Welp.

Looks like a lot of mods are caving.

The excuse: "if the mods didn't open the sub, they'll replace them with shills". 'Kay. And now that we know these mods will do what the admins ask when their precious power is threatened?

Well, I guess sabotage is valid approach, so I give the mods who are doing that at least a bit of credit.

/r/pics is making a stand in its own weird way.

/r/Steam just caved without much of a fight, if their sticky is anything to go by. While the mods aren't doing anything, it does seem like there's a bit of a user revolt where a few people are just posting pictures of literal water vapor (ie. "steam").

/r/piracy mods seemed to give them enough of an issue that the admins de-modded the top mod and forced the sub open, but the mods seems to be taking the approach of "only sticking around to give you the coordinates to our new island".

Honestly, though, it's kind of hilarious that reddit considers /r/piracy of all subs to be integral to the site. How many times have they tried to shut it down now?

Everyone on that sub should just spam Nintendo stuff. Like, nothing else. Watching reddit piss off Nintendo and getting C&Ds from them would be oddly cathartic.

One of two things happens if people do that: A) the mods trying to "save" it have to actually keep it restricted to prevent getting DMCAs (lol, the irony), or B) admins just nuke the sub. Either are a win, IMO. Seems like they're giving their users enough time to migrate and they're probably going to jump ship soon.

The Verge: Some subreddits are now filled with porn to protest Reddit

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/16/23763661/reddit-rif-is-fun-developer-ceo-steve-huffman

RIF developer pushing back on Huffman's claims that RIF didn't want to work with Reddit by releasing emails.

https://mastodon.social/@robotdeathsquad/110543755195398954

Every time you hear the Reddit CEO talking about how they need to become profitable, remember they raised $250m and then spent the last couple years building this: https://nft.reddit.com

Huffman / spez is trying to follow the same outrage farming playbook that countless other rich guys like Trump and Musk have followed.

1. Gain money and/or control over something prominent that more or less works
2. Identify targets that you want to hurt or screw over
3. Make big changes that damage the thing you control with no time for your targets to adjust
4. When your targets complain or protest, double down and don’t apologize or change course
5. Cultivate a critical mass of smoothbrained useful idiots that enjoy the way you stick to your guns and hurt others
6. ?????
7. Profit. Literally. You’ll have a smaller base, but they’re loyal and you can make money off of them.

The question is whether spez will get to step 5. He’s already gotten to step 4.

Wired: The Reddit Blackout Is Breaking Reddit

The Verge: Reddit starts removing moderators behind the latest protests

Techdirt: Reddit CEO Triples Down, Insults Protesters, Whines About Not Making Enough Money From Reddit Users

BlackCat claims they hacked Reddit and will leak the data

Operators broke into Reddit on February 5, 2023, and took 80 gigabytes (zipped) of data. Reddit was emailed twice by operators, once on April 13 and one again on June 16.

There was no attempt to find out what we took.

In our last email to them, we stated that we wanted $4.5 million in exchange for the deletion of the data and our silence. As we also stated, if we had to make this public, then we now demand that they also withdraw their API pricing changes along with our money or we will leak it.

We expect to leak the data.

German it magazine iX has an interview with the mods of r/de. I don't know if this was mentioned here before...

Interview (German)

Short summary: the mods of the large German communities see a huge issue with reddit not recognizing content creators and mods work and there seems to be growing support for an ongoing blackout or so they say.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/reddit-blackout-protest-private-ceo-elon-musk-huffman-rcna89700

Cool cool cool cool cool

A nice summary of why everyone is so angry, by Christian Selig:

https://mas.to/@christianselig@mastodon.social/110572053161618054

This article is absolutely scathing, great read.

https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/reddit-ceo-steve-huffmans-third-party-api-debacle-is-making-elon-musk-look-like-a-strategic-genius.html

To be honest, maybe I should care about Reddit politics but I don't really. And so I feel like the mods of the communities I enjoyed are forcing me into protest against my will. But seemingly they have the power to effectively shut Reddit down and so here we are.

