Reddit goes dark

[bilateralrope]

The mods going on strike would be quicker at getting the message through to anyone willing to listen.

[bilateralrope]

Reddit Ramps Up Its Threats To Protesting Mods, As Ad Buyers Leave

from the off-with-their-heads dept
Thu, Jun 29th 2023 11:57am - Mike Masnick

The landed gentry are only in charge until the king comes to town and chops off a few heads. At least that seems to be the case at Reddit, where CEO Steve Huffman pretended his complaints about current moderators — who were protesting his decision to effectively cut off API access to tons of useful tools by jacking up the price on it to unsupportable levels — was about making Reddit more “democratic.”

Except, that’s clearly not the case. For weeks now, Reddit has been ratcheting up the threats to various moderators of subreddits to try to force them to reopen.

The latest is that Reddit started contacting more mods of protesting subs (most have reopened, but many are still engaging in acts of protest) telling them they had 48 hours to tell the company their plans for reopening. Quickly after that, they issued an ultimatum: closed subreddits must reopen.

“This community remaining closed to its [millions of] members cannot continue” beyond the deadline, the admin (Reddit employee) account ModCodeofConduct wrote in a note to one of the biggest Reddit communities that’s still private.

After a mod replied, ModCodeofConduct went even further. “[Millions of] members have lost complete access to this community and that is not going to continue,” the account said. “Wanting to take time to consider future moderation plans is fine, but that must be done in at least a ‘restricted’ setting. This community will not remain private beyond the timeframe we’ve allowed for confirmation of plans here.”

In a conversation with moderators of a different subreddit, ModCodeofConduct told them that “continued violation of [Rule 4 of the Moderator Code of Conduct] over the next 31 hours will result in further action.” Rule 4 of that document is “Be Active and Engaged.” That subreddit has since reopened, though in an “archive” mode where new posts will be automatically removed.

The thing is, in many of these subreddits, the users voted in favor of going private. So, for all of Huffman’s nonsense talk about “democracy” and getting rid of what he preposterously called “the landed gentry,” the reality is the opposite. It’s Huffman’s way, or you’re out.

Indeed, there are already reports of Reddit admins being willing to help stage coups to oust protesting mods and install others in their place. Meanwhile, there’s talk of renewed protests on July 1st (the day the API changes go into effect), though who knows how well that will go.

Meanwhile, I’ve seen lots of reports noting that Redidt’s traffic, after an initial dip, has returned to normal, but it’s possible that some of that is just people gawking at the spectacle of the protesting subs that were covered in John Oliver images.

But, perhaps a more concerning issue regarding Huffman’s plans to take the company public in the near future, is that the same reports saying traffic has returned to normal, are noting that traffic to Reddit’s advertising portal… has dropped noticeably.

However, Similarweb told Gizmodo traffic to the ads.reddit.com portal, where advertisers can buy ads and measure their impact, has dipped. Before the first blackout began, the ads site averaged about 14,900 visits per day. Beginning on June 13, though, the ads site averaged about 11,800 visits per day, a 20% decrease.

For June 20 and 21, the most recent days for which Similarweb has estimates, the ads site got in the range of 7,500 to 9,000 visits, Carr explained, meaning that ad-buying traffic has continued to drop.

Next thing you know, we’ll be hearing that Huffman has hired Linda Yaccarino to be the new CEO….

Looks like he is emulating Musk by messing with moderation and scaring away customers.


Also, there is a reddit thread about how Reddit might be violating the CCPA and GDPR.

The planned Reddit IPO is going to be interesting.

[Broomstick]

These tech bros don't seem to understand that you can't force people to buy your product. Or rather, you can't force people to manufacturer a product for you, nor can you force people to advertise on your platform. This is yet another thing destroyed by greed.

[bobalot]

They should stick to making submarines that implode.

[Broomstick]

Only if the tech bros themselves are on those subs.

