The only people on reddit who are against the blackout are conservative assholes who hate picket lines. They’re going to be the majority of remaining users.
Nah I’m “conservative” (at least that’s what they call me on Reddit now), and most of us support this blackout. The site has been hostile to diverse political opinions for a long time. Note how one of the largest subs, r/Politics, remained open the whole time. They are, by every metric, very left wing.
Don’t let the silly culture war divide us on this one. We all think Reddit has jumped the shark.
I hear what you’re arguing. People are much more complex than “left” and “right.” But, colloquially, the people on r/Politics, are left wing. They support abortion, and gay marriage, and trans people, and universal healthcare, and higher taxes, and a hundred other values typically shared by those on the left.
Old school liberals are certainly different to what we see on the left today.
What they did to The_Donald where Spez edited comments to make the sub seem to be inciting violence, so he had an excuse to ban it, is a prime example and should be a red flag regardless of someone’s politics.
The banning from several subs automatically of people who joined joke subs like “ChurchofCovid” is also a prime example.
Very hostile to differing political opinions.
I don’t think it’s a social media site any more, I think it’s a propaganda site and a data harvesting operation.
where Spez edited comments to make the sub seem to be inciting violence, so he had an excuse to ban it
Not what happened. Spez, fuckwit though he is, actually managed to do a halfway decent trolling there.
A bunch of t_d people were slagging him off and insulting him in their comments. Spez got drunk as shit one night and edited their comments, swapping his name with Trump’s so that it made them look like a bunch of anti-trumpers. Much gnashing of teeth ensued.
Absolutely shouldn’t have done it, especially as CEO of Reddit FFS, but definitely funny as shit.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely a mark against him, but he didn’t get them banned. They thouroughly got themselves banned on their own.
It’s all rather opaque, isn’t it? I suspect you’re correct, but if Reddit is actually paying for and controlling the moderation of /r/Politics, that raises a number of serious questions; both ethical and legal.
JUST LIKE TWITTER! I love that the new internet comes in two flavors, “open source hippie (doesn’t work well)” and “vaguely fascist (also doesn’t work that well tbh)”
Also the people who say “well I’m not using third party apps so who cares anyway”
The thing they should care about is how reddit has handled this situation. Imagine what nonsense they’ll come up with next if they’re willing to turf away some of the oldest and most dedicated users
Exactly this. I’ve used RIF since forever, so RIF is Reddit for me. Even if they take it all back and everything goes back to normal, there’s still a bad taste in my mouth. Reddit is clearly against the community, literally fighting it. Not even trying to find some sort of compromise or anything. So screw it, kbin seems pretty cozy so far, to be honest.
Honestly, even if they walk everything back, I still know they want to kill it eventually. Might as well already make my way over to other places like here, and stay with them.
I don’t know, but I already think I like it here.
I actually used the newer official desktop site, and really didn’t mind it at all. What I minded was Reddit acting like their company was Reddit. No, you just provided the website and infrastructure. You were not Reddit. WE were Reddit. And we liked Reddit as it was, not what you are turning it into to make a quick buck on your IPO. We didn’t appreciate providing ALL the value and then being treated as if we weren’t important or to be listened to. I’m tired of good sites being whored out for mega-bucks and then transformed into another sub-par lowest common denominator that is a ghost of its former self. I’ll skip the wait and pain of watching that happen yet again, and leave now.
So yeah, I wasn’t a third party app user, but in the long run I’ll still be effected by everything corporate management is doubling down on right now.
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” Reddit is in step 4.
You’re completely right from a user’s perspective. I think this post from Cory Doctorow helps explain what we’re seeing. He doesn’t talk about Reddit specifically, but it should be easy to infer the implications for Reddit from what he writes: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/
The only people on reddit who are against the blackout are conservative assholes who hate picket lines. They’re going to be the majority of remaining users.
It almost feels like that’s by design these days.
