Most of the content is also modded by a small subset of mods—literally dozens. You've got maybe a hundred mods who are "power mods" that control the vast majority of large subreddits, and these are the ones "protesting". They don't own the subreddits. They have no rights to them, but they like to pretend that they do. Their moderation has, in many ways, become oppressive to the userbase. You don't hear about it because—surprise—they ban those people.

Honestly, the mod structure on reddit needs to change. This protest will almost 100% backfire. If it actually impacts revenue the admins will just ban a few dozen mods and the protest will, effectively, be over. Users will probably be better off for it too.

The oppressive moderation that happens on reddit is not necessary. The very nature of the site is self moderating. Let people post what they want and vote on it.

I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this. I'm active in some video game subreddits and I even mod a video game related sub with about 25k subscribers. And on multiple occasions I've had terrible interactions with those big multi-sub moderators. A particularly infamous multi-sub mod (whom you can probably figure out) has threatened me for my subreddit on multiple occasions, making statements like "I'll have you blacklisted from modding other subs". That same exact mod on multiple occasions has deleted my posts from subs he mods, just to reupload them for karma himself. I don't even care about the karma, I just wish mods wouldn't delete my posts that don't break any rules in any way, shape, or form, especially when it's for blatant karma farming.

If you look around Google you can even find several posts of subreddits getting "liberated" of this particular multi sub mod... Something needs to change so this stops happening

This stuff happens on the mental health subreddits too. Its bad enough to always second guess your own diagnosis but its worse when a mod decides you are excluded from one of the few places that will tentatively accept you.

I have a direct family member that was very ill, thought maybe they were transgender, tried that out, their mental state was not improving, got professional help from a doctor that listened instead of supporting every thought, got a lot better, and spent this year de-transitioning.

I talked a little about their experience and, instantly banned from a handful of Reddit including a ban on my account that I appealed.

Yeah, mental health is so stigmatised that there is little room for the grey, like in your example. A few radicals end up controlling the discussion and most of us, who are too busy with life, are left confused and locked out by the hysteria. I am more sympathetic to those who support trans rights but go too far because the other side is literally calling for their extermination, but the lack of reasonable voices leaves eveyone poorer and disenfranchised.

> the other side is literally calling for their extermination

If literally… citations please.

I ask because I was accused of “supporting genocide” or some such nonsense.

I have not seen anyone literally calling for murder. The point of my post is that I have seen, first hand, people saying it’s rampant out there though. And since I was accused of exactly that, I’d like to see just how real this threat is.

I guess it is very marginal rhetoric. People like De Santis are not actively saying it, although their actions indicate a great deal of opposition. For what it’s worth, I dont think its fair or right that you were blocked for your example. But I think it is the siege mentality of the marginalised trans community that explains why you got blocked.

> But I think it is the siege mentality of the marginalised trans community that explains why you got blocked.

100%. Trans people will talk about all kinds of possibilities and realities with nuance, patience, and insight when they feel safe with the people they're talking to and confident that the discussion is in good faith. But the 'issue' is so hot right now that those conditions are virtually never met in public online spaces.

This creates some serious bias problems in terms of what people get to see. If you're not close to any trans people IRL, most or all you get to hear from trans people will be colored by that 'siege mentality'.

I think it'll unfortunately be several years before that dynamic can change. It may take a generation.

> the other side is literally calling for their extermination

Did the trans community seige mentality get you to write that previously?

This problem became much worse when Covid-19 came around too. Still to this day, there is a mod that will auto ban you from like 30 different subs including /r/pics and others if you so much as make a comment in a sub that they consider "covid minimizing" at all. How on earth reddit continues to allow such actions like that are beyond me.

>actions like that are beyond me

I have this theory that religion is part of the human psyche, and that in 2023 we have more people that belong to a specific but as of yet unnamed religion than any point in history.

It just doesn’t have a bible, it’s a screen. Requires conformity, but doesn’t have a dress code. There is ceremony seen in emojis. And the priests are people you know are lying but it’s the other guys that are always “the problem”. You are a good person only if you do what you are told.

Honestly it explains A LOT.

This is honestly a pretty profound comment. Also, I think you’re right.