[bobalot]

Reddit Ramps Up Its Threats To Protesting Mods, As Ad Buyers Leave
The landed gentry are only in charge until the king comes to town and chops off a few heads. At least that seems to be the case at Reddit, where CEO Steve Huffman pretended his complaints about current moderators — who were protesting his decision to effectively cut off API access to tons of useful tools by jacking up the price on it to unsupportable levels — was about making Reddit more “democratic.”

Except, that’s clearly not the case. For weeks now, Reddit has been ratcheting up the threats to various moderators of subreddits to try to force them to reopen.

The latest is that Reddit started contacting more mods of protesting subs (most have reopened, but many are still engaging in acts of protest) telling them they had 48 hours to tell the company their plans for reopening. Quickly after that, they issued an ultimatum: closed subreddits must reopen.

“This community remaining closed to its [millions of] members cannot continue” beyond the deadline, the admin (Reddit employee) account ModCodeofConduct wrote in a note to one of the biggest Reddit communities that’s still private.

After a mod replied, ModCodeofConduct went even further. “[Millions of] members have lost complete access to this community and that is not going to continue,” the account said. “Wanting to take time to consider future moderation plans is fine, but that must be done in at least a ‘restricted’ setting. This community will not remain private beyond the timeframe we’ve allowed for confirmation of plans here.”

In a conversation with moderators of a different subreddit, ModCodeofConduct told them that “continued violation of [Rule 4 of the Moderator Code of Conduct] over the next 31 hours will result in further action.” Rule 4 of that document is “Be Active and Engaged.” That subreddit has since reopened, though in an “archive” mode where new posts will be automatically removed.

The thing is, in many of these subreddits, the users voted in favor of going private. So, for all of Huffman’s nonsense talk about “democracy” and getting rid of what he preposterously called “the landed gentry,” the reality is the opposite. It’s Huffman’s way, or you’re out.

Indeed, there are already reports of Reddit admins being willing to help stage coups to oust protesting mods and install others in their place. Meanwhile, there’s talk of renewed protests on July 1st (the day the API changes go into effect), though who knows how well that will go.

Meanwhile, I’ve seen lots of reports noting that Redidt’s traffic, after an initial dip, has returned to normal, but it’s possible that some of that is just people gawking at the spectacle of the protesting subs that were covered in John Oliver images.

But, perhaps a more concerning issue regarding Huffman’s plans to take the company public in the near future, is that the same reports saying traffic has returned to normal, are noting that traffic to Reddit’s advertising portal… has dropped noticeably.

However, Similarweb told Gizmodo traffic to the ads.reddit.com portal, where advertisers can buy ads and measure their impact, has dipped. Before the first blackout began, the ads site averaged about 14,900 visits per day. Beginning on June 13, though, the ads site averaged about 11,800 visits per day, a 20% decrease.

For June 20 and 21, the most recent days for which Similarweb has estimates, the ads site got in the range of 7,500 to 9,000 visits, Carr explained, meaning that ad-buying traffic has continued to drop.

Next thing you know, we’ll be hearing that Huffman has hired Linda Yaccarino to be the new CEO….

Source

[bobalot]

Subreddits like /r/zerowastehad to close due to massive spam bot activity and reddit effectively took away the third party moderator tools to manage it.

Hi everyone. Really sorry about this. There's currently a plague of bots going around Reddit promoting TEMU by making spam comments on posts to try to drive traffic to their profiles. I just finished removing several dozen, but according to SpambotSwatter they are currently submitting comments at a rate that has led to a 200k+ backlog in their spam detection system. Because these can't be detected by AutoModerator, the fact that our normal bot for banning users like this is down (possibly forever,) and Reddit doesn't provide any other tools to help with this kind of influx, we will have to close the subreddit to comments until Reddit provides us with tools to deal with this wave of bots.

In the meantime, if you'd like to partake in discussion, please visit our Lemmy community.

[bilateralrope]

Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit goes extremely NSFW in Reddit protest

Reddit corpo overlords are cracking down, mods say

By Michael McWhertor
@MikeMcWhertor
Jul 7, 2023, 12:30pm EDT

The main Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit, r/cyberpunkgame, is protesting against recent changes to the Reddit platform by flooding the community with nudity and other NSFW (not safe for work) content, part of the overall pushback against Reddit’s API changes. Members of the subreddit, which boasts more than 1.1 million Cyberpunk fans, have been posting naked versions of their 2077 characters alongside NSFW and “adults-only” content like artwork and players wielding dildos in the game.