The biggest loss is tech support topics. Most useful Google searches lead to Reddit.

Reddit Moderators Do Over $3.4 Million in Free Labor Every Year - by Clive Thompson

If this is true, then it's not good news

• https://mstdn.games/@chris/110553477682106144

• https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/34112/Heads-up-Reddit-is-quietly-restoring-deleted-AND-overwritten-posts-and

Some hackernews folk are saying their changes were reversed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36354850

The Verge: Full Interview: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman Isn’t Backing Down

TL;DR He is doubling down without really answering the important questions. Not why the deadline is so short (they've been talking about API changes forever), not if there could be a more reasonable pricing (=no) amd he doesn't acknowlwdge there's any value for Reddit from 3P apps.

Troubling update from the Reddit admins. They are planning to remove mods from any subs that decide to stay private and hand them over to scabs. This goes back on their previous statements that subs had a right to protest and go private. Mods of one large community have already been contacted by the admins and told that "if you decide to close your community going forward, our Code of Conduct team will reach out with next steps". Which is a fresh take on "nice kneecaps, shame if something happened to them".

Judging by the newsprint from today; it feels like spez is still lost in his own delusion.

Right now he's at the bargaining stage; trying to find out if he can weasel his way out of this shit. Fuck him. He dug his own career's grave there. I've already established a community here on lemmy.

Redditinc.com's fact(oid)s about the API changes.

Includes such BS as

100,000+ active communities

Technically true. But it's estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 are NSFW. That is, the subs they don't want shown at their (mythical) IPO.

Supporting these apps is not free for Reddit; they incur both infrastructure and significant opportunity costs.

Technically true. But so does the official app, and web browsers. API calls are not some sort of special magic that causes extra wear on the systems. If the users never had the third party apps they'd be using something else, causing the same traffic and usage - or using nothing at all.

Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use from our API.

Again, third party apps are no more of a drain on data use than anything else. It's been proven, but Spez keeps pushing this lie.

Many other platforms have chosen to stop supporting apps like these altogether.

Objection! Facts not in evidence.

more than 98% of apps do not pay and will continue to access the Data API for free so long as apps are not monetized [...].

Emphasis mine. This is the real story.

Our pricing is based on usage levels comparable to our own costs

Either this is an outright lie or Spez is admitting that the official Reddit app is an inefficient, data monching, piece of garbage.

We're working to improve the mobile mod experience

Spez has been promising rainbows for years but all we ever get is poop. Or just the smell of poop. That the mobile apps were released without proper moderator tools tells you what he thinks of moderators.

We have a unique system of checks and balances, and we respect the communities right to protest.

Clearly a lie, given that Spez is going to change the rules to force out moderators who choose to follow their sub's wishes to protest.

r/nottheonion is asking users to vote, including a fun option that encourages people to take Tuesdays off

The "fun option" is an official means of joining the protest. Can he stop lying for 10 seconds?

We conducted an accessibility audit with an external consultant and have been working on improving accessibility on the site and in our apps.

Yes, much smarter than actually TALKING TO YOUR OWN USERS AND SEEING WHAT THEY WANT. Oh, they want what you refuse to do? Gee, what a surprise!

Nothing says ableism more than telling people with disabilities that they have no agency in how or if they get accommodations. (Sadly, the ADA does not apply to Reddit as a website.)

In summary, Spez needs to be fired. Preferably out of a cannon, into the sun. (Edit to add, because I am newbie here: This is hyperbole. I do not actually advocate violence against anyone.)

I never stopped using RSS. I follow many sites and blogs using The Old Reader in my desktop browser, with Reeder piggybacking off its OPML file on my phone and iPad.

TOR was designed specifically with compatibility with Google Reader in mind and shares many of the old keyboard shortcuts. It also has rudimentary social features that are in no way in-your-face (good thing, too, because I never really saw the point of them).