I agree. But the word 'religion' doesn't fit anymore. It is believe system and the need to be part of a group that one can identify with. Compliance with the set of rules that this group subscribes to gives one an feeling of belonging and identity. The German author Juli Zeh talks about this. We are social animals and with the collapse of basically all societal institutions - not just religion, but also political organizations - we are desperately trying to figure out how we are and how we have to be.

Reddit was behind those actions, dude. It's not about mods. That's tech companies controlling narratives and, specially in the case of covid, happened well beyond Reddit.

Instagram, to name one, was using these "media mods" to basically ban or tag news that they claimed were misinformation. Those media outlets were absolutely pro government in every country and any criticism of covid gov policies was "misinformation".

Don't let the fact that reddit mods can be assholes distract from anti user policies made by reddit pre Ipo

Agreed, although in this case it was a mix of Reddit itself and individual mods. The mods in /r/coronavirus for example got media attention and it was clear that it went right to their heads. They stopped making the mod log public, transparency went out the window, and AutoModerator basically went nuts.

It was so obvious that they wanted to portray a specific narrative and silent any dissent. Absolutely disgusting behavior.

Agree completely. Get rid of all the large-sub mods, replace them with paid moderators who are instructed to only remove spam and illegal content. Giant, giant improvement. The mods as they are just power trip on their own politics. Why else would they do it for no money?

reddit should auto-retire mods after X months. We can do that in mainstream politics - not on reddit politics

Disagree with this for lots of reasons:

1. First, look at the incentive structure for being a mod of a large subreddit: it's a ton of work, with people constantly bitching at you, for no compensation. The vast majority of people with a life are not going to want to do this. So of course it appeals to people who can power trip off it, and I can't see those dynamics really changing. I do think that reddit should change the rules to make it easier for particularly egregious mods to be voted out by the subscribers of a sub, but that's a relatively small change. For example, some of the r/lgbt mods were notorious assholes, which is why some people split off to make r/ainbow. Should be easier for subscribers to essentially "impeach" shitty mods.

2. "If it actually impacts revenue the admins will just ban a few dozen mods and the protest will, effectively, be over" People keep saying this, but I doubt it. The vast majority of reddit users, at least in the subs I've seen, support this - a bunch of the subs even had polls to ask what they should do. It's one thing for the admins to remove mods who are acting against the wishes of most is a subs' subscribers, but I think it would be total chaos if they tried to replace mods specifically to get their way WRT to the API changes.

At the end of the day, reddit is nothing without it's community. Company management can only go so far before it kills the goose that laid the golden egg.

The power trip is enough for most people. And for the right subs, brands approach you with outrageous offers. It can EASILY make you six figures *a month. When I read, it was much smaller. Years ago when reddit it was much smaller and I was working for an agency. We paid $60,000 just for 2-3 months of “posting support”. It amounted to something like 12 posts. I know first hand how much some mods get compensated. And this wasn’t even a major subreddit.

If this is true, this sounds like a bad deal for Reddit. If I were them, I'd want my cut.

What are they paying for? For the mod to look the other way for certain corporate spam posts?

guerrilla marketing on reddit is rampant. the days of trusting reddit comments for product reviews has long been over.

Yes. That’s basically all we paid for. We also asked for some help coming up with ideas for posts which ended up being like a 10 slide presentation. Mostly around wording, popular memes on the sub and a few ideas about what would feel “organic”.

We also hired a well known Reddit power user to actually post the content. Which is also common. Those people get paid very little by comparison though. Like $50-100 a post. But they post a lot and have a lot of alts.

When you see a post that’s, “My girlfriend just got me this,” and there is a product in the person’s hand and the label is perfectly centered and in focus… there is no girlfriend. Someone paid for that.

>First, look at the incentive structure for being a mod of a large subreddit: it's a ton of work, with people constantly bitching at you, for no compensation.

And they'll find new people to do it for no compensation, just as they did before the mod tools in question existed.

>The vast majority of reddit users, at least in the subs I've seen, support this - a bunch of the subs even had polls to ask what they should do.

The support is vast but shallow, and this will become clear quickly when extended blackouts cause admin interventions and no one cares except for a vocal minority that will then attack the site in other ways (spam.)