A moderator on the Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit says that Reddit administrators, using the site’s Moderator Code of Conduct account, have since reached out to the r/cyberpunkgame mod team, “demanding [they] switch back.”

“They didn’t allow us to reply, so we couldn’t explain that this is a subreddit for an 18+ game, nor has any of our content changed,” subreddit moderator Tabnam wrote on Wednesday. “This subreddit should have been NSFW already, but we’d never thought to change it until recently.

“Until we change it back we’re in violation of Reddit’s sitewide rules. We’re not going to change it back, because this is a sexually explicit game, and also fuck them.”

Moderators of other subreddits that have recently flagged themselves as NSFW, including r/PICS and r/military, say they received similar messages from Reddit’s Mod Code of Conduct team, warning them that they are “inaccurately labeling” their communities as NSFW. On Thursday, a moderator for r/PICS posted the following message, said to be from the Mod Code of Conduct team:

This is a final warning for inaccurately labeling your community NSFW which is a violation of the Mod Code of Conduct rule 2. Your subreddit has not historically been considered NSFW nor would they under our current policies.

Please immediately correct the NSFW labeling on your subreddit. Failure to do so will result in action being taken on your moderator team by the end of this week. This means moderators involved in this activity will be removed from this mod team. Moderators may also be subject to additional actions, e.g., losing the ability to join mod teams in the future.

Lastly, if you suddenly begin to post, or approve content that features sexually explicit content to your community in order to justify the NSFW label, we will immediately remove and permanently suspend moderators who have participated in this action.

Moderators of r/PICS and r/military have since removed their NSFW flags. Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit moderators have not yet backed down, and say they’ll retreat to a secondary subreddit, r/LowSodiumCyberpunk, should the main channel face closure or action against its moderators.

Reddit does not run advertising on subreddits with the NSFW designation. Those adults-only subreddits also require users to log in to a Reddit account or attest that they are at least 18 years old.

Polygon has reached out to Reddit for comment on the Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit protest and will update this story when the company responds.

Lets see Reddit argue that unmodified screenshots from the game a subreddit is about should be forbidden. Because that's what they will be saying if they remove the NSFW setting.

[Solauren]

Reddit is a privately owned company. Really, if they decide 'no nudity even if the game has it', they are legally within their rights to do so.

[Dominus Atheos]

All "legally within their rights to do so" means is that the users can't sue them. Users and mods are also legally within their rights to protest reddit admins by posting nudity anyway. All reddit can do is ban them.

[bilateralrope]

Reddit mods fear spam overload as BotDefense leaves “antagonistic” Reddit

Mod-made tool claims to have banned 144,926 spambot accounts.
SCHARON HARDING - 7/8/2023, 7:51 AM

The Reddit community is still reckoning with the consequences of the platform's API price hike. The changes have led to the shuttering of numerous third-party Reddit apps and have pushed several important communities, like the Ask Me Anything (AMAs) organizers, to reduce or end their presence on the site.

The latest group to announce its departure is BotDefense. BotDefense, which helps removes rogue submission and comment bots from Reddit and which is maintained by volunteer moderators, is said to help moderate 3,650 subreddits. BotDefense's creator told Ars Technica that the team is now quitting over Reddit's "antagonistic actions" toward moderators and developers, with concerning implications for spam moderation on some large subreddits like r/space.

Valued bot fighter

BotDefense started in 2019 as a volunteer project and has been run by volunteer mods, known as "dequeued" and "abrownn" on Reddit. Since then, it claims to have populated its ban list with 144,926 accounts, and it helps moderate subreddits with huge followings, like r/gaming (37.4 million members), /r/aww (34.2 million), r/music (32.4 million), r/Jokes (26.2 million), r/space (23.5 million), and /r/LifeProTips (22.2 million). Dequeued told Ars that other large subreddits BotDefense helps moderates include /r/food, /r/EarthPorn, /r/DIY, and /r/mildlyinteresting.

