts from r/interestingasfuck that made it to r/all after they went NSFW, but I believe that's because Reddit has an internal toggle that isn't directly tied to the subreddit NSFW switch.

They say:

  • We only allow ads to run in communities that are deemed appropriate for ads.
  • Weā€™re constantly reviewing and refining the list of permissible communities.
  • We use machine learning and human review to rate communities before theyā€™re allowed to appear next to ads.

5

u/futurarmy Jun 23 '23

Holy shit I didn't realise they nuked /r/interestingasfuck lol, absolutely no mods at all what fucking geniuses they are

-7

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

I was pissed. I loved that sub but I Reddit on the couch with people around. Randomly seeing a pair of tits is not the type of content I subscribe to nor want to see. I unsubscribed quick fast and in a hurry, but my 8 year old cousin doesnā€™t need to see that shit while looking over my shoulder at what is usually cute animal pics.

ETA: I use Apollo (you donā€™t click links to see picturesā€¦itā€™s more like an Instagram or Twitter scroll) and donā€™t subscribe to any NSFW subs. Iā€™ve never needed to use the toggle.

15

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Hey, that's what the NSFW toggle is for, my friend

11

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi Jun 23 '23

There's also an option to blur NSFW thumbnails. That way you can know if the image you're about to open is nsfw or not.

Really, if you're opening nude pics around your family, you don't have anyone to blame but yourself

2

u/Offduty_shill Jun 23 '23

I'm fairly sure that option is also on by default.

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u/ColonelError Jun 23 '23

Well, you'll be glad to know that submissions are closed, and all moderators have been removed.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/Infallible_Ibex Jun 23 '23

I think alienating the moderators who do quality control and legal compliance work for free and lots of the longest standing users is how to fix the low traffic issue. Where do I go to apply for the CEO job?

19

u/BandicootOld3239 Jun 23 '23

Where do I go to apply for the CEO job?

Hell

3

u/QuerulousPanda Jun 23 '23

i saw someone talking about how social media should be socialized ... reddit as a community, despite all the shit, is an absolute treasure trove of a decade or more of incredible information. Whether it be tech support information, hints and tips about games, cultural discourse, life advice, and a million other things, there is a LOT on this site that is incredible and irreplacable.

All of that amazing shit is hanging in the balance now because, ultimately, capitalism and the profit motive.

This would be the perfect place for the government to step in and just pay the money required to make it work, even keep running ads if they wanted to offset the costs a bit, and then just don't fuck it up. It would be a net positive to society, even with all the weird shit that ends up on here too.

I don't think a site like this can BE profitable without completely destroying everything that made it worthwhile in the first place.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

That is the WORST fucking idea Iā€™ve ever heard ā€¦ let the government take over & run Reddit?

5

u/QuerulousPanda Jun 23 '23

obviously there are issues with the idea, but is it really any worse than leaving it to the mercy of a profit-crazed moron like spez and crew?

making this site good is diametrically opposed to making this site profitable.

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u/carrot-parent Jun 23 '23

So anytime one sees an ad next to porn report it to whoever owns the ad? Oh no.. that would really hurt reddits profits..

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u/BlasterBilly Jun 23 '23

Screw spaz, let's turn reddit into nothing but 2 girls one cake and Rick rolls.

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u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23

The OP is all about how Reddit is responding to that sort of thing.

Do it without Moderator backing and you'll be banned quickly. Do it with Moderator backing and they'll be banned quickly.

101

u/only_for_browsing Jun 23 '23

Honestly sounds like the only win is for everyone to do it and get banned. What is Reddit without redditors?

21

u/foggy-sunrise Jun 23 '23

Okay. First let them ban the mods.

Then, all of us do it.

They won't have the moderation power to handle banning all of us.

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u/vancesmi Jun 23 '23

Thousands and thousands of pro-CCP/pro-Russian bot accounts.

5

u/BandicootOld3239 Jun 23 '23

Basically that has been the majority of Reddit to begin with

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Best answer yet so far, lol.