> And they'll find new people to do it for no compensation, just as they did before the mod tools in question existed.

For free? I doubt they could find any for free.

> The vast majority of people with a life are not going to want to do this.

You don't need a vast majority to do it. Lots of people would love to be a mod, just for the power-tripping aspect.

> it's a ton of work, with people constantly bitching at you, for no compensation.

One of my favorite things about Mod self pity that always seems to come up is this insinuation that they did not want the job. The literal opposite of reality. All mods BEG to be mods. They lobby and work hard to get into their jobs and jealously guard them. They deeply resent and fear the idea of the community operating without them.

There have been times where I've thought, I have enough free time to be a help to a community I'm part of and would be willing to mod. But I've never done it because I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm not building a job application and selling myself for this or carefully waiting out position openings in Discord/IRC channels. I don't care that much. Use my labor if you want it or not. The mods that actually ended up mods? Oh they care and worked for it. You're free to quite any time if you don't want the job. Go on.... do it.

Also I question how much work there really is beyond mission creep. Filter out the spam and the occasional super psycho and you're done. Now if you make work for yourself by trying to be a gestapo nanny that deep reads all comments to weed out wrongthink and confers with mod star chambers on what is to be done to shape the community. Then yeah, maybe you can make a lot more work for yourself.

Thank you for coining the term "mod pity". It makes me think about roles where people, myself included, have sought the pity of others as a shield against criticism.

> Disagree with this for lots of reasons

You might have visit a different reddit then. GP's comment is spot on. Oppressive moderation is rampart on reddit.

haha, look how users scoff the mod of r/AskReddit because they don't participate this

Well said! I saw a chart on r/dataisbeautiful a few years ago showing that a small percentage of Reddit users ever comment or post. Most people just read content. I topped the front page a couple of times and I used to moderate a default sub. It's a huge amount of work. You don't need to lose many power users to change the feel of Reddit forever.

With that said, maybe Reddit management wants the site to change. In the future, this could be seen as a shortsighted failure or as an MTV-stops-showing-music-videos pivot to a different audience.

> The very nature of the site is self moderating. Let people post what they want and vote on it.

This only works (mostly) for legal content. Unfortunately a lot of illegal content would be highly popular and upvoted if not moderated. It also doesn't really work when a subset of users engage with the system in bad faith or leverage bots.

Paid moderation is expensive - even if offshored - and I'm surprised that Reddit is willing to risk having to take on increased moderation costs. There's no way the lost potential revenue from 3rd party app users is enough to make up for that.

> This only works (mostly) for legal content.

It doesn't work even then.

I've never (_never_) seen a community get large and be able to moderate itself with just technology like upvotes/downvotes. Someone needs to say "You're violating our community standards; get out."

Large, in this case, means big enough that cliques form. That happens well before a thousand people.

Self-moderation doesn't work for any reasonably large community, if you don't want your community to be generic Facebook/Instagram quality posts. Community-based moderation inevitably makes any subreddit into "fun phots/videos" because people who browse largely don't care about where the post is, they might not even realize what subreddit it is in when up-voting.

Subreddits like askscience or askhistorians would be impossible without extremely strict moderation, for obvious reasons.

Ok, but flip side… Reddit “Science” is the one of the most ridiculously biased and censoring of dissent subs I’ve ever seen.

Absolute junk science that confirms a political bias? Straight to the top!! Any reasonable voice? [Removed].

As always, censorship is common sense moderation if it aligns with your existing biases.

I do agree this is an issue that needs to be addressed but you are also posting this on a website that is heavily moderated and runs as smoothly as it does because of the efforts of dang and the other moderators so I can't agree that reddit should just be the wild west.

The reddit replacement I am scoping out eliminates mods and subreddit squatting. I don't see a need for mods as they exist in reddit really, just "janitors" like in 4chan, most likely paid. Moderation seems like it could be done purely on the basis of voting and a sitewide content policy.

Except if you search in Reddit right now you'll find plenty of posts where mod asked the users if they should join the blackout (sometimes rather meekly) and userbases, almost always, said yes.

The fact that you can go on reddit right now and enjoy it without all the annoying power users is only more reason to start visiting in my books. Hell I might even finally download the app.