On Wednesday, dequeued announced that BotDefense is ceasing operations. BotDefense has already stopped accepting bot account submissions and will disable future action on bots. BotDefense "will continue to review appeals and process unbans for a minimum of 90 days or until Reddit breaks the code running BotDefense," the announcement said. The announcement also advised "keeping BotDefense as a moderator through October 3rd so any future unbans can be processed."

The situation also highlights the importance of Pushshift, which recently lost Reddit API access due to a "miscommunication," according to Ars Technica sister site Wired—but then regained it. Pushshift is run by the Network Contagion Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, and is said to be popular among Reddit's thousands of volunteer moderators. As a non-commercial and educational tool, Pushshift has an exemption to Reddit's new API pricing scheme, but dequeued told Ars Technica that restrictions Reddit has imposed have "made it cumbersome to use." Further, "most of the users who submit bots to BotDefense no longer have access," the mod said.

That's important because "Pushshift is critical to our efforts to detect repost bots, comment copy bots, bots that use ChatGPT to mimic human activity, and other types of malicious bots," dequeued told Ars Technica. "Pushshift has a very detailed system for searching through past content. We use it to detect these bots. Reddit is much more limiting in searching for past posts, and the API doesn't support searching for comments."

Like other moderators Ars has spoken to, dequeued cited shuttered third-party Reddit apps, like Apollo and RIF Is Fun, as key moderation tools. dequeued also pointed to "apps that acted as front-ends to Pushshift, which made it easier for users to research malicious accounts" as critical to BotDefense's efforts.

Some third-party Reddit apps, like Narwhal, are still available and have moved to paid models. However, devs Ars has spoken with have shown uncertainty around how sustainable these approaches are.

Meanwhile, dequeued said that Reddit's "few minor gestures" to keep a small number of third-party apps alive doesn't fix the poor reputation the company now has with BotDefense.

Dequeued, who said they've been moderating for nearly nine years, said Reddit's "antagonistic actions" toward devs and mods are the only reason BotDefense is closing. The moderator said there were plans for future tools, like a new machine learning system for detecting "many more" bots. Before the API battle turned ugly, dequeued had no plans to stop working on BotDefense.

Reddit's spam problem

While Reddit Content Policy violations have been a hot topic lately, as moderators have protested Reddit's actions by adding not-safe-for-work (NSFW) tags or hyper-focusing on John Oliver, Reddit's largest content removal issue is usually spam.

A user who asked for privacy reasons to be identified by their Reddit name, Merari01, and who moderates the r/LifeProTips subreddit told Ars that BotDefense has been crucial because it's time consuming to manually fight spam bot activity. Merari01 also underscored the challenges of fighting spam bots, with karma being sold cheaply.

The moderator said:

With BotDefense shutting down, [fewer] spam bots will be caught, banned, and reported to site admins, which means more will be able to be sold. ... The inevitable end result is that more people will be robbed of their money and/ or personal details and that more conversations will be manipulated.

Reddit's 2022 Transparency Report said spam, which includes karma farming and scams, represented 79.6 percent of content removed by Reddit administrators last year.

The company said 97,264,778 spam posts and comments and 2,729,489 spam private messages were removed.

Reddit says it has over 100,000 subreddits and claimed in its 2022 report that 98.3 percent of spam post and comment removals were flagged by Reddit automation. But the subreddits that have relied on BotDefense are uncertain about managing their subreddits without the tool, and the tool's impending departure are new signs of a deteriorating Reddit community.

In response to BotDefense's announcement, a Reddit user going by Dacvak who moderates the r/gaming subreddit using BotDefense said:

What an enormous loss to the site and its users. The average person has no idea how much botspam there would be without you guys, and it’s worth noting that Reddit does not have effective tools for combating the growing complexity and number of bots.

This place will slowly but surely become a cesspool of bot-driving garbage, and I don’t blame anyone but Reddit for that.

