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Nothing, but it would result in even more backlash. I could see them doing this for the most popular subreddits like r/videos, but if you start doing this for

by dimmke 3y ago

Nothing, but it would result in even more backlash. I could see them doing this for the most popular subreddits like r/videos, but if you start doing this for even medium sized subreddits it’s going to have even more severe consequences. People aren’t stupid, and they aren’t as docile as you think. These theoretical questions to me are the equivalent of “Why didn’t the US just kill every person they encountered in Vietnam that was a male of fighting age instead of fighting against an insurgency? Well, they could have. They had the ability to. And it probably would have resulted in a different outcome. But it would had some pretty severe consequences.

jacquesm 3y ago
> Nothing, but it would result in even more backlash. I doubt that. But it's fine to disagree about such things, the mods are actually showing reddit that they are a risk factor themselves and you can bet that counter insurgency planning is underway. The 'vocal minority' is a minority. I don't think reddit would be above killing of a few hundred (or even a few thousand) accounts that they consider to be trouble makers (whether or not that is true is something else).
riffraff 3y ago
> People aren’t stupid, and they aren’t as docile as you think. People have a very short attention span and a very low level of commitment if they're not directly impacted. Remember the outrage about Musk on Twitter? It's all but died down. Or the various attempts to create some alt-right social networks. People don't have an obvious other place to go, and the majority of the community of /r/whatever will just go to /r/whatever-else.
- xeromal 3y ago
  This right here. I've been on reddit since 2010 or so and the dejure "most important thing in the world to talk about" is ever changing. Hong Kong, COVID-19, Ukraine, Harambe, Victory (the AMA person?), the great subreddit purge to name a few. Everyone claims they're going to delete reddit but will simply forget about it in a few weeks. haha
  - dimmke 3y ago
    I've been on Reddit since 2009, and never cared about any of that stuff or claimed I was going to leave Reddit over it. I absolutely am leaving Reddit over this. I am keeping my account, because I might need it to promote my business (it still has utility in that area and I am pragmatic, I am not going to not do something that could help my business for ideological reasons), but I will no longer be using it on a daily basis or contributing comments/posts unless they back away from this.
    - xeromal 3y ago
      I'm sure you will. I'm saying the population as a whole won't.
      - dimmke 3y ago
        You're saying a large percentage of the current userbase won't (probably >90%) However, all users aren't the same. While I did not moderate any subreddits, I contributed substantially to several small ones in the way of posts, upvotes and thoughtful content. That's the stuff that really brings value to Reddit - it's the long tail. And even if the percentages are right, if the 5-10% that leave are some of the most valuable users of the site it will have a HUGE effect. There are things about Reddit that are not widely known - the often thrown around stat of a small number of accounts moderating a huge number of subreddits is the tip of the iceberg. There's also a subreddit that you only get invited to if you have over 100k comment karma, called the Century Club. That's been around for a long time. Reddit knows it needs power users, not lurkers that add no value but advertisement impressions. If they are trying to pivot to just become a site where you can infinite scroll memes and focus on the big subreddits, then they're directly positioning themselves to compete with Facebook and TikTok which seems pretty bad strategically IMO. It definitely doesn't bode well for the next decade of Reddit.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        > If they are trying to pivot to just become a site where you can infinite scroll memes and focus on the big subreddits ...
- dimmke 3y ago
  Ultimately, we can only speculate on what's going to happen. Neither of us can say conclusively, we can't see the future. All I can say is that subreddits are built on the idea of autonomy - it's not just that they have their own mods. It's that this is a semi autonomous community. If you look at a lot of the subreddits that decided to go dark, their moderation held polls/voting about it and asked for community input. Reddit admins are there as a safeguard - in the case of a subreddit doing something illegal or so unsavory it poses a larger threat to the site. In the past over the last 10 years, this model has mostly worked. Even the subreddit r/the_donald, during the lead up to it being banned the moderators there described having discussions with the administration about what they would have to do to avoid being banned. Just because Reddit has always had the ability to be more forceful doesn't mean they've exercised it. The action people keep suggesting here - a hand wave and all of a sudden these subreddits are "nationalized" (for lack of a better term) like a South American dictator taking over an oil company would completely shatter the trust that has been built, and it would have a lot of effects on the site. Just like when the South American country starts nationalizing companies. Capital flees. They might not even be visible right away, and it probably wouldn't result in Reddit itself closing down but I am confident it would ultimately harm Reddit substantially (as opposed to many of the comments in this thread claiming it would have no adverse effect.) Using Twitter as an example when the acquisition isn't even a year old isn't valid, in my opinion. Talk to me in 2 years.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > All I can say is that subreddits are built on the idea of autonomy On the illusion of autonomy. > Using Twitter as an example when the acquisition isn't even a year old isn't valid, in my opinion. Talk to me in 2 years. Then why join this debate in the first place?
    - dimmke 3y ago
      >On the illusion of autonomy. This is the part that your side doesn't get - having power to do something and not using it doesn't mean you're giving off an "illusion". Everybody who runs a subreddit is fully aware that Reddit admins have the power to shut them down if necessary, but the precedent that has been set is that there would be a lot of communication or they'd have to be doing something flagrantly illegal for that to happen. I don't understand why this is so hard to understand conceptually - because it's how the international community works. Countries generally get sanctioned, not invaded. Yes, it's not a perfect system. Yes, countries like the United States stage coups and regime changes, but it is better than the old way of invading and trying to rule a country like they're a colony. >Then why join this debate in the first place? Because the goalpost I keep seeing put in place to frame this discussion is that if Reddit doesn't immediately collapse after shutting down third party apps, then all the protests made no difference and clearly nothing has changed. My point is that it might take multiple years before we see how hollowed out the site has truly become. And it might still be a very popular website from a traffic perspective, but I believe it will have lost the core "engine" that makes it work. Also I have a lot of work to do that I don't want to do and commenting on here is a way that I procrastinate but I think this is probably a safe assumption for most people spending their morning commenting here.