If you've ever moderated a large subreddit before, you would know that it's not self-moderating. Garbage comments attract more garbage comments, and pretty soon your userbase is toxic as everyone else who's looking for a civil conversation leaves.

Have a look at the link being discussed. Subreddits all the way down to 5K+ subreddits are going dark. It's all across the board.

There's nothing softer than reddit mods. Reddit mods are so soft that dumping fabric softener on them would harden them.

they are wrong because 3rd party apps are the only way the site is actually usable on a mobile device.

So, what happens if reddit just kicks out the mods participating? It's not like the owners of the subs actually own anything, they just happen to do work in exchange of clout or money(from 3rd parties). There will be unlimited supply of volunteers waiting in line to acquire this privilege. If anyone actually manages to do some damage, they can just roll back the database or something.

I've seen so many boycotts on the internet and the only one that worked was DIGG->Reddit and it worked only because Reddit was ready to take over.

It would be poetic if Reddit goes away the way it come but I wouldn't bet on it. The relationship is symbiotic but the parties are not equal, it's the platform that holds the power. Unlike the real world where atoms behaviour is absolute, in this virtual environment the platform decides about how the nature works and the only real power is in the hands of those who control the servers.

What happens if reddit crosses that line is completely up to community response. People could go on as usual and nothing happens or there could be an even more visceral backlash. History says business as usual but no one really knows what would happen.

There's no real community though.

I have 12 y/o account with over 15K post karma and 35K comment karma and I don't care the slightest. The place has grown too big to feel like a community, if anything, I'm worried that r/StableDiffusion might go away because there are is so much chronological high quality content of the development of stable diffusion.

I tracked down my first comment about how "reddit is dead", it's from 11 years ago. Apart from some smaller subs, for me reddit has become a content stream not that different from Twitter or TikTok.

I will be sad to see some niche subs go but maybe that's the plan, after all, they are going after the mainstream. There's probably not much money in monetising some nerds.

reddit is not a community. The subreddits are the community. I don't care about reddit as a whole but there are individual subreddits that if they change or go away then I no longer have a reason to use reddit.

Are these subs small or large?

Both. A few are in the 500k+ sub range and some are way under that and more niche.

> I've seen so many boycotts on the internet and the only one that worked was DIGG->Reddit and it worked only because Reddit was ready to take over.

Agree. Reddit had the critical mass and content to absorb Digg.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything out there that is in a similar situation. I looked at kbin / lemmy yesterday and today and it feels like starting over again (content-wise).

> Engagement is a power curve. Most content is created by a small subset of users.

This is it, and it's the same with Twitter. At some number of connection in the social graph, or some amount of content produced, a user becomes more valuable than the ad money they could bring in. i.e. the opportunity cost flips, and it's worth giving up the ad revenue or API usage in order to keep them. To use an extreme, if a Kardashian said they were leaving Twitter, it would obviously be worth a lot of money to keep them on the platform. But my guess is that the percentage of users bringing more value than their ad revenue is closer to 1 in a 100 than 1 in a million.

As you said this then plays into the third party client issue directly, because those users are almost by definition power users, and power users get so much value out of third party clients with micro optimisations for their use-cases.

The problem is that this feels so obvious that I can't believe Reddit (or Twitter) don't have a measure of this internally, and I don't know why they wouldn't be optimising for it. My only conclusion is that it's too much nuance for a Musk-driven product team to handle, and that Reddit are shit-scared that they're going to collapse before IPO'ing and can't make rational decisions.

> because those users are almost by definition power users

Why is this the case and being repeated everywhere by everyone?

Reddit originally didn't have a mobile app and only third party clients existed. Everyone who wanted a mobile experience was using a third party app. Many of those original users never switched to the official app. How are they power users by definition?

That's a fair point, but I still think there's a strong correlation. To address that point specifically, users who started using Reddit early enough that the official one didn't exist, and have stuck around and are still active now, are more likely to be power users just based on account age. Additionally, many years ago those seeking out mobile apps may have been power users as well. Mobile apps are the default now, but unofficial apps have only recently been more mainstream.

For power users, advertisers flip from paying for their eyes to paying for their thumbs.

