Reddit has started removing moderator teams managing subreddits that switched the labeling on their communities to Not Safe For Work (NSFW) in the latest protests against the site. In addition to applying an age gate for desktop viewers and restricting access on mobile devices to logged-in users in the Reddit app, Reddit also doesn’t show ads on subreddits tagged NSFW. This cuts into its ability to monetize them, which is a major part of Reddit’s disputed push to charge apps for using the API.
CEO Steve Huffman told me in an interview last week, “90-plus percent of Reddit users are on our platform, contributing, and are monetized either through ads or Reddit Premium. Why would we subsidize this small group? Why would we effectively pay them to use Reddit but not everybody else who also contributes to Reddit?”
“Moderators incorrectly marking a community as NSFW is a violation of both our Content Policy and Moderator Code of Conduct,” Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said to The Verge. He declined to comment when asked if Reddit removed the mods.
According to a post in r/ModCoord (moderator coordination), moderators of r/MildlyInteresting moved forward on Tuesday with changing the sub to NSFW after a user vote. In making that change, r/MildlyInteresting followed the steps of other subreddits that went NSFW recently, including r/interestingasfuck and r/TIHI (Thanks I Hate It).
However, according to the now-former r/MildlyInteresting mod that wrote the post, just after they switched the subreddit over, they were logged out of their account and locked out. It quickly became clear that Reddit-employed administrators (as opposed to the mods, who don’t work for Reddit) were involved:
Following this, another mod posted our update instead. Right after, the u/ModCodeofConduct [a Reddit admin account] account removed the post and flipped the sub back to restricted instead of public. Then, the second moderator was also logged out of their account and locked out. Other mods tried to re-approve the post, one of them was promptly logged out and locked out as well.
After that, according to the former r/MildlyInteresting mod, the entire mod team was removed from the subreddit. As I write this, r/MildlyInteresting, which has more than 22 million subscribers, says it is currently unmoderated. The mod says the entire team received a 7-day suspension.
If you are a current or former Reddit moderator or employee, I’m interested in hearing from you. Feel free to email me at jay.peters@theverge.com.
It’s apparently not just r/MildlyInteresting. Subs including r/interestingasfuck (11 million subscribers), r/TIHI (1.7 million subscribers), and r/ShittyLifeProTips (1.6 million subscribers), which had all gone NSFW or loosened their rules, are currently unmoderated.
Removal of mods is perhaps Reddit’s biggest action yet against its moderators, who are unpaid volunteers that sometimes dedicate years of their lives to managing these communities. Some mods said they felt threatened by messages sent by the company last week indicating it would unseat moderators who didn’t work to reopen their communities, and now that it’s a reality, the effects on those communities could be massive.
IPO imminent, let’s fire all the free volunteers and replace them with like wat? employees? child labour?
No, you don’t understand. Reddit was doing THEM a favor by letting them endure trolls and bots.
Millions of higher quality mods are just sitting there waiting for /u/spez to call them up for their chance to spend nights and weekends working for spez for free.
/s
Marketers.
Unfortunately there are enough power hungry users who would take the “job”
There aren’t. Subs were constantly understaffed of mods. While the power tripping mod is common enough to justify that the stereotype exists, most subs had to practically beg to people to get mods. Supermods were tolerated though they were more a nuisance than useful. Because often times they were the only ones open and willing to take the role.
There are power hungry mods, but to think that the population is all so power hungry that there are lines of people waiting to be mods is false. It’s a thankless stressful position. It fucks with people’s mental health and eats your time.
This was my experience on subs I spent time on. They would often have to recruit more mods, the people who care get burnt out.
And then turn the subs into a complete shitshow, remember the antiwork mod interview?
Community leaders who have a backbone and really care?
Let’s replace them with people who don’t care but want power in the community.
This will not impact quality buy my IPO.
Honestly I’d be terrified to go long or short on Reddit stock. You never know what side wall street will take.
Time to end the protest and leave Reddit for Lemmy.
We are here so don’t tell us, go to reddit and guide redditors; I had been advocating that to a few subs I follow
deleted by creator
I met a lot asking what happened. Apparently, there is a large number not knowing the reddit CEO’s controversy
the fact that the narratives become mod vs user is maddening
This is what happens when people strike or protest in any meaningful way. It’s poor others that are also being affected by the protest. The institution can’t do anything with how unreasonable the protesters are.
You can replace reddit - mod - user with government - teacher - student, or corporation - bus driver - commuters, etc
Most people seem to be oblivious to the fact that a protest is meant to be disruptive.
It always has been, I guess mods just need to quit and move on. Reddit can get paid employees to mod if they want
yeah, if i were the mod and the users doesn’t appreciate what I did, I would probably rage quit and let them handle it themselves
I’d say leaving reddit for Lemmy is the best protest.
It was at first, but I legitimately like Lemmy more, reminds me of my usenet days. I would have come here years ago if I’d known about it.
