hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout today, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! Thanks!
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This is my first day on beehaw, and I’m planning to shift as much of what I previously did on reddit to this platform or others. Hopefully that will allow me to abandon reddit completely. I’m looking forward to learning more about this place and seeing how it develops.
I think I’m happy with the outcome. People were always looking for an alternative to Reddit and all that was missing was critical mass. Now the alternatives are totally usable outside of small niches which will catch up eventually.
Reddit is definitely shitting its pants. They used to have zero direct competitors.
Looking at the tracker comments seem to reaching parity with posts again, as they were pre-blackout. For the two days of the protest 67% of subs were private, yet posts hardly deviated from the norm - and comments only slightly below. Is the implication that people in subs that didn’t join in like r/news etc just posted/commented that much more in a show of support ha ha ha, or is this a de facto admission that much of the site’s traffic is just bots? Are investors down with that? I haven’t seen this actually hashed out in discussions much.
I think a more realistic implication is that big chunk of reddit content is bots and propagandists.
I was wondering about how much of reddit activity is bots. Are bot posts/comments possible with lemmy?
It’s impossible to tell how much of the posts are bots but if you look at the default subreddits I’d say that it’s definitely noticable.
Reddit is a popular grey marketing area - be it shilling products or political propaganda. Lemmy/Federation hasn’t reached enough mass for this to be a real problem yet but it’ll happen eventually and Lemmy is an easy target right now. I used to work in bot detection area and modern, well made bots (the ones you should worry about) are essentially indisguishable from real users but script kiddies can be an issue too.
The only real way to fight bots is to reduce the incentive which is more of a cultural thing - people have to call out shills and a more transparent platform definitely helps.
Sorry for the rant but I think bots/spam will play a big role if federation ever reaches the point where there’s enough eye-balls for shilling to be valuable.
There has to be a way to limit these accounts. Perhaps ban accounts with inhumane levels of activity? If possible, this would be awesome. I think that’s what makes a platform for me - interacting with real humans on topics of mutual interest. It would be such a bonus to have a feed not dominated by bot reposts and inevitable drivel.
Behavior analysis is definitely a popular way to handle this but it’s very difficult and resource intensive. Major issue is false positives as users are hard to predict in flexible environments like forums - is this person interested in all Honda posts as they are researching their new car purchase or they’re shilling for Honda?
It’s tough.
I dunno, there’s a particular instance here in the fediverse that seems like an alt-right bot operation. I don’t want to mention it directly to avoid the ire of said community, but once you find it your Head might explode.
I’m certain lemmygrad is a propaganda operation by China or Russia. Well at least I want to believe that people aren’t that toxic and ignorant willingly.
Good perspectives, I totally agree it’ll be a big challenge here as the fediverse gets bigger. Mastodon’s already had a couple of waves of spam - Brian Krebs had a good article a few weeks ago
Yes, there’s nothing stopping someone from creating bot accounts on Lemmy and pretty much every other Fediverse platform. Even if APIs are restricted, they can just parse HTML instead (though that’s a bigger pain in the ass). This is an area where the decentralized nature of the Fediverse works in our favor, though, as it inherently limits reach and discoverability (thus minimizing the benefits of doing this). For example, Mastodon’s flagship instance (mastodon.social) had a spambot problem not too long ago, so what happened is when other instances noticed this spam wave, they limited/defederated with mastodon.social and the problem was solved on their end. The host instance can temporarily close off sign-ups to prevent new accounts from being made. Every other instance can control federation to effectively quarantine the spam problem.
Interesting. My initial thought was that botting on the fediverse might be easier than on a centralized site, since you can target your bots to several instances at a time. If one of them catches on, your bots can still function because they aren’t being banned across all instances.
What you say about being able to quarantine and cut off instances that are being spammed makes a lot of sense though. I’m glad that at the least there’ll be some new challenges for bot authors.
Ultimately though, the relatively small size of the communities is our best defense against bots at this point. Lemmy/kbin just aren’t great targets yet because bots won’t reach enough people to achieve their creator’s goals.
Probably, but it wouldn’t be as easy since each instance has different design, admission criteria, and access to other instances. A bot would have to be based on a given instance, so a botnest instance could be cordoned off. If it becomes a bigger issue, each instance may have their own way of dealing with it so the bot would have to be capable of not only negotiating the above obstacles but also how to get around a variety of different ant-bot measures.
There is so much bots who repost on reddit it’s a nightmare…
wonder if regular carpet bombing the open subs with a black “Reddit is killing third-party app (and itself)” might be effective? gives the mods an “out” because it’s not against TOS - and if it were widespread enough eventually a few of them will hit front page
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Didn’t reddit piss off a lot of the German users by making fake subs filled with poorly translated bots?
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Do you have any insights as to why I have german posts appeared in my reddit front page when I have none of the german subreddits subscribed?
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Lol I’m posting on both here and Reddit. I’m kind of enjoying the drama even though I don’t have a strong opinion about the API controversy personally.
That’s so funny. I deleted my app - what’s happening on the other side?
r/dankmemes commentators are all whining about the mods powertripping and how the protest is only hurting users and what right they have to destroy the experience for everyone 😂
It was business as usual on some of the subreddits I post on a lot (e.g., /r/credibledefense, /r/historywhatif). Those never shut down. But other ones where they re-opened, there’s a bit of debate going on about whether or not to stay shut down or not. At least on the subs I visit and post on, most people are in favor of keeping the subs open.
https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/
There’s a bit of a gap in the data but despite some subs coming back online, it seems the number of comments has more or less stayed at the levels of the last 2 days.
I do not cross picket lines. Later this week, once the protest is officially over, I plan on going on Reddit, backing up my data using the PowerDeleteSuite another user posted about, and then overwriting and deleting my comments and posts with a message about the protest, before closing my account entirely.
