[Jordan-117]

I'd argue that Reddit leadership, which insulted, hobbled, and wrote off its mods and power users (destroying projects like /r/BotDefense) while doing little to crack down on the proliferation of bot repost content, had a major role in encouraging this. They might even like it better this way -- lots of extra fake engagement boosting traffic stats without messy human drama, which they can then ironically sell back to AI labs as training data.

[bmurphy1976]

Let's never forget the summer of 2023 when Reddit forceably removed mods from many major communities and replaced them with corporate shills. That was a major loss of dedicated people who cared more for their communities than Spez's pocket book.

[pndy]

The replacement happened somewhere around time Ellen Pao became interim CEO and site started sanitizing the controversial subreddits. It wasn't apparent at the first but around 2017 you could notice that some subs - especially ones set around large companies or media franchises, are having aggressive rules against controversial and "negative" topics. This hasn't changed much as for today.

---

One of subs I was visiting had some drama happening in ~2020 around supposed negative community behavior: people were criticizing creative works uploaded which personally I agree, weren't the best. Mods team decided that's a big no-no and this place has to be inclusive, welcoming and filled with positivity - so they started banning those who dared to criticize. Fast forward till now, there are only screenshots uploaded by bots, comments done by bots who also include screenshots along with 2 sentences in every thread.

[alex1138]

The internet is rather trending in that direction, isn't it? Youtube got rid of downvotes and apparently upload dates, which seems like an easier way to trick people into ads. And Reddit, like you said

If these platforms had to listen to "their customers" (here comes the inevitable comment about how users aren't customers; yes, I know)? They'd all be fired. They'd have to find a new job. They all act in incredibly insulting ways with a too big to fail attitude

[traderj0e]

The ones who got removed were shutting down their pages to protest API changes, right? Pride comes before the fall I guess

[shimman]

You say that but many specialty subreddits never returned to their pre-protest engagements. Quality has definitely taken a nose dive in these subreddits as those people moved to other platforms like youtube, tiktok, patreon, or just posting on their own sites.

Mods were rightfully upset because they were losing control of their communities when reddit preferred only caring about their upcoming IPO.

I honestly don't think you could remake reddit if you did everything exactly the same starting in 2016. Corporate social media has definitely ruined the individual aspect of social media that is unlikely to return.

No one wants to share on a place with a bunch spammers.

[walrus01]

The API changes were put in place for the purpose of breaking, and did break, slmost all external moderation tool software which changed the task of moderating a forum with hundreds of thousands, or millions of users from an impossible Sisyphean task to something that was actually manageable by a dozen or so mods.

The protest came after that so the timeline is not quite correct.

[Jordan-117]

The protest was about (and timed to coincide with) the API changes.

[traderj0e]

It was bogus even before that. I heard complaints at some point that API changes broke bots, which actually sounds good.

[ssl-3]

It did more to break bots that were fueled by righteousness than it did those that were fueled by money.

That's antiproductive, in that it promotes survival of only the worst bots.

[traderj0e]

I'd want any/all the bots dead if I were still using that, so at least killing some of them is better than not. The "helpful" ones were just annoying.

[ssl-3]

That sounds pretty great. If we could just flip 1 switch to accomplish things in absolutes, then that'd be awesome.

I'd like to flip the switches that absolutely end poverty globally, absolutely eliminate guns from the US, and absolutely remove bots from Reddit,

If you can show me where these switches are located, I'll cheerfully go flip them and accept full responsibility for the results.

(Over here where things don't work in absolutes: Some of those bots that got killed were countermeasures to help keep the bad, well-funded bots at bay.)

[traderj0e]

No I'm saying it's better that they at least killed the "good" bots, even if this didn't result in killing all the bots.

[ssl-3]

"Congratulations, sir! Your directive to eliminate all guns has been a roaring success! We've had 100% compliance amongst good, law-abiding people! All of the remaining guns are owned by outlaws! Violent crime has tripled, exactly as predicted! Everything is going according to plan!"