this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023

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222

In response to the disastrous Spez AMA, /r/Videos have announced that they will permanently shut down on 11th June, one day ahead of the planned blackout (old.reddit.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Clbull@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Quote from the post:

Hello everyone, I’ll try to keep this short as I know there’s been a lot going on over the last few days. When we made our announcement last week, we intended to get Reddit's attention on a subject that our team found extremely concerning. /r/Videos is joining a larger coordinated protest and signing an open letter to the admins found here.

The announcement was of exceedingly high API prices which we all know was to intentionally kill 3rd party applications on reddit (Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Boost, Relay, etc.) Since that post several things have become clear; Reddit is not willing to listen to its users or the mod teams from many of its largest communities on this matter. Yesterday all major third-party Reddit apps announced that they would be shutting down on the 30th of June due to these changes. There were no negotiations and Reddit refused to extend the deadlines. The rug was pulled out from under them and by extension all of the users who rely on those tools to use reddit.

In addition to this, the AMA hosted by Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, which was intended to alleviate concerns held by many users about these issues, was nothing short of a collage of inappropriate responses. There are many things to take away from this AMA but here are the key points. Most disappointingly it appears that Reddit outright misconstrued the actions of Apollo's creator /u/iamthatis by saying that he threatened Reddit and leaked private phone calls, something done only to clear his name of another accusation.

So what’s happening? The TL;DR? Effective tomorrow (6/11/2023), /r/Videos will be restricting posting capabilities. Anything posted before the cut off date will likely be the final front page of our community before we go private indefinitely. In the unlikely scenario that Reddit ownership has a sudden change of heart and capitulates on their decisions we will reopen, but until that happens /r/Videos will stay closed. Many other communities have come to similar decisions and we support those who have decided to take a stand.

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[–] runarskoll@beehaw.org 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For me it's a double sided problem. Even if reddit solves the moderation tools problem which user the api (and they will because those are the tools of the free labor they explore) there will be still the problem with the user experience. Even if subreddits reopen I will never use the official reddit app, the same way I refuse to use the official twitter app since apps like Falcon Pro, Flamingo or Talon stopped working.

Reddit CEO can bargain the deal he wants that I don't care anymore. For me reddit is now only a repository where I will continue to search specific information. It is no more a place where I want to participate in online communities.

[–] heartburn@beehaw.org 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That was my line of thought as well, however...

Reddit will stop being a good information repo very quickly as users ~~who actually know what they're talking about~~ leave and the information stops being up to date. The trend of adding "reddit" to every google search will die out soon.

[–] lawliot@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I already edited my reddit submissions to something along the lines of "this has been deleted in protest against API..." using PowerDeleteSuite. Some of my past comments has useful information in them and people might end up there via google. I'm taking my data with me when I walk out.

[–] boby@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You should make your past comments available in lemmy somehow.

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[–] Domiku@beehaw.org 20 points 1 year ago

Yeah - the AMA with spez was the writing on the wall. No matter what/how users protest, they can only delay the inevitable changes. I deleted my 10+ year old account and cut my losses. The last thing I want in my social media is platform drama.

[–] flying_gerbil@beehaw.org 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How long before reddit replaces the mods and reopens it? I give it a day or two after the 48 hour blackout

[–] LetterboxPancake@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

Possible, but I doubt they'll find enough that can keep the quality. Videos isn't the only main sub.

[–] CobraChicken@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wish the blackout was different.

Keep all the subs open, but suspend all but the sitewide rules.

All the subreddits would've been filled with off topic content, spam and advertising. It would've been far more annoying to the average user.

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

Tsk tsk, reddit...

Man, why does everything I like have to go to hell?

[–] unfazedbeaver@lemmy.one 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

enshitification

[–] Running_Out_Of_Ideas@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Cory Doctorow is a got-dang witch. This was about Tiktok and it was written in January. Literally describing the process to a T.

[–] iamstevenrivers@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

Damn, that's a loooong read. Worth it, but long.

[–] tkchumly@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What a great word. You've single handedly improved my life. Thank you.

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[–] harbo@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lemmy is gonna be rough for a few days at least but after the growing pains we’re going to have an even greater community

[–] ilost7489@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's going to get the hug of death

[–] sweetholymosiah@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

correction "they" going to...

[–] blitzen@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 year ago

I’d like to see the big subs each create an official mastodon account for the sole purpose of announcing trustworthy information. One the subs come back up, especially if it’s earlier than expected, how will we know if they were taken over by the admins?

[–] imkmiaw@lemmy.fmhy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (13 children)

I honestly think more subs need to do an indefinite shut down.

If it's only for 48 hours Reddit can just wait it out, and if not a lot of subs join in on the indefinite shut down they can just replace the mods for new ones.

However, in my opinion, the buggest change will come June 30th when 3rd party apps shut down since that's when users will actualy stop using Reddit.

