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As a moderator of a large subreddit (who also doesn't particularly care about Reddit), I'm shocked by how much distain spez (the CEO) has for the users of Reddi

As a moderator of a large subreddit (who also doesn't particularly care about Reddit), I'm shocked by how much distain spez (the CEO) has for the users of Reddit. Hey, I get it... running a social media company is really, really hard and monetizing it is even harder. But I just genuinely can't understand how he thinks it makes sense to publicly disparage pretty much everyone who uses his site. There's no way he can make Reddit better if he's decided every single person who contributes content or curation to it is the enemy. I guess he looked at Elon, and thought "man, I hate the people on my site as much as he does, and he's getting away with it." The difference is (and I'm no Elon fan), Elon has enough fans to power through. Nobody even knows who spez is.

downrightmike 3y ago
He could just pay mods, which would be fair as he is profiteering from their labor.
- gkoberger 3y ago
  I don't think any mods care about making money off this, and that's fine. They do it because they love a tv show, hobby or (in my case) city. All he needs to do is... not despise the people who his company is built on.
- gingerrr 3y ago
  I read a comment on one of the many other threads over the last week that paying moderators changes Reddit's liability under section 230 to be stricter. With volunteer moderators, the mods themselves are considered users instead of employees of the company and that apparently matters in a tangible sense. Trying to find the comment since I'm not the expert who was mentioning, but it's likely not that easy/why they haven't just done this already, not counting the extra cost.
  - Scion9066 3y ago
    I'm not sure why them being employees would change their liability since section 230 was explicitly set up to protect moderation decisions by the host. As long as the content is created by third parties and they aren't the ones creating the content, they should be protected. Edit: Were you referring to this post? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36320043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36320043
    - gingerrr 3y ago
      Still haven't found the comment! I'm no lawyer, but iirc it was that paid moderators making content approvals would end up turning them into publishers, where bc they're volunteers they're currently 3rd parties to Reddit, so if they approve illegal content now it can't hurt Reddit because of section 230. Basically because mods don't just remove, but they approve content, paying them as 1st parties gets you into risky "publisher" territory. edit: YOU FOUND IT. thank you!! your search-fu is a long lock of hair and mine is but an eyelash
      - cmeacham98 3y ago
        https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/ https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre... That comment is misinformation. Moderating your website, whether through volunteers or paid moderators, does not change your liability under Section 230. Pro tip: if you ever see a comment about Section 230 using the terms "publisher"/"platform", there's a 99.9% chance it is wrong and repeating one of several common misconceptions.
        gingerrr 3y ago
        The article you linked quite literally says: > There may be situations in which a court decides that those protections do not apply to a given piece of content Which is all someone needs to lose, is section 230 protections over 1 piece of content, to lose a defamation lawsuit about that piece of content - which is what the comment I was linked was discussing. Seems pretty apt to me? All of the other conversations about moderation in that article apply to removing content. Reddit moderators often review and approve flagged and auto-removed content, making it available on the site by their actions; I believe the commenter I paraphrased was saying that that action crosses the line into content creation, which even your article says introduces liability for bad content. That's a fair point about the publisher/platform thing - the original comment was talking about literal newspaper publishers as an analogue of a content creator under section 230. I just plucked the word publisher and ran with it thinking it was a meaningful term wrt the law! Good read. edit: Either way though that commenter said the law hasn't been decided by court case around this question yet so it's all hypothetical!
vintagetroisi 3y ago
Been on Reddit for about 14 years. Never knew of the guy until a couple months ago. The amount of idiotic things I've heard quoted is ridiculous. Good for laughs though.
- gkoberger 3y ago
  He founded Reddit, left relatively early, and came back in 2015. Back in 2016, The_Donald members started posting "fuck u/spez" all over Reddit after he banned a Pizzagate subreddit. He went in and edited a bunch of their comments to say "fuck u/the_donald" instead, and there was a pretty big backlash. Hey, I get it... it's gotta suck to have a bunch of people on your site hate you for the past 8 years. At some point it wears you down, and I bet that's what we're seeing now. I bet the things he's thought and said to his friends and coworkers for the past few years have been so normalized for him that he sees no problem saying them to the press. But still, I don't think this is the way to respond.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - benrapscallion 3y ago
    He was interviewed by YC’s Jessica Livingston recently where he puts on quite the act. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steve-huffman-co-founder-ceo-of-reddit/id1677066062?i=1000610113899 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steve-huffman-co-found...
trevmckendrick 3y ago
You're lumping the mods & userbase together. He is not. He's betting the mods don't represent how most users feel.
- gkoberger 3y ago
  Yup, agreed. On my sub, most people agree with the blackout. But there's a huge swell of people who are 100% on his side, and he's done a great job of pitting users against mods and framing mods as power-hungry jerks who are anti-democracy (in order to distract from the fact that he makes decisions with no accountability).
  - ortusdux 3y ago
    I wonder what the larger subreddits would look like if they were unmoderated. Maybe that would be a better way for mods to protest at this point.
  - liquidpele 3y ago
    > framing mods as power-hungry jerks who are anti-democracy He’s not wrong. There’s something about giving community power to people with the free time and willingness to do that work for free.
- znpy 3y ago
  And he’s not totally wrong in my opinion. Some of the subreddits i often browse (regional ones) are often moderated in a questionable way. But the mods have been in there for literally more than a decade, which makes them similar to landed gentry.
znpy 3y ago
I learned about spez when i took the first web application engineering course from udavity in like 2011… otherwise wouldn’t have learned.
znpy 3y ago
On the other hand though, Elon has shown that it is possible to take unpopular decisions irrespective of the community opinions, if such decisions are believed to be necessary. Twitter was near bankrupt if my understanding is correct, and that would have led to some restructuring and/or firing anyway (Elon or not).
belter 3y ago
He is truly shattering his Peter Principle...

