Reddit is giving its staff a lot more power over the communities on its platform. Starting today, Reddit moderators will not be able to change if their subreddit is public or private without first submitting a request to a Reddit admin. The policy applies to adjusting all community types, meaning moderators will have to request to make a switch from safe for work to not safe for work, too.
By requiring admin approval for the changes, Reddit is taking away a lever many communities used to protest the company's API pricing changes last year. By going private, the community becomes inaccessible to the public, making the platform less usable for the average visitor. And that's part of the reason behind the change.
Like I wonder what we can do to make this whole approval system a shit show.
If you can't beat them, then overdose them on what they want.
The promised 24 hour SLA seems like a target. A sort of DDOS attack of requests. But there's no accountability for them if they don't meet it.
I was imagining simple hacks like mods creating a new sub as a mirror for all posts to the original sub, and making the new sub private / NSFW from the start. Gets around the new Reddit rules, but accomplishes the same as a blackout. Requires coordinated mod action, but we've already shown that's possible.
I've worked a lot in trust and safety and half of the fun is gaming out the areas where structures can be abused or gotten around.
"The ability to instantly change Community Type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules,"
What rules does it break?
The golden rule: that it only exists to make money and benefit itself
It's Go_JasonWaterfalls now.
This is, of course, a response to the Blackout protests back in Spring of 2023 due to Reddit deciding to charge for API access and killing off a bunch of Apps
The ongoing and increasingly weird Reddit blackout, explained
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This is the one actually effective way to protest jannies still have and they will never use it because they are too worried about being replaced by an admin and losing their precious $0.00/hour jobs
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The most recent protest proved that's not the case at all. They just started putting powermods in charge of the subs that wouldn't comply to moderation rules
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are there enough powermods if every subreddit did it tho?
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Powermods already run most of the important subs, they wouldn't have to do it with every sub protesting. Just bigger mainstream ones that constantly show up on the front page. Smaller ones could have new mods put in place, there's always people willing to fill those holes
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Reminder that when mods closed /r/nba they continued posting on it privately and discussing the playoffs
They literally couldn't stop using it
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I can't remember what natural disaster it was for but they closed a city or state subreddit during one, people were begging them to open it so people could share info, they opened it a few days later and claimed they were unable to get online due to the storm or w/e
And then people found out they were posting on the private sub the whole time
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I mean social media is supposed to be addicting
The problem is reddit letting the most giga-addicted users run the asylum. Anyone who's dealt with a true fiend knows that they won't hesitate to steal + sell literally anything that's not nailed down to get their next fix. I think the mods literally can't put it down. If anyone wants to make some ethically dubious cash position yourself in 20 years to run a social media rehab clinic where people are physically forced to touch grass.
Bonus mention for all the users who have withdraw symptoms whenever reddit / mods go dark. Addicts the lot of them.
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the rdrama kids would get bullied at the social media rehab
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even the !jannies on this site don't have the conviction to do this, let alone the leredditeur mods
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But the jannies here are good?
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Automod already does 99.99% of their jobs, users won't know the difference until they start seeing wrongthink creep into their subs.
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Yeah they will never do it because they know there is an endless legion of scabs who will gladly pick up that mop for free and lick the reddit boot even harder
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If they did that Reddit might actually gain users so it would be a horrible move
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"Oh look Reddit actually good again for some reason, weird"
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The second that they started protesting spez should have told 2 of the powerjannies that he is taking their mop away and that would be the last protest in Reddit history
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