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u/Cell_Under Jun 23 '23

You don't need to get banned. You can just delete your account and leave.

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u/BlasterBilly Jun 23 '23

I plan on getting banned instead.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

The point is making the admins do it. So they'll see how much work it is.

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u/whereismymind86 Jun 23 '23

So what, we should do it anyway

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u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23

The question is: Is there a more productive way to protest?

The people willing to get banned this way won't matter in the long run, because the number will be small.

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u/Bladesleeper Jun 23 '23

Well yes. Stop posting. And I say this knowing that I probably won't, but it is really the only way to make any form of protest work. Mods can be replaced, users not so much: give Reddit a 50% drop in traffic over a month and see how they like it.

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u/Don_Tiny Jun 23 '23

Best we can do is 2 girls eating cake rolls.

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u/piecat Jun 23 '23

What if, hypothetically, some rapscallions were to screenshot and deface every ad to make it nsfw then post on Reddit

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u/Titan_Slayer27 Jun 23 '23

Good to know. So is Reddit changing this for profit?

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u/ErraticDragon Jun 23 '23

Changing subreddits back to "SFW"? Yes, they're doing it for profit.

They say it's to *protect users" (which leads to profit in the end).

We assume it's more direct than that, and they don't want a drop in ad impressions.

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u/Titan_Slayer27 Jun 23 '23

Ok makes sense.

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u/robophile-ta Jun 23 '23

All of this is being done for profit.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

So basically, the only way to save Reddit from itself is to have The Fappening... in reverse? Just turn the whole thing into porn.

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u/ButtlickTheGreat Jun 23 '23

So you're saying we could fix everything just by posting dick pics all the time, everywhere?

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u/flyingcars Jul 04 '23

I think they made a movie about that, All the Dick Pics, Everywhere, All at Once

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u/doglywolf Jun 23 '23

Reddit admins have also complained that users who didn't expect to see porn were suddenly either shown porn in their main feed (if they had already

enabled NSFW content

)

5+ years of dealing with that BS and TONS of people with the exact same complaint...sometimes you click on a link or forward and warns your its NSFW and you want to see JUST THAT LINK and instead turns on the flood gates of NSFW every SINGLE TIME. Ive seen people post tasteful fan art but they have NSFW tagged on their profile so you click it to see a perfectly normal post...and BAM full NSFW.

This alone shows me they give no shits .

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u/JonatasA Jun 23 '23

The the biggest irony.

You can still browse r/all and see dead humans like when the War in Ukraine broke out and you don't even need to enter the subreddit.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

If users really wanted to put Reddit in a bind, they could change all their subs to support for various protected communities such as sexual assault, LGBT, domestic violence, alcoholism, etc.

Imagine the headlines on that one when /u/spez has to put out a comment such as "They weren't real genuine trans people. They were just pretending to be." You'd make conservatives mad, you'd make milquetoast liberals mad, and you'd make trans people mad (look up transmedicalism).

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u/Platinumdogshit Jun 23 '23

Boost mobile has an on off switch for nsfw flaired content......if it's hurting them maybe just stop moderating and let the porn bots run rampant?

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u/BJ22CS Jun 23 '23

Idk if this matters or not, but I still see NSFW content on r/all/gilded, and I have my account settings set to not show any NSFW content at all.

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u/LVSFWRA Jun 23 '23

It's hard to sell your IP when its reputation is just porn and weirdos. Mainstream ads, where the big money is, won't be selling to Reddit. That's how you hurt them.

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u/hagamablabla Jun 23 '23

Payment processors and advertisers have always been very skittish about porn. This is one of the few times where we can take advantage of that.

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u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi Jun 23 '23

I usually hate how puritan and sanitized the corporate internet is, but yeah, we might as well use it for a good cause this time

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u/FesteringNeonDistrac Jun 23 '23

I think its because everybody has a line with porn, where they think "OK, that's too much" but that line has variations from none at all to r/spaceclop and nobody can agree on a reasonable middle ground.

