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What do you think of subreddits protesting with rule changes (e.g., only allowing John Oliver)? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A ton of moderators have been making changes to their subreddits' rules (e.g., only allowing certain posts, going NSFW, loosening rules a ton) to protest without getting kicked out. Do you think this strategy of turning a subreddit into shitposts is effective or not?

I'm curious to see what the people in this community think, so please share your thoughts.

My opinion is that these forms of protest, while fun, don't actually help. Most bring more attention and activity to the sub if anything, giving Reddit more ad revenue (which is really all they care about). And the few that are actually harmful (e.g., allowing NSFW content) are being shut down by Reddit.

It's been made clear that Reddit doesn't care about what its users want and is willing to reorder, remove, and shadowban moderators to protect profits, so I'd like to see more people moving away from the platform. Even if the alternatives still need development and are missing important features, mods should start making plans to establish communities outside of Reddit.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly, what I think of them is that I'm ticked off at the mods who are doing this, and the users who are shitposting and pretending that shitposting spam is a valid protest. I'm here, I'm also there, and I'm in other places as well. Reddit's choices as a company don't thrill me, but I understand them. I also understand that since I'm a user and not a customer, my choice is to either accept Reddit as it is when I log in or to leave. If they continue to make it more onerous, more invasive, and actually try to evade adblock, then I will choose to leave.

It honestly doesn't help to tear things down for the users who do want to use Reddit. The people making things worse are only making enemies. They're not actually making an effective protest, rather, they're only causing anger from everyone. And it may seem funny in the short term, but long-term, as someone who's in both places, I've realized that it's healthier to help build 2+ communities than to tear one down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I was thinking about the long term perception of these protests, assuming Reddit does not change course… and after the users who are ticked off get bored / leave for other platforms, the protesting will be seen as trolling by more and more of the remaining users. Eventually there wont be majority support within subscribers for these sorts of actions. Perhaps Reddits supposed mod referendum would come into play here.

On the other hand, subreddits were always before beholden to the whims of the mod hierarchy, and there’s no particular need to do anything to the existing subs to resolve these protests. After all, there’s certainly nothing stopping people from creating admin-friendly alternative subreddits. I doubt any subs with clean sweeps of the moderator team will be coming back quite the same as before anyways.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you have a proposal that has a better chance of reddit to change or alter their decisions without angering this many users?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No, but I think after the "AMA" (more like "ask the exact questions we want quotes for in articles"), it's been fairly clear that they're not changing course come Hell or high water. It's about profit by any means necessary now, or Reddit absolutely will get shut down. Either they make the IPO or the switch flips and it's gone. Ad conversions on Reddit are ridiculously low - even impressions are low due to a common culture of adblock use on Reddit. Any branded content gets ignored, even in communities like buyitforlife. They're pulling out all stops and monetizing literally anything they can.

This ad-unfriendly shitposting isn't going to make them reverse anything but the position of the power switch on the servers from 'on' to 'off'. I think people need to recognize that.