Moderators have shared their skepticism with Ars about Reddit's long-term ability to update and maintain its own mod tools like AutoMod. Many also wonder if automated moderation tools can really police nuanced Reddit discussions that have been ongoing for years.

Reddit didn't respond to Ars' request for comment on BotDefense closing, how Reddit fights spam bots and karma farms, or about users quitting Reddit.

Meanwhile, at the protests...

As Reddit looks for new revenue from the API changes that took effect July 1, frustrated users have already left, including the heads of popular communities, like the Java Team at Mojang Studios' Minecraft. API pricing protests originally started on June 12, when over 8,800 subreddits promised to go private during a 48-hour period. As of this writing, 2,108 subreddits are still dark, as per the Reddark_247 tracker.

Reddit has responded by removing protesting moderators, threatening to re-open private subreddits, and urging mods of protesting communities to remove their communities' NSFW label.

However, this approach has led to confusion on subreddits that may have moved to NSFW status for non-protest reasons. As spotted by The Verge, the moderators of r/military claimed on Thursday that "this is a subreddit for those in the military and with that comes a NSFW environment. To be fair, this subreddit should have been NSFW already, but we’d never thought to change it until recently."

Regardless of whether or not the subreddits' move to NSFW was totally unrelated to the protest, the uncertainty is indicative of obstacles in Reddit's current ability to trust moderators to do what they've done for years for free—and to have open dialogue with mods working with communities with unique needs. The r/military subreddit has since removed its NSFW label, saying it was unable to speak with Reddit about the situation.

With only a week having passed since Reddit implemented new API rules, it's alarming to see so many notable community members decide that their volunteer efforts and innovations are no longer worth providing.

Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast, is the largest shareholder in Reddit.

I wonder how much Reddit is going to have to spend to get spambot protection that they used to get for free.

[LadyTevar]

Oh... wow.

There's days on here I'll log in and see 2-10 spam posts that have to be removed. I really can't imagine how two people ran a Botkiller on Reddit.

[madd0c0t0r2]

Dndmemes going VERY nsfw has triggered Reddit to remove the mods.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/young-di ... a23f1e84d9

[LadyTevar]

Dndmemes going VERY nsfw has triggered Reddit to remove the mods.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/young-di ... a23f1e84d9

Do I want to know how DNDMemes and "too young" Disney Princesses tie together?

[bilateralrope]

Reddit Tells Protesting Mods It Will Remove Them If They Don’t Stop, As Reddit’s Subreddit For The Blind Can No Longer Be Moderated By Blind Users

from the so-much-for-democracy dept
Mon, Jul 10th 2023 12:13pm - Mike Masnick

As you’ll recall, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman whined about what he called the “landed gentry” among moderators of subreddits that were protesting his ridiculous extractive API changes. He insisted that perhaps things should be more democratic. In response, many subreddits took a vote on how subscribers to those subreddits wanted the mods to handle things, and many urged the moderators to continue protesting.

But, Huffman apparently couldn’t handle that kind of democracy. So he’s spent the last few weeks threatening mods. The ultimatums ramped up over the weekend, after Reddit made it official that protesting mods who changed their subs to be labeled as NSFW (“not safe for work” meaning no ads can show) would be removed unless they changed back.

However, Reddit has sent messages to the mods of those subreddits saying they must “immediately correct” their NSFW labeling, claiming each community “has not historically been considered NSFW nor would they under our current policies.” If the designation isn’t corrected, any moderators involved in that decision will be removed. Those mods may be “subject to additional actions,” such as losing the ability to join future moderator teams.

Much democracy, very freedom.

It appears some mods have caved, saying they don’t know what else to do. But some are still holding out.

As of Thursday evening, r/PICS had dropped the NSFW designation, along with r/military.

In an email to The Verge, a moderator for the military subreddit said that the mods decided to revert the NSFW designation because the community is a helpful resource for veterans experiencing mental health crises. The mod said that if Reddit removed the team, it could put the community at risk.