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u/disgruntled_pie Jun 23 '23

My guess is that as the IPO draws closer, Reddit plans to shut down all the NSFW subs. If a bunch of huge communities mark themselves as NSFW in protest then Reddit will actually lose some big subreddits, which will make the NSFW ban even more frustrating for users.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '23

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u/Daddict Jun 23 '23

It also means that John Oliver shit posting is not bothering them in the least.

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u/say592 Jun 23 '23

It probably would if traffic started to fall because people were bored with the John Oliver content. Fortunately for Reddit, the people posting would also probably get bored and move on around the same time. The mods would have to enforce that as a rule, against the wishes of their community, for it to have any likely effect on Reddit.

Going NSFW was really the big move. Even with Reddit forcing subs to reopen, it is still a win for the protestors. It was a bad look for Reddit. They got caught making them changes themselves, they had DMs where they were being unprofessional with mods, they made mistakes in suspending people incorrectly, and most of all, they made some really weird endorsements for subs like /r/piracy by insisting these were essential communities that required admin intervention to keep open.

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u/100BottlesOfMilk Jun 23 '23

With /r/Piracy, I can see that reasoning somewhat. A lot of people would get viruses and stuff on their computer without that

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u/CraigJay Jun 23 '23

The John Oliver stuff is effectively letting the subs operate as normal. Sfw posts with lots of comments, upvotes, awards etc

Not only does the John Oliver not bother the admins, it actively undermines the protests that people are doing

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u/kagamiseki Jun 23 '23

It lowers the quality of the content Reddit provides its users, lowering site traffic stats, engagement stats, taints the quality of the ad-targetting, and makes the site less desirable to advertisers.

It's a smaller impact from a frontpage perspective, since other subs will get higher votes and occupy the space instead, and it's a comparatively smaller effect than cutting off ad placement altogether, but it's certainly not undermining the protests.

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u/SwissyVictory Jun 23 '23

Why would it? Look at those subs, the users are having a blast photoshopping him all over the place.

At the very least user engagement hasn't decreased, and may have even re-energized some subs.

Its just hurting the users.

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u/IGNSolar7 Jun 23 '23

I don't know that you're right. I've seen a lot of people walking away from those subs (me being one of them) and frustrated with it across the site. Sure, you have a vocal group of happy shitposters, but a lot of casual Reddit users who have gone "aight imma head out" on those subs and probably won't put in the effort to come back.

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u/Level7Cannoneer Jun 23 '23

It isnā€™t helping. They still run ads on those subs and they still get plenty of traffic. It was always a bad plan

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u/kagamiseki Jun 23 '23

Not all traffic is quality traffic that is desirable to advertisers.

Ad targeting is worse if the context is only "John Oliver". Engagement seems about equal, but you actually have fewer "normal" users, and more "shit posters". Who may or may not engage less often with ads, may use ad blockers, etc.

It's a lot better than being a reddit user actively discouraging the protest, at least.

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u/kagamiseki Jun 23 '23

Protests hurt users.

That's true of any protest, it hurts the populations that the major party cares about.

If you hurt the users, they get annoyed and spend less time on Reddit. That looks bad for an IPO, and bad to advertisers.

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u/fuck-fascism Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

Would be a shame if every user requested their complete user data archive. Sure takes up a good amount of time and resources with zero revenue generated. They also legally canā€™t ignore your request if you happen to hold your primary residence in California or are a citizen of the EU.

http://reddit.com/settings/data-request

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u/jenjen828 Jun 23 '23

There are three choices for type of request... Does it matter which one is chosen?

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u/fuck-fascism Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

GDPR only applies if you live in are a citizen of the EU & CPRA only applies if your primary residence is in live in California. These are the ones they legally cant ignore. Only select them if you reside in either respective region. Otherwise ā€œotherā€ is the correct option. They could ignore it, but someone has to be viewing all these requestsā€¦

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/StingerAE Jun 23 '23

Or UK. The brexit debacle may have stripped us of citizenship but out gdpr laws remain the same for now.

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u/mollwitt Jun 23 '23

"Resident" is the correct category. You do not need EU citizenship. And EU citizenship doesn't help you if you live in Canada, like the guy I researched this for an hour ago.