Nah I’m “conservative” (at least that’s what they call me on Reddit now), and most of us support this blackout. The site has been hostile to diverse political opinions for a long time. Note how one of the largest subs, r/Politics, remained open the whole time. They are, by every metric, very left wing.
Don’t let the silly culture war divide us on this one. We all think Reddit has jumped the shark.
You only think /politics is left wing because they banned all the left wingers.
Also, liberals aren’t left wingers. Have you ever heard an anarchist or a socialist talk about a liberal?
I hear what you’re arguing. People are much more complex than “left” and “right.” But, colloquially, the people on r/Politics, are left wing. They support abortion, and gay marriage, and trans people, and universal healthcare, and higher taxes, and a hundred other values typically shared by those on the left.
Old school liberals are certainly different to what we see on the left today.
What they did to The_Donald where Spez edited comments to make the sub seem to be inciting violence, so he had an excuse to ban it, is a prime example and should be a red flag regardless of someone’s politics.
The banning from several subs automatically of people who joined joke subs like “ChurchofCovid” is also a prime example.
Very hostile to differing political opinions.
I don’t think it’s a social media site any more, I think it’s a propaganda site and a data harvesting operation.
Not what happened. Spez, fuckwit though he is, actually managed to do a halfway decent trolling there.
A bunch of t_d people were slagging him off and insulting him in their comments. Spez got drunk as shit one night and edited their comments, swapping his name with Trump’s so that it made them look like a bunch of anti-trumpers. Much gnashing of teeth ensued.
Absolutely shouldn’t have done it, especially as CEO of Reddit FFS, but definitely funny as shit.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely a mark against him, but he didn’t get them banned. They thouroughly got themselves banned on their own.
I agree, but I also think that most social media has been propaganda and data harvesting all the way down from day one.
Like, the internet was not made by accident, or for no reason. It was developed at public universities with military funding.
I think r/Politics is owned by admins so they were never going dark.
It’s all rather opaque, isn’t it? I suspect you’re correct, but if Reddit is actually paying for and controlling the moderation of /r/Politics, that raises a number of serious questions; both ethical and legal.
Legal issue? Nah not really. Ethical issue? Absolutely.
JUST LIKE TWITTER! I love that the new internet comes in two flavors, “open source hippie (doesn’t work well)” and “vaguely fascist (also doesn’t work that well tbh)”
You made me chuckle.
Also the people who say “well I’m not using third party apps so who cares anyway”
The thing they should care about is how reddit has handled this situation. Imagine what nonsense they’ll come up with next if they’re willing to turf away some of the oldest and most dedicated users
Exactly this. I’ve used RIF since forever, so RIF is Reddit for me. Even if they take it all back and everything goes back to normal, there’s still a bad taste in my mouth. Reddit is clearly against the community, literally fighting it. Not even trying to find some sort of compromise or anything. So screw it, kbin seems pretty cozy so far, to be honest.
Honestly, even if they walk everything back, I still know they want to kill it eventually. Might as well already make my way over to other places like here, and stay with them.
I don’t know, but I already think I like it here.
I actually used the newer official desktop site, and really didn’t mind it at all. What I minded was Reddit acting like their company was Reddit. No, you just provided the website and infrastructure. You were not Reddit. WE were Reddit. And we liked Reddit as it was, not what you are turning it into to make a quick buck on your IPO. We didn’t appreciate providing ALL the value and then being treated as if we weren’t important or to be listened to. I’m tired of good sites being whored out for mega-bucks and then transformed into another sub-par lowest common denominator that is a ghost of its former self. I’ll skip the wait and pain of watching that happen yet again, and leave now.
So yeah, I wasn’t a third party app user, but in the long run I’ll still be effected by everything corporate management is doubling down on right now.
Here’s the first paragraph from Cory’s post:
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” Reddit is in step 4.
Yeah, the “enshittification” concept, I’ve read this, and definitely agree.
You’re completely right from a user’s perspective. I think this post from Cory Doctorow helps explain what we’re seeing. He doesn’t talk about Reddit specifically, but it should be easy to infer the implications for Reddit from what he writes: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/