The moderators r/PICS discussed remaining NSFW and awaiting removal, but decided instead to explore “alternative ways of adhering to Reddit’s vague and contradictory mandates and policies,” a mod wrote in a Reddit DM to The Verge. “To be clear, reverting the NSFW setting technically constitutes a violation of the site-wide rules (as they are currently written), but since Reddit has insisted, we have been left with no other option.”

The mods of r/Askwomenadvice, who also received the warning, instead plan to keep the designation and potentially face removal. “Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could do a quick look at the top posts, whether it’s by week, month, year, or all time, and see that our sub is peppered with NSFW topics,” one moderator wrote. “Our ethics won’t allow us in good faith to lie to you so Reddit can make a buck. So when the sub gets turned over to whatever scab steps forward, we hope they have the decency to run it in a way that keeps you safe.”

Meanwhile, now that the API changes have been put in place, and a bunch of tools have had to shut down, moderators for the /r/blind subreddit announced that their blind mods can no longer moderate the sub.

Since the latest “accessibility” update to the Reddit app, the amount and magnitude of new accessibility related bugs has made it virtually impossible for blind mods to operate on mobile.

We have done absolutely everything we could to work with Reddit and have given them every opportunity. When they offered to host a demo of the update, we understood how little they understand about accessibility: they did not respond to a request to use the app with screen curtain on. The only fair conclusion is that they cannot use it without sight, but expect us to.

The update introduced various regressions and new bugs. This is entirely within the expectations of the mod team, given how rushed it was and how Reddit continues to demonstrate how underprepared they are to deal with accessibility.

While the group initially talked about moving elsewhere, for the time being they’re staying on Reddit, but all of the moderators on r/blind are now either sighted or visually impaired, as opposed to fully blind.

Seems like an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen, but hey, Huffman wants his IPO, so why not just toss out the blind moderators who are causing so much trouble.

Once again, things feel ripe for someone else to step in and fill the void of the enshittified Reddit. There are, of course, already attempts in the Fediverse with Lemmy, kbin and others. I’ve seen talk of building Reddit-like functionality into other decentralized protocols like nostr and ATproto. And, I’m sure that some others are looking at jumping in as well. For all we know, in a few months, Meta may launch its own Reddit competitor as well, just as they’ve slipped into the microblogging world with Threads.

It keeps getting worse. Huffman truly is copying Musk, but faster.

[madd0c0t0r2]

Dndmemes going VERY nsfw has triggered Reddit to remove the mods.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/young-di ... a23f1e84d9

Do I want to know how DNDMemes and "too young" Disney Princesses tie together?

Well that was a copy paste error.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comme ... _way_into/

[bilateralrope]

Reddit Kicks Out Protesting Mods, As Reddit Users Continue To Find Creative Ways To Protest

from the very-democracy,-much-freedom dept
Tue, Jul 25th 2023 09:29am - Mike Masnick

Reddit CEO’s insistence that the protests from Reddit would simply “pass” certainly hasn’t come to pass just yet. While increasing pressure from the company against protest mods has resulted in some backing down, many are continuing to engage in malicious compliance, making it clear they’re still protesting.

And, a few days ago, after many threats along those lines, Reddit finally started removing protesting mods.

Three former moderators of r/malefashionadvice tell The Verge that they were removed from the subreddit on Thursday. “We more or less have been expecting the removal for the past few days,” one former mod, who asked to go by “Walker,” says in an email to The Verge. Now, the community’s modlist currently has just one moderator: ModCodeofConduct.

ModCodeofConduct is the account used by Reddit employees to share information for mods. In other words, Reddit removed the volunteer moderators and inserted its own employees to run the subreddit. Remember when Steve Huffman called volunteer moderators the “landed gentry?” This is kind of like if the king killed the “landed gentry” and gave their lands to his own kids.