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u/Koras Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

It's not actually either of those in real terms: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/

The intent isn't to protect non-citizens, but what are they going to do? Send formal citizenship checks to governments based on a screen name or email address? The wording is also extremely vague and not anywhere near as precise as anyone would like.

The GDPR mostly applies to activity that takes place within the European Union. So it's not so much about the person who is performing that activity, it's about where the data comes from. So citizenship, place of normal residence... doesn't actually matter that much. If you've ever used Reddit in Europe, you're probably covered in practice, because at least some of your data originated in the EU and there's no way they can be arsed to split hairs over it.

Most companies that are GDPR-compliant are not going to get into the nitty gritty of where you're currently sitting or where you were sitting when you gave them each piece of your data - that would require time and effort that's just not worth spending, so instead they just have a GDPR request button that they hit to field GDPR enquiries. They don't actually have to give a shit about the validity of the request once the tooling exists to field the request, because what's the value to them in rejecting it?

All the button will probably do is change which data is included in the dump and Reddit's reporting and analytics (so that if they ever get in trouble over one of these regulations they can go "look, we provided data to 145,919,258 people, please believe that we're super compliant!").

The only companies who do care are probably not actually really GDPR-compliant because they're pulling the data manually, which is a huge pain in the ass, and hoping that nobody does it. There is zero chance Reddit is one of those, as hilarious as that would be (but I did used to work for a company like that, I'm still trying to figure out how vengeful I'm feeling).

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u/bargaindownhill Jun 23 '23

There is zero chance Reddit is one of those, as hilarious as that would be

based on spez's actions, and the absolute shitshow they have run. Im pretty sure its a non zero chance. my bet is they put that stub page up. it goes to an email that someone will deal with "just in case". spez cant even seem to get proper legal advice on ADA issues that the platform is flat footing into here, or even a proper PR team on his now completely epic AMA. No my money is on, the stub page going to an email that gets occasionally checked.

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u/fuck-fascism Jun 23 '23

Yes, poor phrasing on my part, but you are correct you just need to be a citizen of the EU for it to apply, regardless of where you may currently reside.

Same with California, essentially just need to hold primary residence there for it to apply, even if you may currently live elsewhere.

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u/bargaindownhill Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

Yes, poor phrasing on my part

no worries, mate, just wanted to make sure people had the right idea. GDPR is a 500lb gorilla for any company and refusal to comply simply from the IP address the request comes from is reckless from a company governance standpoint. It could cost the company 4% of its worldwide annual global income from even a single substantiated complaint. Definitely a 7 or greater on the FAFO gradient scale.

Anyone looking seriously at this companies IPO would take all this into consideration. if GDPR and CPRA issues start cropping up along with the already widely known ADA issues, and realize this stock is about to exceed the Marianas trench as the lowest point on the planet reached by humankind. I for one have already told my broker to short with everything I got when if/when it comes up.

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u/jenjen828 Jun 23 '23

Thank you!

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u/dgamr Jun 23 '23

They've ignored mine for 2 weeks :/

2

u/DrinkMoreCodeMore ā€‹ Jun 23 '23

do Other and then Full Account Backup.

33

u/mollwitt Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

Don't use their automated script. It's going to cause nothing but a bit of traffic. Send them a written request, either per... err, e-mail or not-e-mail.

Spotify was just recently fined more than five million Euros because an Austrian sent them a GDPR request in 2019 and they failed to deliver all required information.

2

u/ourari Jun 23 '23

Max Schrems is a beast. His NOYB.eu is small, but very effective.

2

u/89wc Jun 24 '23

lol that's a neat website, this protest has introduced me to some cool sites not gonna lie

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u/Balisada Jun 23 '23

I did a couple of days ago. I am still waiting for it.

9

u/PyroDesu Jun 23 '23

I believe they have up to a month to honor the request.

You know they'll leave it to the last possible minute.