by dimmke 3y ago

jacquesm 3y ago

> Nothing, but it would result in even more backlash. I doubt that. But it's fine to disagree about such things, the mods are actually showing reddit that they are a risk factor themselves and you can bet that counter insurgency planning is underway. The 'vocal minority' is a minority. I don't think reddit would be above killing of a few hundred (or even a few thousand) accounts that they consider to be trouble makers (whether or not that is true is something else).

riffraff 3y ago

> People aren’t stupid, and they aren’t as docile as you think. People have a very short attention span and a very low level of commitment if they're not directly impacted. Remember the outrage about Musk on Twitter? It's all but died down. Or the various attempts to create some alt-right social networks. People don't have an obvious other place to go, and the majority of the community of /r/whatever will just go to /r/whatever-else.

xeromal 3y ago
This right here. I've been on reddit since 2010 or so and the dejure "most important thing in the world to talk about" is ever changing. Hong Kong, COVID-19, Ukraine, Harambe, Victory (the AMA person?), the great subreddit purge to name a few. Everyone claims they're going to delete reddit but will simply forget about it in a few weeks. haha
- dimmke 3y ago
  I've been on Reddit since 2009, and never cared about any of that stuff or claimed I was going to leave Reddit over it. I absolutely am leaving Reddit over this. I am keeping my account, because I might need it to promote my business (it still has utility in that area and I am pragmatic, I am not going to not do something that could help my business for ideological reasons), but I will no longer be using it on a daily basis or contributing comments/posts unless they back away from this.
  - xeromal 3y ago
    I'm sure you will. I'm saying the population as a whole won't.
    - dimmke 3y ago
      You're saying a large percentage of the current userbase won't (probably >90%) However, all users aren't the same. While I did not moderate any subreddits, I contributed substantially to several small ones in the way of posts, upvotes and thoughtful content. That's the stuff that really brings value to Reddit - it's the long tail. And even if the percentages are right, if the 5-10% that leave are some of the most valuable users of the site it will have a HUGE effect. There are things about Reddit that are not widely known - the often thrown around stat of a small number of accounts moderating a huge number of subreddits is the tip of the iceberg. There's also a subreddit that you only get invited to if you have over 100k comment karma, called the Century Club. That's been around for a long time. Reddit knows it needs power users, not lurkers that add no value but advertisement impressions. If they are trying to pivot to just become a site where you can infinite scroll memes and focus on the big subreddits, then they're directly positioning themselves to compete with Facebook and TikTok which seems pretty bad strategically IMO. It definitely doesn't bode well for the next decade of Reddit.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        > If they are trying to pivot to just become a site where you can infinite scroll memes and focus on the big subreddits ...
dimmke 3y ago
Ultimately, we can only speculate on what's going to happen. Neither of us can say conclusively, we can't see the future. All I can say is that subreddits are built on the idea of autonomy - it's not just that they have their own mods. It's that this is a semi autonomous community. If you look at a lot of the subreddits that decided to go dark, their moderation held polls/voting about it and asked for community input. Reddit admins are there as a safeguard - in the case of a subreddit doing something illegal or so unsavory it poses a larger threat to the site. In the past over the last 10 years, this model has mostly worked. Even the subreddit r/the_donald, during the lead up to it being banned the moderators there described having discussions with the administration about what they would have to do to avoid being banned. Just because Reddit has always had the ability to be more forceful doesn't mean they've exercised it. The action people keep suggesting here - a hand wave and all of a sudden these subreddits are "nationalized" (for lack of a better term) like a South American dictator taking over an oil company would completely shatter the trust that has been built, and it would have a lot of effects on the site. Just like when the South American country starts nationalizing companies. Capital flees. They might not even be visible right away, and it probably wouldn't result in Reddit itself closing down but I am confident it would ultimately harm Reddit substantially (as opposed to many of the comments in this thread claiming it would have no adverse effect.) Using Twitter as an example when the acquisition isn't even a year old isn't valid, in my opinion. Talk to me in 2 years.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > All I can say is that subreddits are built on the idea of autonomy On the illusion of autonomy. > Using Twitter as an example when the acquisition isn't even a year old isn't valid, in my opinion. Talk to me in 2 years. Then why join this debate in the first place?
  - dimmke 3y ago
    >On the illusion of autonomy. This is the part that your side doesn't get - having power to do something and not using it doesn't mean you're giving off an "illusion". Everybody who runs a subreddit is fully aware that Reddit admins have the power to shut them down if necessary, but the precedent that has been set is that there would be a lot of communication or they'd have to be doing something flagrantly illegal for that to happen. I don't understand why this is so hard to understand conceptually - because it's how the international community works. Countries generally get sanctioned, not invaded. Yes, it's not a perfect system. Yes, countries like the United States stage coups and regime changes, but it is better than the old way of invading and trying to rule a country like they're a colony. >Then why join this debate in the first place? Because the goalpost I keep seeing put in place to frame this discussion is that if Reddit doesn't immediately collapse after shutting down third party apps, then all the protests made no difference and clearly nothing has changed. My point is that it might take multiple years before we see how hollowed out the site has truly become. And it might still be a very popular website from a traffic perspective, but I believe it will have lost the core "engine" that makes it work. Also I have a lot of work to do that I don't want to do and commenting on here is a way that I procrastinate but I think this is probably a safe assumption for most people spending their morning commenting here.