Let's hope it's enough users to make a change. I myself will be deleting everything and my account on June 30th. Let's hope something changes.

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[–] Aninjanameddaryll@sopuli.xyz 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I took r/edc restricted yesterday, though we are/were tiny. While I still plan to find replacement mods from within the community after reddit goes full dipshit, I'm done ring their work for free, with shit tools, next to zero support, and (worse, imo) taking a lot of flak from admins because of bullshit unrelated to moderation.

I dunno if lemmy is going to become the reddit replacement or not, but I'm done with giving reddit anything at all. Overwrote and deleted everything from my author account that had some decent amount of fiction, and my personal account that had a lot of real stories from my life. That ain't much, but since I've seen my stuff being read on YouTube, and reposted by the copy/paste bots, it's something I guess.

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[–] AllBetsAreOff@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Man it's just so wild to watch what's going on over there right now. Even when subreddits come back after a couple days it may not matter if bot-assisted moderation becomes impossible over there in the long run.

If reddit backs off enough to save the accessibility and moderation issues, I hope enough people still leave to help create a strong alternate ecosystem.

If alternatives like this site had existed through previous years, I don't think Reddit could have survived a lot of its previous mistakes.

[–] ajimix@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If alternatives like this site had existed through previous years, I don’t think Reddit could have survived a lot of its previous mistakes.

Lemmy exists at least since 2020, when I registered to the platform. That is 3 years ago and it hasn’t had much of activity until the Reddit drama started recently

[–] Cheander@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

What’s happened with Twitter and now Reddit is hopefully enough to make people realize the pitfalls of corporate-owned, centralized social media. Mastodon has really taken off with some major news outlets now posting on there. I could see the same happening with Lemmy now.

[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If reddit backs off enough

They might do that, but for how long? I can only see them gravitated toward doing the same thing in more subtle ways if that's what earns them the most money.

[–] AllBetsAreOff@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah I mean that's a fair point. Their motivations seem pretty clear. I just know that getting people to migrate, especially non-technical people, is hard. So I can see how many communities might end of staying there if it is at all viable.

[–] collegefurtrader@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I closed r/skookum early, just couldn’t take the suspense anymore. New Skookum: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/33682

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[–] Rat@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is great to hear! Unfortunately the reddit exodus will likely splinter a bunch of niche communities, but it will definitely be for the best. I'm all down for the "de-consolidation" of the internet!

[–] ghostalmedia@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (19 children)

The tricky thing will be the small niche communities that are already hosted on Reddit. For example, there is a group of us dorks who are really into home automation with HomeKit. I'd hate for that small group to splinter into smaller groups that are so small that they're no longer a good source of collective knowledge.

I don't really have a great solve for that problem, but as someone who does experience and service design by trade, I've found this to be a fun puzzle to marinate on over the past few weeks.

[–] psuasno@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

That's where most of my devastation lays with all of this. Parting ways with reddit was more and more in the back of my mind steadily over the last few years. I was only holding on due to being active in some of those small, niche communities. I finally deleted my reddit account the other day and have no intention of going back, and I feel horrible about what will happen to those little communities but I cannot continue to support the big, soulless corporation that reddit has been striving to be.

It's going to be a weird and interesting transition period for a part of the online commhnity going forward. We can only hope for the best!

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[–] terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.li 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

indefinitely != permanently

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 year ago

The way I see it:

Indefinite = Not defined. Could be short, long, infinite or something in between.

Infinite = Clearly defined to never end.

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[–] Moneymunkie@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Good god I knew it wasn't going to go well but I didn't think they'd crash and burn it THIS bad.

The bar was on the floor and they still managed to somehow clip underneath it through the floor, end up in some backrooms-esque dimension only to trip on a banana peel and land face first in a pie.

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[–] FIST_FILLET@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

LETSGOOOOOOOOO

[–] kherge@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I appreciate the effort, but since this is one of the main subreddits the Reddit admins will simply purge these subreddits of their mods, install new ones, and reopen it (they’ve already done something like this before).

The real question is how well will the sub operate then? I imagine not very well since all of the experienced mods and their tools are gone.

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[–] Senseibull@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

Reddit:

[–] quantumantics@libranet.de 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

@Clbull A highly-upvoted comment suggests moving to Tilde. Is Tilde federated? I can't find anything that indicates it might be.

[–] Rocket@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

No, tilde is its own thing. Resembles Reddit in the beginning, promotes a few long and deep conversations instead of a lot and short comments. It’s interesting but their philosophy makes growth really slow (by choice) and the serious nature of most of the threads tends to turn a lot of people off (it’s not very fun most of the time). I like it but it’s not Reddit nor is trying to be.

[–] laxe@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Lemmy is a much better choice because there will never be a need to migrate away from Lemmy. Also, no investors, no dark patterns and no pursuit of infinite growth.

[–] fernandofig@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

More importantly, Tildes is invite-only at the moment (for signups)

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