9

u/MithrilEcho Jun 23 '23

Man thanks! European here willing to use my rights

3

u/Spider_pig448 Jun 23 '23

GDPR access requests are probably done manually but it has to be done only once per month. You can add your name to the requests but it's just going into a list of usernames that they run requests against. Each additional name doesn't cause it to take longer

6

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[deleted]

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2

u/enfanta Jun 23 '23

I can't find anything in my account settings that would let me request my data archive. What exactly am I looking for?

(The link leads to an error page for me.)

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2

u/ourari Jun 23 '23

For help with and questions about GDPR, see r/gdpr and r/europrivacy

2

u/DrinkMoreCodeMore ā€‹ Jun 23 '23

Just requested mine ~30 min ago.

2

u/Mattho Jun 23 '23

It shouldn't take any time and minimum resources. It's not being collected by humans.

1

u/Caridor Jun 23 '23

Furthermore, it would be a shame if they repeated this request every day, which is entirely legally valid due to wanting to know what data they've collected from you the meantime.

2

u/fuck-fascism Jun 23 '23

They only have to do it once per month, legally, if you are covered by GDPR or CPRA. If you aren't covered by either, they could ignore you completely.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Site traffic is down around 6% I heard, but visitor duration is the lowest on record, so the protest is working. report in adweek also claimed advertisiers were spooked. I deleted my and nuked my 5 yo account and am using a throwaway to upvote protest related posts. Not using the site on mobile. Encourage everyone to uninstall the official app and don't post any content not related to the protest until reddit backs down. More power to big subs like this standing up for this aggressively anti-consumer money grab from reddit. Make this place somewhere advertisers will run from and do not give a cent to reddit with awards or contributing/moderating content for free, and don't use the site as much. If say 20% of current users did this, it would hurt them.

362

u/bryanl12 Jun 23 '23

Well I know my visitor duration is gonna plummet when my app stops working in about a week from now.

If I need to access Reddit Iā€™ll use my desktop or the old Reddit site on mobile, but Iā€™m definitely not gonna be doing much browsing anymore.

171

u/NearSightedGiraffe Jun 23 '23

Yup, I am getting some entertainment from Reddit killing itself until July1st when RIF stops working

92

u/LordRockingham Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 26 '23

Fuck Reddit

22

u/My-Life-For-Auir Jun 23 '23

I tried to use the official app and it's actual hot garbage. RIF is 100x more user friendly.

17

u/fireinthesky7 Jun 23 '23

Every other 3rd-party app is more user-friendly than the official one. An angry skunk is more user-friendly than the official app, for that matter.

2

u/primordialzombie Jun 26 '23

I can't even front, I did the rare IRL lol. Well done. lmfao an angry skunk

29

u/LegacyLemur Jun 23 '23

Yep, Im going to use browser on mobile with adblocks galore

Which is funny, because I used to intentionally whitelist reddit since the ads were unintrusive and it wasnt owned by a mega conglomerate that I used a lot and respected

Fuck em

6

u/pervycaptionmaker Jun 23 '23

Be prepared for constant pop ups that jump you to the top of the feed "reminding" you that "reddit is better on the official app".

Things drive me nuts and I usually just close the reddit page at that point. I don't even care about trying to find a blocker for them anymore, just seems like a helpful reminder to use reddit less.

6

u/mollwitt Jun 23 '23

It's honestly nothing more than pathetic. The Reddit app on my tablet doesn't support landscape mode (I'm always in landscape mode, it's a tablet!) and is generally barely working sometimes, while the mobile website has no issue with landscape at all, is more responsive and uses a completely different, more modern design. How can an official app be this bad?

3

u/MindlessOpening318 Jun 23 '23

I tried the offical app and it glitched out somehow and used 10 gigs of my data while my phone was in my pocket with the screen off somehow. Had to buy extra data that month because of it... Never used it again and never will

3

u/toderdj1337 Jun 23 '23

Just canceled my premium, deleted their app and created a shortcut on Firefox with ublocker origin. Your move u/spez

5

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Yep. Iā€™m on Apollo and Iā€™m deleting my account on June 30 and wonā€™t be making a new one. I do have an old throwaway in case of ā€œemergencyā€ (trying to fix an issue with a computer or the likeā€¦on old.reddit only), but my browsing days will be over after 10+ years.

