this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Technology

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Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place, but I see Reddit developments as Tech news right now.

Wanted to share a website that is tracking Subreddits that have/will be going dark. It even has a sound notification for when they change their status.

Edit: Adding the stream https://www.twitch.tv/reddark_247

Double Edit: Data visualization https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

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[–] followthewhiterabbit@beehaw.org 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just flipped the switch (so to speak) on a couple subs I moderate, and the largest (just shy of 1m users) will be going dark in a few hours.

What surprised me most is how well the members are took it. To be fair the subs I moderated are typically quite tech-minded, so everyone is quite in-the-know with what is happening and why.

It makes me furious that a site built and maintained by the users is being exploited at the users' expense.

I hope Reddit bleeds money from this silly line they drew in the sand.

[–] RedPander@lemmy.rogers-net.com 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm curious if you directed the users of those subs to any particular alternative?

I mean, apparently they are already bleeding money, but I doubt that these changes are going to do much to help in that regard.

[–] followthewhiterabbit@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

On two we presented the options abailable (Lemmy, Mastodon, Usnet and so on), on the biggest we didn't do that. It was a last-minute announcement, so didn't really have the time (also too many cooks with different recipes, so to speak).

I'm sure it won't matter in the long run, but should we not try? A giant company runs on advertising. And the time we stop users interacting and engaging with these ads can only be a good thing.

As I'm writing this, 4,669 of 6,934 subs have gone dark.

Its beautiful to see.

[–] HairHeel@programming.dev 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Now include links to their preferred lemmy alternatives

[–] Senseibull@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

At the bottom of the site, it does say “use Lemmy for less reddit shenanigans” with a hyperlink

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[–] araquen@beehaw.org 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don’t know about you, but streaming the “Darkening” is like the best thing ever. Just reading all the comments as viewers cheer on each subreddit.

When r/trees wend private I was thinking “shit just got real.”

Anyway, I suggest watching the stream, if just for the cameraderie.

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[–] KickMeElmo@beehaw.org 26 points 1 year ago

This is just beautiful to watch. For once reddit comes together to spite... reddit.

[–] brunofin@beehaw.org 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's sad though I truly enjoyed Reddit like obviously many here, but also to be fair I've also felt like the quality of posts and comments overall degraded and the whole thing turned into a big meme factory where only funny images with text and tiktok reposts really were uploaded.

The whole thing started going downhills as soon as the first tiktok reposts started flooding in to be fairly honest. Let's please not let this happen much here, unless of course in dedicated communities for that because everything has a place.

Also, this is my first ever post on Lemmy, hi 👋

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[–] GhostMagician@beehaw.org 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow /r/nba decided to go dark. So unexpected and huge respect to the mods there. Really huge one with the NBA finals going on too.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230612030017/https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1476rje/team_and_community_rnba_is_participating_in_the/

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[–] ramblechat@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"6236/7265 subreddits are currently dark."

85.83%

That's a pretty good response from the subs.

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[–] DarkErmac@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looks like it got the hug of death.

[–] IcedCoffeeBitch@beehaw.org 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] tchotchony@mander.xyz 9 points 1 year ago

Aww, lemmy is officially grown up now!

[–] haganbmj@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

The level of unity has been awesome. At first I thought this might only really spread through tech minded subreddits, but it really caught on broadly.

[–] coralof@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Is the 5,563 on the side the total number of subreddits!? That would mean 1/5 of all subreddits are now private. :O

[–] cloudynight88@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Feels a little apocalyptic.

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[–] esaru@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This one has a pretty nice look with a list of all 6000 participating subreddits and fading in in real-time when a subreddit goes dark:

https://reddark.untone.uk/

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[–] xaon_rider92@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

so many have gone dark already, this is impressive.

[–] ericbomb@beehaw.org 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's a handful of NSFW, but I'm surprised their isn't more since they are getting hit harder than anyone else.