I’m already deleting my posts and comments from Reddit. I’m keeping the account for some importantly saved stuff, but I have a feeling that I may need to save those offline too
Don’t delete your comments, edit them.
Why is this more damaging for Reddit than removing the actual content that they can continue to monetize with?
I’ve seen some people using a script to edit their comments to state they’re leaving Reddit for Lemmy. It’s how I found out about this site, so I’d say you can use it to damage Reddit’s bottom line by advertising alternatives.
People go to reddit for relevant discussions on topics they’re interested in. If you make your comments irrelevant, you’re doing your part in making the site less attractive to other users.
Deletes don’t actually delete, it just sets a flag in the system to not show it so they can restore the comment (apparently this has already happened). Edits actually do overwrite the content of the post in the system and if you actually put readable but irrelevant content they also waste people’s time when browsing the site so it makes it less usable (rather than a deleted comment which people will just skip over). Also, if you edit it to be gibberish it makes the data much less attractive to those training AI. Make them have to work to turn it into something monetizeable.
I’ve read that a deleted comment can be restored, but an edited comment deletes the original. So do both!
This tool does just that: https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Haven’t tried it yet, so proceed at your own pace.
Prior to my abandoning reddit, I’d been using that tool for years to routinely pare my history down to a month’s worth of posts at a time.
Oh. This is actually much better, then. Imma start to do that. Thanks!
importantly saved stuff
Does it start with a P and rhyme with Corn?
Joking aside, I plan on running the power delete suite sometime this week.
Aside from that… :)))
I also saved some engineering stuff and some game mod configurations
So looks like they’re going through with it.
We’re seeing which mods are just power hungry internet janitors with delusions of grandeur, and which were the ones that genuinely care about the communities they grew.
The latter are being removed. The former will replace them or never left in the first place.Yeah, I’m extremely skeptical of anyone who now voluntarily steps up to be a mod on Reddit in the wake of everything that’s happened.
You should be wary of people who want power that badly.
This is a dumpster fire that won’t be putting itself out any time soon.
You mean Scabs?
Honestly, good. I was the sole active mod of a few 500k-1m subs and I’ve abandoned reddit. I set them to private but ultimately decided to just say fuck it and I haven’t been back. I had a 13 or so year old account and was extremely active but now I’m done. I assume I’ve been demodded and the subs reopened but don’t care.
So let them continue to demod and ban the volunteers that give their time to help make this asshole rich. I hope every decent mod leaves that shit hole and they can fill the mod roles up with people that don’t care or will maliciously let the subs get overrun.
You’ll see a lot of the mods replacing the mods they remove being from certain questionable subs because spez has already said he wants to model it after what Elon did to Twitter.
Wait where did he say that? Am I behind on the news?
Yeah this alone is what pulled me over here. Reddit is making some weird decisions and I can’t in good faith support it.
Here’s to new beginnings here!
On the flip side it will be interesting to see how long things can hold with so many communities becoming unmoderated.
Reddit’s “Moderator Code of Conduct” summarized:
Rule 1: Suck Steve Huffman’s dick.
Rule 2: Suck u/spez’s dick.
Rule 3: Suck it all the way to the balls.
Rule 4: Suck it like it’s the most delicious shit in the world.It’s kind of a shame that /r/watchredditdie closed up shop just a year before reddit actually started to die.
Did they close up shop or did they get shut down?
Mod abandoned it I think. Posted a farewell message.
If there aren’t any mods then isn’t it time to show Reddit the community really did want to be an NSFW community?
It wouldn’t be the first time.
If any of the mods who went down fighting had verified money apps (venmo, paypal, etc), I’d love to buy them a drink by sending them some cash.
So the only real way to fight the Reddit admins is to leave the site… Too bad the apathetic make up the vast majority of users, so there won’t be a mass exodus like Digg.
The apathetic make up the userbase, the dedicated make up their content-generation.
Reddit is dead. You gotta move on.
Reddit was dead to me the second RiF announced they’d be shutting down. The RiF app IS reddit to me. I don’t go to it on desktop.
Apollo and Sync are both going to basically switch their apps over to RSS feeds they collect.
I imagine other devs will get similar ideas.
Interesting idea. Hopefully the people that use those apps will enjoy the new way they’re forced to show content. I think I’ll just go other places nowadays tho (until I need to google some niche, specific question of course lol)
Really? I thought Christian was done. I haven’t seen anything about him making changes to Apollo’s architecture or opening the source code.
This. I keep seeing Reddit talk shit on the “2% of power users” like it’s the 50% who doesn’t make an account or 20% who exclusively lurk are going to make and moderate the content with that 2% gone.
He’s working with Musk now, so really just expect another far right terrorism paradise because taking $5/mo to chase off the libs is easier than dealing with users asking them to make their shit work.