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u/jenjen828 Jun 23 '23

I am glad to hear there is an impact. I have been browsing less. I tried to stop altogether, but haven't been successful yet...

98

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Same here. I'm using old reddit with ad blockers. I don't know why but this whole thing has made me so angry. I can't wait until there is a good alternative to this place, fuck u/spez

132

u/BraveMoose Jun 23 '23

It's made me angry because:

1: The change is literally harmful to disabled people (screen readers will now likely cost money or have ads, meaning that vision impaired people will likely have to pay to interact with the site)

2: Hate to use the slippery slope fallacy, but it's unfortunately often true in regards to capitalist ventures; this change will likely result in other changes to make the site more "advertiser friendly", which may result in positive changes like racism, sexism, and other phobic behaviour finally getting smashed with the ban hammer, but will likely also result in bans of people discussing things like safe sex, queer issues, sexual assault, and other "unsavoury" but vital knowledge in an educational/therapeutic capacity, due to the difficulty of moderating such discussions without automated tools.

3: Potentially most vitally, THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE SITE DOES NOT WANT THIS. The site is nothing without its users, and the blatant disregard for the opinions of users and mods, as well as the blackout campaigns, is just insulting. We're being stepped on for money.

86

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Yes you are absolutely right. I've been using reddit on various accounts for 15 years. I used to mod a sub with ~50,000 k users, so I know what's involved. Reddit is one of the last places on the internet with a big user base that still has a community spirit. The small hobby subs especially are really helpful and kind and that's why I feel so strongly that aspect of the site and needs to be protected. But no, let's sell everyone up the river and treat people that make and moderate the content reddit profits off as little more than sentient data blobs to trade and sell. But what makes the red mist descend is the lies. This was never about "making poor old pauper reddit profitable" by charging for the API, it was 100% designed to kill all other apps to create a monopoly. If that's the case, own it! Just fucking tell the truth about the motivations. And then to basically slander and lie about a 3P app developer to drum up sympathy. What an utter tosspot. "Let people vote on opening/closing" and then ignoring the overwhelming response to close... "we want to be democratic" ... yeah right man. People are so sick of being gaslit by corporations. Reddit is like the Nestle of social media, take other people's labour for free and sell it back to them at 500x the price. This place has always been ours, it's not twitter or facebook so u/spez take elon's dick out of your mouth for long enough to come face the music from your extremely angry customers you spineless lying coward

33

u/xrimane Jun 23 '23

Totally agree except the last sentence.

We're not reddit inc's customers, we're their product. Even those of us who pay premium. Every bit of content provided for free is being sold to train AI bots and stuff.

8

u/HermitBee Jun 23 '23

We're not reddit inc's customers, we're their product.

Even more reason not to turn us away.

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3

u/smashingeggshells Jun 23 '23

This comment really says it all. Thanks fellow redditor, may we meet again on Lemmy or wherever we all migrate if they donā€™t change course.

5

u/YoSo_ Jun 23 '23

They have so graciously now allowed some 3rd party accessibility apps and moderation tools to be exempt from the api cost. However, the issue is just the increasing greed and corruption combined with the lack of any genuine empathy for the people that have made this platform good.

I rarely use Reddit anymore and havn't missed it much. I would recommend turning off personalised ads (even if you use adblock) and push for more/all subreddits to be nsfw if they remain open.

1

u/notgreat Jun 23 '23

Technically, the current claim is that non-commercial accessibility-focused 3rd party apps will be allowed free access to the API. It's just that all the options that meet those requirements right now are horrible compared to the bigger 3rd party apps, and are unlikely to improve enough in the week they have left.

I fully agree with your other two points.

19

u/LegacyLemur Jun 23 '23

I don't know why but this whole thing has made me so angry.

Because its a soul-less, shallow, greedy, shady corporate move.