And that wasn’t the only subreddit. According to Jay Peters at The Verge:

As of this writing, ModCodeofConduct is also the sole moderator of:

• r/ShittyLifeProTips (though ModCodeofConduct posted an open call on Thursday for new mods that has gotten some, uh, snarky responses)
• r/AccidentalRenaissance (which was private as of last week after its moderators resigned)
• r/oldbabies (pictures of babies with faces that look like old people)
• r/BeardAdvice (according to the Reddark tracker, this community participated in the recent blackouts)
• r/plumbingporn (also participated in the recent blackouts, per the Reddark tracker)
• r/fordtransit (a community dedicated to Ford Transit cargo vans)

Reddit officials (and their Iraqi Ministry of Information-style spokesperson) are still trying to claim this has nothing at all to do with silencing protests.

“We are, and have been, enforcing the moderator Code of Conduct. This is not new because of the protests,” a Reddit spokesperson told Engadget. Under its guidelines, Reddit considers a public community that has indefinitely been made private to be “abandoned,” and it seeks “new mods who want to reinvigorate it.” The spokesperson added that “we have a practice of reactivating private, high-subscriber communities that are being ‘camped’ on.”

Look. No one who wasn’t born yesterday believes any of that. These subreddits haven’t been “abandoned.” They’re protesting. Often after having their subscribers take a vote on how best to handle Reddit’s terrible decisions. So, yes, this is new and yes this is because of the protests, and the least that Reddit could do would be to admit reality. Denying it is a bad look.

At least one Reddit employee, apparently Reddit’s VP of community, Laura Nestler (using Go_JasonWaterfalls on Reddit) seemed to finally acknowledge that the company fucked up, and posted in r/modnews trying to smooth things over:

So, we’ve all had a… time on Reddit lately. And I’m here to recognize it, acknowledge that our relationship has been tested, and begin the “now what?” conversation.

Moderators are a vital part of Reddit. You are leaders and stewards of your communities. You are also not a monolith; mods have a diverse set of needs to support the purpose of each community you foster. Our role is facilitation; to enable all of you with a platform you can rely on, and with the tools and resources you need to cultivate thriving communities. Tens of thousands of mods engage daily on Reddit and, in order to enable all of you, we need consistent, inclusive, and direct connection with you. Here are some ways to connect with us.

I’d say that… it did not go over all that well. Here’s just one response, and there were many more like this:

Your CEO called us “landed gentry” and accused us of failing to care about the communities that we built, which Reddit profits off of without paying us for our work; and then when a bunch of mods directly polled users for what they would like to do and then followed through with the results the moderators were forcibly removed from the communities because the CEO didn’t like it.

So, I wouldn’t say the relationship was tested, I would say it was tenuous to begin with and Spez shat on whatever goodwill and benefit of the doubt that we tried to offer. If the CEO of the company wasn’t interested in hearing what we have to say, I have zero confidence that anybody else cares about our “needs.” Or, if you do care, that you are in a position to do anything. We made our “needs” pretty damn clear over the past two months. Why weren’t you listening then? We’ve made our needs clear for the last decade and had to turn to third-party apps and tools to make up for the deficiencies that you’ve been promising us for years. Why didn’t you make any changes then?

What I need is a functional app that doesn’t randomly freeze up, doesn’t spam me with more ads than cable TV and has basic functions.

And… the protests are continuing. In what maybe Reddit brass thought was a good idea, they reopened r/place. r/place is, normally, a giant collaborative art project on Reddit, in which users can place one pixel on a giant canvas every five minutes, and lasts for a few days before closing. It was used twice before, both times on April Fools Day (in 2017 and again in 2022). So it was a bit weird for Reddit to relaunch it randomly in July, but it seemed to be an attempt at “hey, we’re all cool here, nothing’s gone wrong.” In other words, it was desperation.

Redditors made use of the canvas to, well, express their displeasure with Huffman (who goes by /spez on the site). People spent their pixels wisely creating many, many “Fuck Spez” messages on the canvas:

You can watch a timelapse video of how it changes over time. At about 45 seconds in, the canvas is expanded, and almost immediately a ton of new “fuck spez” messages show up:

I don’t think attempting to paper over the failings of the company leadership with distractions like this is going to work all that well.

They have started purging moderators who don't fall in line.

Also r/place went about as well as everyone should have been expecting.