It’s very obvious Musk is taking shots at Insta/Facebook/WhatsApp and ESPECIALLY reddit
Do we really want a bunch of apathetic consumers anyway?
I view this as an 80/20 problem. 80% of users don’t post content, 20% post AND care about the platform they post to.
The 20% are mostly here.
I say let them eat the advertisements and our memes a week or two after we post.
I was primarily a lurker on reddit, but cared very much about the community and have left because of it. I really should become more active here, to be a better part of the community.
Anyway, long story short, I’m sure there are lurkers that care and will be/have already migrated.
Can confirm, I’m a lurker who cares and has migrated here.
Well, I was more of a lurker the last few years because reddit was slowly sliding into Facebook territory and it annoyed me but I couldn’t stop scrolling anyway. Spez’s actions were the push I needed to delete my almost 10 year old account the first day of the protest and every day since just reinforces how good of a decision that was.
Now to remember how to interact instead of just scroll…
YES YOU DO
Are you serious? You want all the users you can get who will vote and/or comment. That’s what makes content successful, engagement, in one form or another. This isn’t your own private club, if we want this thing to become successful we want as many reddit refugees as we can get.
No, I don’t.
If I did I would abandon my morals and crawl back into reddit.
Quality>Quantity Always.
My thinking is if you are looking for profitability through eyes on content (ads), then yes. However, I feel content creators are probably higher quality lurkers and I trust their upvotes and downvotes more.
You’re right, this isn’t a private club it’s an open community. I’m not so sure simply having more upvotes makes content successful. I don’t see the correlation between popularity and quality of content. If our content is good, we’ll attract the right community.
While having more users to engage with- even if it’s just for views and upvotes- is a good thing, I don’t think that the “apathetic users” should be the priority or are as important as the active content creators.
Those that don’t care about Reddit’s practices will continue to stick with them, rather than jump ship to a platform that doesn’t have as much content. For most of us already here, we don’t mind having less content, if it means being able to improve in other areas like thoughtful discussion and escaping the Reddit overhead. For those that don’t care about either, they’re not going to be convinced unless there’s the promise of a more enjoyable, casual experience.
There really is only two options then. Either make those people care, or create better content than Reddit to reel them in. The first has already been tried, since the blackout and the infographics spread as much awareness as possible throughout the Reddit community as a whole. For those that are still on Reddit, the only option left is the second one. There’s content there that they want that they’ll lose by switching to another platform, or they’re too accustomed to Reddit to want to make the switch.
This is where the 80/20 comes in, as YeetPics mentioned. The 20% provide the exact thing the 80% are after. If most of the 20% come here, then many in the 80% will follow. So by prioritizing bringing over the people who care about their platform and make content, you’ll by extension win over the more apathetic users anyways.
Everyone should be the priority, you can get both at the same time. Saying you don’t want [x] users is just some cliquey bs
I never did think of that angle, you are probably correct.
Ain’t nothing wrong with being a Reddit lurker and just enjoying the show.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with lurking.
My point is that lurkers don’t create content. The content is what makes reddit want an IPO, and why they’re fucking with API pricing.
Edit: forgot a letter
Reddit had gone too far this time. People are leaving the site like Digg.
I know I’m basically done with Reddit. Just waiting for July 1st to make it official. The biggest thing I was missing from Reddit was r/worldnews. Everything else was basically just a time waster. The fact Lemmy has worldnews is all I need to not have to go back.
Why would we subsidize this small group? Why would we effectively pay them to use Reddit but not everybody else who also contributes to Reddit?”
Wait? Is he talking about mods here? What an absolutely brain dead, mask-off take. Any mod that doesn’t see this statement as a slap in the face is either too bought in to think objectively, or simply likes being taken advantage of. Wow.Not about the mods. Still dumb af.
No, spaz is referring to the 3P app community. We paid the 3Ps and the 3Ps paid next to nothing.
Ah. That makes slightly more sense, but still dumb af to say the 3PAs are just “using Reddit”. They’ve done a far better job for decades now at enabling access to Reddit than their own devs have. I’d say Reddit should look at hiring them, but with how they handled Alien Blue, the devs are probably better off on their own.
Reddit likes to make promises in a crisis that they never follow through on. They’re gonna fix the apps this time, last time it was mod tools.
100% agree. As far as I’m concerned, Apollo is Reddit.
There really needs to be a way to advertise options like Lemmy to people that are still on the site. Many may not know what other options they have.
Buy some ad space lol. I doubt they look that hard beyond just making sure it isn’t explicit.
Honestly you night be on to something
I would tell more people about it but I just don’t think it’s ready yet for the kind of volume Reddit has.
I think lemmy should consider adding rewards to fund the ecosystem.
I said when this started that it wasn’t actually costing them.
Looks like I was right.
Unrealized capital is not a cost.
Reddit has got away without any cost for too long now. Reddit considers users’ posts to be their most valued asset, their property - but they never paid for it to begin with.