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[–] Sintamo@beehaw.org 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

There's something so therapeutic about having Reddark open in a tab in the background - every time I hear the ding, a little voice in my head cheers. Interesting times, folks.

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[–] lorossi97@feddit.it 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't see myself going back to Reddit if they keep those subs closed down. However I do believe that if this "strike" goes on for longer than a week or so, the admins will forcefully replace each closed subreddit mods to make them live again.

[–] hildegunst@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I hope that if that actually happens they'll find no volunteers to actually mod those subs and realize they'll actually have to hire and pay the people that actually makes their site usable

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[–] BeardedGuy@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago

Man, it's so satisfying to watch all of these subreddits switch to green. I really wish more of them committed to an indefinite shutdown though.

[–] GlassHalfHopeful@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This has been super interesting. I’ve never seen communities listed in this manner. I’d be interested in this kind of sort for other services as well.

Really hoping to see major players go dark soon and wishing they would stay that way, like r/videos plans to. Oh, what the world would be like if corporations actually cared about the people they profit from.

[–] Chapi_Chan@lemmy.one 13 points 1 year ago

Oh god here it comes. So long and thanks for all the fish.

[–] jjagaimo@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

500 error

Looks like it got hugged

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[–] pridefulofbeing@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The site has been overloaded, so now they are streaming it on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/reddark_247

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[–] StrayCatFrump@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

blackout.photon-reddit.com

Damn. That is only a tiny little dip in the post/comment rate so far relative to the historical cycle. What, maybe 5%, assuming the vertical axis crosses at zero? Not terribly encouraging....

[–] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

My partner is a casual reddit user; the experience change was immediately apparent. She got bored and switched to facebook because all of the niche communities that the larger subreddits repost from went silent.

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[–] setsneedtofeed@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I’ve continued to tell people: This won’t kill Reddit in the sense of outright turning it into a ghost town. If your only goal is to make Reddit collapse overnight, you’re going to be disappointed. The quality content that many people here enjoy is not what makes up the frontpage of r/all or what a huge amount of passive users consume. Reddit has more than enough low quality trash to backfill the frontpage and keep users occupied.

Anybody migrating should focus on porting quality content. Let reddit live long and be a dumping ground.

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[–] Hyperz@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

Time to sit back, relax, and watch ~~the world~~ Reddit burn 😎 🍿

[–] TechyDad@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I found a different one, posted by the author on the DataIsBeautiful subreddit: https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

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[–] XXXalio@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
[–] araquen@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah, from what I understand, so many gave the website the hug of death they had to switch to streaming to keep the site up.

Whether or not this “Great Darkening” has any legs, it certainly got a lot of publicity.

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[–] A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also a good opportunity to back it up everyone with just not visiting their site. I've added 127.0.0.1 reddit.com old.reddit.com www.reddit.com mod.reddit.com i.reddit.com to my hosts file so I don't accidentally follow a link to Reddit (I think they have a lot more subdomains, so the hosts file based approach isn't perfect, but hopefully good enough for a quick solution).

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[–] thedeserter@lemmy.fmhy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I do hope the ones going dark migrate here and start over.

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[–] lodion@aussie.zone 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Nice to see the subreddits listed by subs. Reddit can't ignore this... interested to see how they respond. I'm sure it will be some half baked knee jerk reaction that will get the community even more against them.

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[–] Csynthare@lemmy.fmhy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

R/SquaredCircle just went dark. They weren't even on the list as far as I saw.

[–] esaru@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think many go dark without announcement. In the last hours the list of participating subreddits grew from 3500 to 6000. You can search it on https://reddark.untone.uk/, it's there now.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

In the last hours the list of participating subreddits grew from 3500 to 6000

Holy shit that's a big spike!

[–] Wit@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"The website is temporarily down." ironic lol

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[–] Manticore@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's going to be satisfying watching them slowly tick green.

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[–] reric88@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

This is awesome. We all need to stick together on this one

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