Reddit Blackout

[Hydra009]

I've noticed a lot of us link stuff from reddit.  Well, you might be like me and noticed that most of your favorite subreddits are private/inaccessible for the time being.  Here's why



Essentially, Reddit is trying to force users to use its own app which is an aesthetic nightmare, barely even seems to work, is choked to the gills with autoplaying ads, and to top it all off, doesn't even have basic support for people with disabilities.

I use Reddit Is Fun (a third party app), my brother uses the official app, and the difference is like night and day.  I get neatly arranged posts, customized to my preferences, with the occasional ad.  He gets what basically looks like Facebook and he has to close intrusive ads just to get to a funny meme.  Sometimes he says the ads load but not the content, so he has to hit refresh a couple of times to see it.  Unacceptable.

This really sucks because I use reddit extensively for breaking news, gaming community updates and discussions (usually far more succinct and accessible than going on the game's official forums), and of course, memes galore.  All of that is now in serious jeopardy because of a greedy corporate decision.  There is a very real chance that at least some of those subreddits will be down for good.

So I ask you guys to help and try not to use reddit at all for the next couple of days in solidarity (there's no point going there anyway with most of the big subreddits down).  Who knows, if traffic drops down below a certain threshold, corporate might reverse course or at least make some concessions.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I was kicked off Reddit for posting links that worked. Except for a small group using homebrew computers. They pissed and moaned and demanded I "fix them!" Fuck them. Fuck reddidiot.

[Blackleaf]

I heard about this. A surprising number of popular subReddits are going dark today. It's cool seeing people take a stand for people with disabilities like this. This protest should really last longer than a day, though. I kept absentmindedly opening Reddit, so I removed it from my Google homepage, or whatever you call it.

[Hydra009]

It's cool seeing people take a stand for people with disabilities like this.

I mean, that's part of it.  Really, that just shows you how little Reddit cares about the app users, because that's a helluva oversight.

The main point of contention is very similar to the Wizards of the Coast thing from months ago - viewing your userbase as "undermonetized" and pushing changes extremely detrimental to communities that have sprung up around third-party use that people have gotten used to over the years.  One might say that it's their ball and they get final say over everything, and that's true, but they also reap the whirlwind.  And really, most people are pretty reasonable about things and it's not all that hard to keep them happy.  Just leave the communities alone and continue to make money - that's the best outcome for everyone.

[Mr.Obvious]

I´m not really on redding at all, so; you got it man!

[Unbeliever]

I too do not indulge. 😎

[the_antithesis]

What's a Reddit?

[Unbeliever]

If someone asks me if I've read the Bible, I just say "Reddit." 📚

[Hydra009]

My brother and I just put in negative reviews of the official app, claiming that it no longer loads many popular subreddits and therefore the app must be broken (the real reason is that those subreddits are closed, something out of Reddit's control) and facetiously asked Reddit to solve the problem (the problem is of course their policies, not a technical issue)

I promise to only use my passive-aggressive superpowers for good :)

[Hydra009]

Reddit isn't the only social media giant tanking, Twitter got evicted from its Boulder office over 3 months of unpaid rent

[Hydra009]

I've officially migrated to Lemmy and I'm pleasantly surprised to find some of my favorite meme communities already there.  I'm not missing a thing!

So, it turns out that websites are extremely disposable.  Even the big ones.

[Hydra009]

Now I'm tempted to go back on ><

I had to delete my shortcut because I kept having to stop myself from checking it like 50 times a day.  Is there some sort of AA-like thing for internet addicts?

[Hydra009]

Reddit CEO complains about unpaid mods being "too powerful" and will change rules to oust them

Researchers from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Northwestern University estimated in a study last year that the number of hours worked by Reddit mods in 2020 was worth $3.4 million.

r/aww, r/videos, and r/AskHistorians, remain inaccessible, and mods wrote in a recent post titled "The Fight Continues" that their "core concerns still aren't satisfied."

Those aren't small communities.  r/aww was the reason I joined in the first place.  And r/videos is exactly what it says on the tin - not making nice with them and keeping them closed is like removing comedy videos from YouTube.  What's even the point of keeping the site up at that point?

[Hydra009]

Reddit was hacked back in Feburary.  Now the hackers are threatening to leak the data unless reddit reverses course on its unpopular policies, plus of course paying them.

On February 9th, Reddit disclosed that its systems were hacked on February 5th after an employee fell victim to a phishing attack.

This phishing attack allowed the threat actors to gain access to Reddit's systems and steal internal documents, source code, employee data, and limited data about the company's advertisers.

"But I am very happy to know that the public will be able to read about all the statistics they track about their users and all the interesting confidential data we took. Did you know they also silently censor users? Along with artifacts from their GitHub!"

Yikes.  More fun times for the frontpage of the internet.

[Hydra009]

The latest event in the ongoing saga is apparently subreddits being forced to open back up, but posting literal porn regularly on non-porn subreddits, thus making the whole subreddit NSFW and not suitable for ads.

The whole thing puts advertisers in a sticky...err...tricky situation.

BTW, whenever you read in print about a CEO saying what the users or customers or whatever want, it's 100% a lie.  Every time.

Also, it just now occurs to me that r/Apple condemned the controversial Reddit CEO's move as a greedy decision with an absurd pricetag.  Something something glass houses, but they're completely right.