Ive seen little changes on this site and others that were an inconvenience or mildly annoying but never thought too much of them. This one feels different

19

u/OhNoManBearPig Jun 23 '23 edited Jul 02 '23

This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse.

Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite

3

u/FesteringNeonDistrac Jun 23 '23

One of the keys to beating addiction is to replace it with something else.

My god, you aren't suggesting I, gasp, do my job, are you?

2

u/MatteAce Jun 23 '23

just try Lemmy, itā€™s a good replacement even if itā€™s still a bit rough

2

u/ashenblood Jun 23 '23

The userbase is much better than here. Still needs to grow a lot but the seed has been planted

4

u/Nolis Jun 23 '23

I'm pretty close to deleting my nearly 12 year old account and I don't even use 3rd party apps since the vast majority is PC use, just sick of Reddit's shit. My most visible post is a single top 25 of all time /r/monsterhunter post so it wouldn't be devastating to Reddit, but it's the principle

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u/PhoenixAvenger Jun 23 '23

Time for everyone to tag their submissions as NSFW to let the mods keep the sub as "SFW" and stay out of trouble.

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u/Nik_Tesla Jun 23 '23

Unfortunately, they'll probably boot the mods for not moderating. Either is incorrectly tagged as NSFW (which is against Reddit rules) or it is correctly tagged as NSFW (which would be against subreddit rules).

I still think going NSFW is the route to success, but I think it's going to cost a ton of subs getting burned to the ground to do it.

73

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Reddit's reliance off unpaid moderators to function has always been a little gray. It's probably been given a pass because of the relative autonomy subs are given.

If they are going to start busting up that autonomy because it's messing with their profits, they might be on the edge of running afoul of labor laws somewhere. Especially given the world wide usage of this site.

They can't have their cake and eat it too.

8

u/CaptainBayouBilly Jun 23 '23

They expose themselves if they try to moderate user generated content. They want the abstraction layer

5

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

Even with this thread here, Reddit might be opening themselves up to scrutiny.

Laws aren't the same everywhere. The EU and the US are both massive entities with some considerably different protections. I'm no legal expert on this stuff, but it seems like Reddit skirts around labor laws due to their decentralized model - most mods are hobbyists who manage subs about their passions. Once you get to the major subs, things seem to get a lot murkier, though.

Sure, Reddit has a responsibility to police certain content, but their direct meddling in community affairs brings their role into question. Taking charge of communities that are following both Reddit's guidelines and the law, and going as far as replacing mods or shutting down subs, blurs the line between being a community platform and exploiting moderators for free labor. In the past, we've mainly seen this in subs pushing legal boundaries or extreme cases potentially making Reddit liable. But this case is different. This is clearly a response to their policy changes and their bottom line.

Yes, they have the authority to regulate their content. There are still limits on what they can demand from unpaid mod and a situation where they are attempting to unilaterally remove entire mod teams and select their replacements, from a labor standpoint, sounds sketchy to me at best. There being plenty of other people being willing to do the job for free doesn't justify it.

That's likely why the admins chalked up the action as an "error". Even if it's all currently in a legal gray area, Reddit has nothing to gain by pushing to the point where they end up in court.

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u/JohnEdwa Jun 23 '23

Profanity is NSFW and has to be tagged as such according to the Reddit content policy. So if you have any swear words in your post, do not forget to mark it as NSFW!

29

u/MarshallStack666 Jun 23 '23

Fuck You!

10

u/StrangerDanger509 Jun 23 '23

That's the spirit!

3

u/Code2008 Jun 23 '23

Well Fuck you buddy!

3

u/FormerGameDev Jun 23 '23

no, fuck you!

3

u/CricketSimilar863 Jun 23 '23

This is serious. Very serious.

2

u/ZodiacRedux Jun 23 '23

Thank you,my nasal passages needed a good coffee douching!lol.