>Engagement is a power curve

Sure, but the degradation of the UX based on these changes seems to be pretty exaggerated in my view. How many of these powerusers are only using Reddit through a 3rd party client and would quit the site over having it closed? My guess is that the answer is "not many", and Reddit is clearly banking on this... and why would I trust angry activists over Reddit's own internal analysis?

More concretely, my impression is that these changes will not hit RES meaningfully. If they did, I would be unhappy but it would not break the site for me.

Would removing old.reddit.com break the site for you?

It would for me, and thats the trajectory. The new UI is an absolute pig.

yeah i could probably get by not using reddit on my ipad even if i didn't like the change... but not having old.reddit would be a monumental no from me.

Without that, RES, or a third-party interface, I'm 100% out. I do not need to deal with cluttered, shitty interfaces that are designed to "increase engagement" instead of giving me what I want. Respect my time or fuck off.

The developer of RES said they do not know if the changes will hit them and it is up in the air.

> Reddit's public statements have been limited on this method, however we have been told we should see minimal impact via this route. However we are still not 100% sure on potential impact and are being cautious going forwards.[0]

Developers behind third-party clients were also told they should be fine with the new changes so reddit's word isn't worth anything. This is not just about clients but tools and bots as well.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Enhancement/comments/141hzqj/announ...

> and why would I trust angry activists over Reddit's own internal analysis?

This is literally authortiarianism and the problem is that you can use it to justify any change by any company ever.

They're the owners so they know better because they're the owners.

No move can be criticized.

It turns out that you end, like many that defend this and is irrationally against others protesting, with a comment about how it doesn't affect "you".

Ok. So you don't get it. Good for you. Keep on doing whatever it is you're doing. Some people will absolutely quit using it with different UXs or decrease over time until they move elsewhere.

It's a risk and a decision and we will see what happens down the line.

But it'll be fun if other sites get much of the traffic and they likes of you come out with "it was obvious this would happen".

>This is literally authortiarianism and the problem is that you can use it to justify any change by any company ever.

If trusting people with the strongest financial incentives to have the correct beliefs is "authoritarianism", then I'm an authoritarian. If there are betting markets out there that say that Reddit is going to crash and burn, then I'll trust them too. But the rando with an angry, self-interested opinion on the internet? Yeah they'll have to satisfy a pretty strong evidentiary burden before I trust them over someone with actual skin in the game.

>If trusting people with the strongest financial incentives to have the correct beliefs is "authoritarianism", then I'm an authoritarian.

They're not the correct beliefs. They're just actions that they're doing and knowing the inner context would allow you to glean whether it's correct or not. I think you probably have not worked in big organizations and had enough insights on how decisions are made, even in self professed data driven companies. People and politics matter. The best decision is not always taken or not always clear. Sometimes it's all about someone's short term or their ability to sell something to someone with power.

You're authortiarian through and through though and it's good you admit it frankly because it means that there's no need to try and debate you further. "They're right because they're right".

> If there are betting markets out there that say that Reddit is going to crash and burn, then I'll trust them too. But the rando with an angry, self-interested opinion on the internet? Yeah they'll have to satisfy a pretty strong evidentiary burden before I trust them over someone with actual skin in the game

Lol at the C.R.E.A.M attitude without a bit of nuance.

In any case, you've ruled yourself out as someone who can talk about this issue since you have "no skin in the game". You have nothing to contribute except "trust the experts".

With how low post quality has gotten on Reddit, the only reason I'd continued using it is because Apollo offers a nice smooth experience that isn't trying to sell me anything or shove irrelevant posts in my face and makes it reasonably easy to filter. The official app crapifies the experience enough for it to no longer be worth using.

And now I want to explain why you're wrong.

The vast majority of people who are visiting subreddits are doing so because they're actively seeking out the material being presented to them. These people are subscribers to the subreddits. Subreddits that "go dark" are not blocked for everyone. Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit.

So this giant display of enlightened asshattery affects almost nobody. And even if it did, it's a 2 day ordeal.

Which means jack fucking squat. It's the equivalent of wearing an MLK bandana on Juneteenth day and spending the rest of the year voting and campaigning for politicians trying to abolish what's left of the Voting Rights Act.

