this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Reddit

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New protest method (www.reddit.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by eoli3n@lemmy.ml to c/reddit@lemmy.ml
 

Rule 1: All Posts Must Be About Vacuum Cleaners
Rule 2: All Comments Must Be "Wellthatsucks"

Really funny and impossible to block

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[–] DrownedAxolotl@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Oh, I like this even better. I hope a lot of other subs do this as well. Wonder what r/feedthebeast would look like.

[–] crilen@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Have you checked out /r/pics? Lol

[–] DrownedAxolotl@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thank you so much for this..

[–] RedstoneRelic@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

If you liked that, check out r/gifs

[–] FiendishFork@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I hope more subs do stuff like this, the Steam sub is trying to be about literal steam but the mods don’t seem to be officially endorsing it yet (users are running with it though)

If Reddit is serious about communities moderating themselves they shouldn’t have a problem with subs becoming useless if that’s what the communities decide they want. I feel like it’s going to provide Reddit another way to show that they are liars though.

[–] techno156@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They should partner with /r/trains, and start posting steam trains.

[–] grue@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Too useful, unfortunately.

r/trains should probably become NSFW, considering how that's IPO-unfriendly.

(Contemplating which kind of thing I mean by NSFW trains is left as an exercise for the reader.)

[–] MoreIronOre@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Trains should only allow pictures of turtles, obviously.

[–] grue@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago
[–] Larvitar@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago (6 children)

While this is funny, it drives traffic to the site so it's the equivalent of people buying Nike shoes to then burn as protest. The company is still making money and they're getting free advertising.

A better protest would be to delete Reddit accounts, uninstall the apps, and see how long you can go without hearing or thinking about reddit.

[–] smokinjoe@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

In the short term, sure

But in the long term, the novelty will wear thin and people will find the content they want elsewhere

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

As another commenter said elsewhere, it's more nuanced than that. It drives a bit of traffic in the short term, but people interested in the original content are forced to create new subreddits (which take significant time to gain momentum again). And the gag will eventually taper off and engagement will be lower. Overall, it's a decent form of protest (given the blackout is being forcibly overturned), as it will likely lower the value of Reddit overall, hopefully nuking the potential IPO.

Though that doesn't invalidate your second point. Kinda fun to watch a dumpster fire for a little while, though.

[–] Negative_Pair_5694@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Not exactly. I think the advertisers will start to ask some uncomfortable questions, as will any inverstors for the IPO.

[–] techno156@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Reddit's CEO outright admitted that their own app was "never profitable", while also complaining third party's apps were making money from the same content.

If I was an investor, I'd absolutely want a good explanation for why Reddit isn't able to make their own app profitable, while other Reddit apps can do just that.

[–] Yoshizuki@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

I started learning to use photoshop instead of braindeadly scrolling Reddit. It’s more peaceful and enjoyable.

[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This. If they insist on doing it make it so all of the posts have to be the same. It would be boring and pwolw would stop visiting.. The sub is open but there is no reason for people to visit it. It makes it easier to ween people off of reddit too

[–] Yoshizuki@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

This is what I did after the disastrous AMA.
Deleted my history with reddact.
Uninstalled Reddit.
Uninstalled Apollo (crying).
I won't go on this platform anymore.
Although I'm missing some 'niche' communities such as antkeeping or those about specific incremental games..

Now I'm trying to filter all the communities that are on this topic.
Even if it's on the fediverse, speaking about Reddit gives them more visibility.

[–] BlackCoffee@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

It depends, how long until it will not be fun anymore to see every sub turned into a meme?

I give it 2 days. After that people will stop tuning in as regularly.

Also traffic != money in regards of advertisers.

If traffic increases but the engagement lowers then that is a death blow to reddit.

The metric that got posted 1-2 days ago that engagement was cut down from 31 to 17 seconds during/after the blackout is huge and a metric the advertisers will look at.

[–] scifu@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I think instead of mods trying the active protest they should just do passive protesting. Do bare minimum of work and let users (read trolls) post whatever they want.

[–] rbhfd@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

This would most likely be considered as a "lack of moderation", giving the admins an excuse to replace them.

[–] Cloak@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Catch-22. Subreddit mods can be removed for not moderating

[–] eoli3n@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago
[–] gamebuster@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I love this :) Also, welcome me, this is my first post on Lemmy!

[–] DrownedAxolotl@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Welcome gamebuster!

[–] sina@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

The best protest method is to just not visit the site at all.

[–] eoli3n@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Trebach@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For those who don't want to follow the link, it's pictures of John Oliver in an artistic manner.

[–] wheresyourshoe@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I'm loving the slow John-Oliverization of Reddit.

[–] MattMillz@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

WellThatSucks

[–] techno156@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Missed opportunity to not also allow pictures of wells.

[–] McBinary@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

This is pretty funny, but I still think it would piss investors off more if there was just a mass influx of gay porn without nsfw tags in every sub after the mod tools break. Hard to get advertisers that way. 🤷

[–] nicktron@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

What would really piss off investors is if nobody used the site. Posting memes to and visiting the site you’re trying to protest doesn’t achieve anything.

[–] techno156@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

Don't even need porn. Just have a wave of spambots poised and ready. There's a non-zero chance many of the big moderation tools will break, and moderators using the site/official app could be overwhelmed, and I'd not be surprised if some spam/repost bot operators were waiting for precisely that moment, because the mods would be more limited in what they can do/use.

[–] Nepenthe@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, the "post pictures of steam, etc." stuff is funny for a one-off, but it's still technically content and it's not like reddit doesn't already have meme subs along those lines. I fear it will just become part of the culture after a while.

Easy enough to just never mod again and the porn will post itself. If spez complains, do the exact bare minimum like posting one single semi-relevant meme or telling off one single user that is definitely a bot so it doesn't care.

You're not camping, you're just being really laid back in your modding style.

[–] tal@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Easy enough to just never mod again and the porn will post itself.

I'd guess that spam will show up sooner. I mean, I didn't see people actively trying to post porn to random subs much during the runup to this. But I definitely see spam attempts.

[–] ReCursing@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Trebach@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

It irritates the puritans more.

[–] BrenoMartins@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Wellthatsucks

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