this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
1433 points (99.1% liked)

Malicious Compliance

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3 users here now

People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

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I honestly don't know if this is allowed here but I thought this is malicious compliance at its finest.

If you don't want to drive traffic there I'll repost what the mods posted below:

POLL: Decide on the future of /r/Pics!

Hello, /r/Pics subscribers!

Boy, what a whacky time we've all had lately, huh? Reddit decided to kill off third-party applications, a protest got planned (and possibly exploited by bad actors), the site showed up in the news, various communities started opening back up, others decided to stay inaccessible, and then the CEO of Reddit implied that a bunch of moderators would be removed from their positions!

Crazy, right?

Anyway, we – the so-called "landed gentry" – definitely want to comply with the wishes of the "royal court," and they've told us that we need to run the subreddit in the way that its members want. To that end, we figured that the only reasonable thing to do was directly ask how you'd like things to progress from here.

Which of the following should we do?

  1. Return to normal operations

  2. Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy To be clear, if people choose the second option, screen-grabs from videos will be allowed (provided that there aren't any visible logos, inserted graphics, or other digital elements present). You could – if you wanted to – look through episodes of Last Week Tonight on YouTube, find moments featuring John Oliver at his sexiest, then post images of those moments here.

It's entirely up to you! Whatever the /r/Pics community decides is best, we'll respect!

Vote, friends! Vote now!

(You can vote by upvoting either of the comments in the thread below.)

Voting has now closed.

Our final tally is as follows:

Return to normal operations: -2,329 votes

Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy: 37,331 votes

It would seem that the community has spoken!

Henceforth, /r/Pics will only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy.

(Said images must adhere to all of the community's other rules, including those mandated by Reddit.)

Happy posting!

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 2 years ago (12 children)

He will probably get wind of this and cover it on his show 🤣

[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Now videos should do the same but with rick astly..."you know the rules and so do I"

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Only if it shows John Oliver looking sexy while marrying a cabbage :-)

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 2 years ago (8 children)
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[–] [email protected] 92 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Update on the vote results, for people who don't want to go there:

  • Pro John Oliver: 61.7k

  • Return to normal: -13.7k.

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Spez really should have read r/maliciouscompliance a bit before he bit off more than he could chew

[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Spez is peak r/choosingbeggars wanting free work to be done but oh, not with your own tools that actually work, no you need the ones that are inside his Basement for the last 10 years and barely work at all.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's how billionaires make their money isn't it? Get everyone to pay them while they themselves pay others as little as possible.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 2 years ago (7 children)

That's a classic reddit moment. There's such a good community on that website, it's tragic that reddit wants to use that against itself.

These kind of protest won't reduce the traffic on the platform though. They might even gain traction and increase it. If it's not linked to reduced ad revenue, I'm afraid it's counter-productive.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think it will reduce traffic at some point, when the lurkers are getting tired of John Oliver pics

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Only having pictures of John Oliver is definitely an improvement over normal r/pic.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

This is actually the reason I'm here on Lemmy now. I love John Oliver but with all the other dark subreddits it was a bit much, and already had been looking into it. Led to Lemmy by too much sexy John Oliver.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (8 children)

like porn, sexy John Oliver pics are the gateway to Satan.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Glorious :) I hope John Oliver picks this up in his show...

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Plot twist: John Oliver is secretly a mod of r/pics.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This may be the best highlight of spez incompetence 🍿 For everyone talking smack on the moderators, this is exactly what they should be doing. Malicious compliance. Make it hard for Reddit to know what is going on. Love to see it.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 2 years ago (3 children)

archive.ph link for those who don't want to give reddit traffic.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Glad you posted this - its the epitome of malicious compliance! And a fantastic form of protest too. With Reddit admins threatening to demote mods unless they re-open subreddits, this move takes away that ammo. Additionally, after the initial boost in activity due to novelty, the sub will get stale quickly and users will think of migrating to other platforms like lemmy or kbin. I'm all for it!

Edit: This is what I'm talking about. Here is one of those Reddit refugees now!

https://lemmy.world/comment/273363

Welcome, @[email protected]!