> The vast majority of people who are visiting subreddits are doing so because they're actively seeking out the material being presented to them. These people are subscribers to the subreddits. Subreddits that "go dark" are not blocked for everyone. Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit.

I don't believe this is true but I'm willing to test it out. I'll subscribe to a bunch of subreddits that intend to go dark and see what happens.

One of the subreddits I subbed to has gone dark and I cannot access it so I can confirm this is not true.

> Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit.

When a sub is set to private "Only approved members can view and take part in its discussions."

They're wrong. I was subscribed to EarthPorn before it went private. It is inaccessible to me now

I can no longer access subreddits I have been subscribed to. They are also no longer listed in my subscriptions.

Private subreddits are indeed invitation only

> I think it is a fair to say that if you use and especially pay for third party tools, whether that be a client or something like RES, you are more than likely a power user.

I've seen this repeated elsewhere but I've seen zero actual evidence of it.

And the counterpoint is quite easy: that people use these apps/extensions for a better viewing experience. Because on the creation side, typing into a text box or pasting a link is just typing into a text box. The apps/extensions are great for consuming.

Quick Google searches reveal that Reddit has something between 0.5 and 1.5 billion monthly users, while the Apollo app has 1.5 million monthly users. That's nothing.

The bigger question seems to be around moderators who use power moderation tools. Will Reddit keep allowing moderation tools? If not, will they improve their own? If they lose moderators, are there other moderators willing to take their place, or will they start investing in more ML-based moderation, etc.?

> Quick Google searches reveal that Reddit has something between 0.5 and 1.5 billion monthly users

Not disagree-ing with your points, but do you have a source for this? It doesn't pass the sniff test to me.

1.5B people is ~ 20% of the world population, and probably closer to 50% of those with computers & internet capable of downloading reddit.com, an image heavy forum.

I'm in the demographic for Reddit (30s, male, western country), and I think maybe 10% of my friends, family & coworkers even know what Reddit is, let along are an MAU.

Everybody's reporting "Reddit had 430 million monthly active users in 2020", so that's the half-billion that seems to be fact-based.

Then the current 1.5B number seems to be based on extrapolation (1.66B in [1] for one estimate) based on previous growth rates.

I shared your initial skepticism, but Reddit is the 20th most popular site in the world [2]. I know I have definitely been surprised and even shocked that certain extended family members and coworkers of mine have turned out to be heavy Reddit users. It's turned into this incredibly widespread site that almost nobody talks about "in real life".

Of course, monthly active users presumably includes people who click on a Reddit search result once in the month. It doesn't mean they're using it daily and upvoting.

[1] https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/number-of-reddit-users/#sect...

[2] https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/

Does "user" mean "distinct human" or "user account" in this context? Need to keep in mind the culture of throwaways.

If 10% of users make a throwaway at a rate of 5 per month, then 100 monthly humans == 150 monthly usernames.

I highly doubt Reddit has 1.5B monthly users, otherwise they would have reported it in the media. Very few companies have the execution capabilities to reach 1B+ users

This is brought up a bunch, but I’m kind of sceptical about this.

Although only a small percent post, I believe those users are largely interchangeable and replaceable. This isn’t twitter - apart from a few exceptions, there are not personalities on Reddit that people would feel the loss of. All the big/main subreddits are all pretty low-effort content, just reposting memes and videos from elsewhere.

Mods maintaining the subreddits are the real ‘power users’ who would impact the site if they left.

> slowly bleeding itself to death

If it’s slowly then it likely doesn’t matter in the context of going public and making a lot of cash for the investors. It’s hard to imagine that the people who are given the power to decide the fate of Reddit don’t care about its long term fate at all - but it might well be the case.

If management has shown themselves to be adversarial in this case because they think the power users aren't correct, a 2 day strike isn't going to do much to convince them otherwise.

This would have to be a month or more. And I think that's the real threat - the 2 day is a shot across the bow, if it impacts statistics I think it will likely be extended until management cries uncle.

If I were management I'd do everything in my power to make this strike look like it failed (since the alternative to actually preventing the strike by negotiation seems to have been scrapped or unconsidered).