downrightmike 3y ago

He could just pay mods, which would be fair as he is profiteering from their labor.

gkoberger 3y ago
I don't think any mods care about making money off this, and that's fine. They do it because they love a tv show, hobby or (in my case) city. All he needs to do is... not despise the people who his company is built on.
gingerrr 3y ago
I read a comment on one of the many other threads over the last week that paying moderators changes Reddit's liability under section 230 to be stricter. With volunteer moderators, the mods themselves are considered users instead of employees of the company and that apparently matters in a tangible sense. Trying to find the comment since I'm not the expert who was mentioning, but it's likely not that easy/why they haven't just done this already, not counting the extra cost.
- Scion9066 3y ago
  I'm not sure why them being employees would change their liability since section 230 was explicitly set up to protect moderation decisions by the host. As long as the content is created by third parties and they aren't the ones creating the content, they should be protected. Edit: Were you referring to this post? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36320043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36320043
  - gingerrr 3y ago
    Still haven't found the comment! I'm no lawyer, but iirc it was that paid moderators making content approvals would end up turning them into publishers, where bc they're volunteers they're currently 3rd parties to Reddit, so if they approve illegal content now it can't hurt Reddit because of section 230. Basically because mods don't just remove, but they approve content, paying them as 1st parties gets you into risky "publisher" territory. edit: YOU FOUND IT. thank you!! your search-fu is a long lock of hair and mine is but an eyelash
    - cmeacham98 3y ago
      https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/ https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre... That comment is misinformation. Moderating your website, whether through volunteers or paid moderators, does not change your liability under Section 230. Pro tip: if you ever see a comment about Section 230 using the terms "publisher"/"platform", there's a 99.9% chance it is wrong and repeating one of several common misconceptions.
      - gingerrr 3y ago
        The article you linked quite literally says: > There may be situations in which a court decides that those protections do not apply to a given piece of content Which is all someone needs to lose, is section 230 protections over 1 piece of content, to lose a defamation lawsuit about that piece of content - which is what the comment I was linked was discussing. Seems pretty apt to me? All of the other conversations about moderation in that article apply to removing content. Reddit moderators often review and approve flagged and auto-removed content, making it available on the site by their actions; I believe the commenter I paraphrased was saying that that action crosses the line into content creation, which even your article says introduces liability for bad content. That's a fair point about the publisher/platform thing - the original comment was talking about literal newspaper publishers as an analogue of a content creator under section 230. I just plucked the word publisher and ran with it thinking it was a meaningful term wrt the law! Good read. edit: Either way though that commenter said the law hasn't been decided by court case around this question yet so it's all hypothetical!

vintagetroisi 3y ago

Been on Reddit for about 14 years. Never knew of the guy until a couple months ago. The amount of idiotic things I've heard quoted is ridiculous. Good for laughs though.

gkoberger 3y ago
He founded Reddit, left relatively early, and came back in 2015. Back in 2016, The_Donald members started posting "fuck u/spez" all over Reddit after he banned a Pizzagate subreddit. He went in and edited a bunch of their comments to say "fuck u/the_donald" instead, and there was a pretty big backlash. Hey, I get it... it's gotta suck to have a bunch of people on your site hate you for the past 8 years. At some point it wears you down, and I bet that's what we're seeing now. I bet the things he's thought and said to his friends and coworkers for the past few years have been so normalized for him that he sees no problem saying them to the press. But still, I don't think this is the way to respond.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- benrapscallion 3y ago
  He was interviewed by YC’s Jessica Livingston recently where he puts on quite the act. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steve-huffman-co-founder-ceo-of-reddit/id1677066062?i=1000610113899 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steve-huffman-co-found...

trevmckendrick 3y ago

You're lumping the mods & userbase together. He is not. He's betting the mods don't represent how most users feel.

gkoberger 3y ago
Yup, agreed. On my sub, most people agree with the blackout. But there's a huge swell of people who are 100% on his side, and he's done a great job of pitting users against mods and framing mods as power-hungry jerks who are anti-democracy (in order to distract from the fact that he makes decisions with no accountability).
- ortusdux 3y ago
  I wonder what the larger subreddits would look like if they were unmoderated. Maybe that would be a better way for mods to protest at this point.
- liquidpele 3y ago
  > framing mods as power-hungry jerks who are anti-democracy He’s not wrong. There’s something about giving community power to people with the free time and willingness to do that work for free.
znpy 3y ago
And he’s not totally wrong in my opinion. Some of the subreddits i often browse (regional ones) are often moderated in a questionable way. But the mods have been in there for literally more than a decade, which makes them similar to landed gentry.

znpy 3y ago

I learned about spez when i took the first web application engineering course from udavity in like 2011… otherwise wouldn’t have learned.

znpy 3y ago

On the other hand though, Elon has shown that it is possible to take unpopular decisions irrespective of the community opinions, if such decisions are believed to be necessary. Twitter was near bankrupt if my understanding is correct, and that would have led to some restructuring and/or firing anyway (Elon or not).

belter 3y ago

He is truly shattering his Peter Principle...