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 years ago

I've never been so happy to browse old.reddit /r/pics with an ad-blocker on.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 years ago

Looks like a few other subs have joined. r/gifs and r/art did the same poll

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Has John Oliver already had an episode about spez's enshittifying of reddit? Because if not, I guess this is one way to make him at least mention it on Last Week Tonight. xD

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago

Unfortunately, no new LWT episodes until the Writer's Strike is settled...

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 years ago (2 children)

fucking lol!!!! big ol thumb to the eye of the High SlimeLord himself, /u/spez

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Incredible move. But I doubt it'll last. Reddit is going to became 9gag and iFunny very soon. Rest in peace old reddit. It was fun while it lasted.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The point is to hit reddit where it hurts - ad revenue. There will be a slight spike in interests as people laugh, then the lack of original content will cause people to be bored. New subreddits will have to be created and built from the ground up. Moderating a subreddit with 40m subscribers is hard.

Spez needs to realize that going to war with the users is a dumb move.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is brilliant! I had just took a look at /r/pics without logging in and can see its just now filled with John Oliver pics

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago

I haven't laughed this hard in so long. The malicious compliance is epic. John Oliver can't buy PR like this, and he has got to be one of the few people that can appreciate being the face of something like this.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

/r/gifs currently is following suit! If you still have a reddit account go vote ASAP! (Also unsubscribe from all your "business as usual" subs as possible, immediately, if you can't delete your account immediately for whatever reason)

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Now this is the definition of malicious compliance!

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 years ago (1 children)

oh my god i love this. it would be a shame if all other subs followed suit...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Quite a few subs had polls today for how to run, one of them was r/showerthoughts voting on which days to be open and had a comment for each day for the next week for open and each day for the next week for closed and it was unanimous of (exactly equal numbers) all upvoted days closed and all downvoted days open.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 years ago (2 children)

/r/apple could've only allowed discussions about fruit.

But instead they decided to return to normal operations - they're in the group of mods unreasonably afraid of losing their position as mods, which is honestly quite bizarre.

I understand building a community and wanting to keep at it (I moderated 3 large Brazilian subreddits) but at this point, you just want the title - because you've already lost control, trust, and quality.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago

I love this kind of justified pettiness. I am pretty petty myself, and its something that I guess is a supposed bad quality, but it can be so much fun.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Omg I really hope some of those pictures make it over here.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago

Definitely allowed. For now, anything that fits in the spirit of malicious compliance is fair game, it doesn't have to be text only too.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 years ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago

This is the spirit. Might as well have fun protesting if you're not giving up just yet.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago (10 children)

Both are bad choices. When reddit says open /r/pics or else, you just delete /r/pics.

Reddit has NEVER been profitable. It's the classic:

  1. Takes a bunch of venture capital funding
  2. Builds a huge user base
  3. Get bought
  4. Parent company tries to figure out a way to make money off of you.
  5. When they can't, they try to spin you off and IPO you.
  6. You have your "oh shit" moment and realize you actually have to be profitable now.

This is the crap that caused the dot-com bubble in the late 90s.

Their current business model is unsustainable.

They're doing the API war out of sheer survival.

The sad part is, we all went along for the ride, using the service and filling it with useful information, never wondering if it was still going to be there a decade or two later.

Reddit wants to IPO. Having gone through the IPO process twice now with a company, I can tell you, the only thing that matters is money in the bank. The more money you have in the bank, the more you can charge for your IPO. When I worked at CompUSA back in the 90s, we didn't pay any of our creditors for something like 6 months before the IPO to swell the bank accounts. I remember the week before the IPO, we had almost nothing in the store, because we owed everyone money. 30 days after IPO, trucks came rolling in again with product.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 years ago (3 children)

You can't delete r/pics, they would just restore it.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Both are bad choices. When reddit says open /r/pics or else, you just delete /r/pics.

Hard disagree with your first sentence. As @[email protected] explained, Reddit would just force re-open it.

And as explained in my comment, this is causing Reddit users to switch over to Lemmy due to the protesting subs getting stale: https://lemmy.world/comment/289241>

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