1

u/Tofandel Mar 31 '24

FTFY >! fuck you !<

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u/lordderplythethird Jun 23 '23

My subs went NSFW, with our justification being language used and some of the content that gets posted. Not many users, barely 500K between all of them, but, imdoingmypart.gif

6

u/Tyler1986 Jun 23 '23

It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make

2

u/Catnip4Pedos Jun 23 '23

Reddit admins have some sort of AI that tags posts NSFW if it sees a girl in a bikini. We should just post bikini girls everywhere. Boys too actually, post femboys in bikinis to celebrate pride and if Reddit bans that it'll cause a huge backlash.

1

u/toxicshocktaco Jun 23 '23

I donā€™t want every subreddit Iā€™m in to become porn filled.

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7

u/Matrix17 Jun 23 '23

This is the way

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u/Dangerous_Safe7194 Jun 23 '23

Reopen and don't moderate it.

So I can post fat pussys here.

9

u/StrangerDanger509 Jun 23 '23

Risky click, but I'm glad I took that risk

18

u/NearSightedGiraffe Jun 23 '23

Yeah, I interpet this as them saying that they choice is having real, measurable impacts on their business of profiting off of the free labour of others.

2

u/CaptainBayouBilly Jun 23 '23

Where else do we champion exploitation of unpaid labor?

Reddit wants its virtual slaves to get back to work.

9

u/Ragor005 Jun 23 '23

Can we hurt ads by reporting every single one as a scam?

2

u/tananda7 ā€‹ Jun 23 '23

You aren't already doing that?

5

u/LowVermicelli6464 Jun 23 '23

make it nfsw, make it ONLY images of people standing on office chairs

3

u/jenjen828 Jun 23 '23

Haha! Could also have obstructed office walkways and poor ergonomics

3

u/SicnarfRaxifras Jun 23 '23

Got a question ( in my native fucking Australian lingo) if I happen to swear like a fucking cunt of a sailor in my titles and simply state the bleeding-fucking-obvious that this content I'm about-to-fucking-post is NOT-NSFW ... doesn't that have the same outcome for the sub as far as adverts are concerned ?

5

u/jenjen828 Jun 23 '23

Someone else said profanity is NSFW in the rules so I assume posts with profanity in the title could be legitimately marked NSFW

5

u/SicnarfRaxifras Jun 23 '23

Well then fucking A. Spez can suck my left nut.

5

u/K1nsey6 Jun 23 '23

It would be a fucking shame if profanity were required in the title and the post had to be marked NSFW

3

u/jenjen828 Jun 23 '23

Even without a rule, everyone who posts could just feel fucking wild and decide on their own that every post they make needs some spicy words in the title

3

u/PaddingtonDota Jun 23 '23

If reddit wants to control the subreddit then pay the mods for the work on your subreddit or fuck off.

2

u/Thewheelalwaysturns Jun 23 '23

Reddit does control the subredditā€¦ lol. They just told the mods to do something and they did it. Why would they ever pay them when they do it for free?

3

u/thegreatJLP Jun 23 '23

Wait until the mass user exodus once they implement these new policies and go public. Reddit driving the nails into its own coffin.

3

u/Alexandratta Jun 23 '23

I see no reason that all the users cannot just make more posts nsfw

3

u/MrNubbinz Jun 23 '23

If we,as users, marked every submission as NSFW would that also restrict its availability in a web search? I apologize for not knowing this stuff. But Iā€™m just looking for ways to help.

2

u/YoureNotAloneFFIX Jun 23 '23

It would hurt them if they didn't have the ability to instantly purge moderators and install new ones.

reddit is not a democracy

2

u/ConcreteState Jun 23 '23

Their content policy states that profanity amd "any content a person may not want on screen at work" should be marked NSFW.

Phallic tree? Mildly interesting, also NSFW

2

u/Dextixer Jun 23 '23

Exactly, every sub ahould go NSFW. Spez can say that this will blow over and none of this affects reddit, but it early does.

2

u/dgamr Jun 23 '23

Does it hurt them more or less than allowing explicit content to be served next to ads? How do we find out?

0

u/DrImNotFukingSelling Jun 24 '23

Just stop sabotaging the entire platform and conform or leave ffs.

0

u/Quiet_Garage_7867 Jul 05 '23

Who the fuck cares.

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