Lemmy has already grown a nice community of people, and I’ll be glad to contribute and watch it grow over time!
Overwrite all your comments with “move to beehaw!”
I considered that for mine, but given that replacing all my comments can be taken as hostile, I’d rather not associate them with Lemmy or Beehaw.
I just went with setting every one of my comments to [user data has been purged]
I’m going with the HD-DVD encryption key. It just feels right to go full circle.
Yeah, I’m on the lemmy.world instance, but I was planning on doing something like that. I’ve heard that some bots have been going around deleting posts that mention Lemmy / the Fediverse though, so I guess we’ll see how it goes. :)
Anytime I’ve mentioned Lemmy directly I immediately receive 3 downvotes lol.
I don’t know what kind of comments and posts you’ve made on Reddit, but if any of them are technical how-to’s or something that may come up when people search for specific problems, then it might be good to leave those comments, or else just prefix each comment with your “purged” message instead of overwriting them entirely. I mean if it’s fun memes or discussions, then you do you 😅 I’m just thinking of the tale of DenverCoder9. Plus, it probably costs more for Reddit to store a longer comment than a shorter one! Pennies or less, but still!
According to reddark, there were more than 7K subs closed this morning, right now there’s a bit above 6300, with many opening as we speak. We’ll see.
I visited Reddit for the first time in two days and had a thought that has occurred to me constantly for years, “I hate this site.” It’s still the same alienating crap and it will never change. I glanced over my home page, made a comment about the fediverse being a better alternative in a blackout thread for one of my subs that came back, and popped back here.
I went back yesterday night to check out the Starfield sub and was surprised at how little interest I felt in even skimming the comments in case there were interesting theories. I grabbed the Imgur albums for screenshots I wanted to look at and left. the fediverse is my place now. :)
I agree completely. I don’t care if people go back to reddit, I don’t care if they even reverse some of their decisions, the damage is done for me. I’ll look forward to a new future here and elsewhere on the internet.
My first day off Reddit, I had severe withdrawal. I kept trying to launch Boost (my third party Reddit app of choice) despite not really wanting to. Thankfully, a focus app I installed for just this reason stopped me. I eventually moved the app shortcut and put Jerboa in its place so that muscle memory took me to Lemmy instead.
By the second day, the withdrawal wasn’t as bad. I did miss some things, but I was starting to realize how little I really cared about much of it.
By now, Lemmy has replaced about 40% of my Reddit usage. Another 50% I’ve deemed not important enough to replace. I now have only one subreddit that I really miss. I’ve found a Lemmy alternative, but of course Reddit has a bigger community.
That one remaining subreddit is still dark. (I tried to see how many subscribers it had and saw it was still dark. I wasn’t going to read any posts if it had gone back online.) If it comes back, I might stick around there, but I’ll also stay on Lemmy and will push this as a Reddit replacement. (I think Jerboa and Lemmy have some rough edges that need to be improved upon before they can truly be a replacement, but they are surprisingly close.)
I just uninstalled Apollo to stop any chance of accidentally going to reddit.
Speaking of Jerboa, I installed it, but it opens to tankie lemmy and I can’t figure out how to change it to beehaw.
You probably have to log in. If you are in anonymous mode, the app defaults to showing lemmy.ml (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong)
This situation made very clear what writing is on the wall for reddit. I don’t care if people go back, it hasn’t been the reddit I knew and cared about for a long time.
To all the people saying “oh well this won’t replace reddit,” I wouldn’t want it to. Reddit has changed.
Here’s to new beginnings
Advertisers are starting to take notice, it seems. Gotta keep the blackout running longer to hit em in their pocketbooks - 2 days they can weather out, indefinite dark they cannot. It’s what I’ve been saying from the beginning, a protest with a clearly defined end date has no teeth.
I’ve heard about Reddit removing a mod from a popular subreddit, then turning the subreddit public (sorry, don’t have the reference). They can always stop the blackout by force. But once they do that, those mods will have definite incentive to start the communities in the fediverse.
I think it was r/AdviceAnimals
It was. How does one link to another post on Lemmy?
From what I’ve seen so far, that doesn’t seem to be a solved thing yet.
That seemed to be a situation where the head mod was going against the wishes of the other mods. Not sure how I feel about it, personally, but it’s not quite as simple as “Spez made the subreddit open against the wishes of everyone involved”.
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Also r/tumblr
For now at least, the only instances of that have been absent mods who swoop in and start taking action. They’ve had a rule about that since KotakuInAction had that happen where the founder of the sub came back and wanted to shut it down (for good reason, that place sucks). Reddit admins undid it and kicked the founder out to preserve the community.
It’s disappointing to see some of the larger subreddits going public with a ‘what’s the point?’ tone. Most are staying private, but some aren’t. As if Reddit doesn’t exist solely because of its user generated content. If enough subs permanently shut down they’ll have to reconsider their API position.
I decided to write a message to subreddits I’ve been lurking for years via messaging the mods saying how vitally important it is for subreddits to protest right now, at this critical time, before it’s too late. I’ve politely implored them to continue the protest saying how these API changes with have a long-lasting, permanent impact on Reddit as a platform for the worse.
I’d suggest you guys come up with your own letter template and message the mods of those subreddits in polite form. It’d be great if we can convince these exceptions to go private again. I also understand some moderators may be afraid Reddit will just replace them with mods willing to reopen the sub, so I added a section saying it they’re treated like that, Reddit don’t deserve their time and maybe they should consider rebuilding elsewhere if that happens. Its their prime chance to stand up for the right thing right now for the future of Reddit.
I used Reddark to determine which subreddits to contact. I’d say only contact hobbyist ones such as sports rather than more politically-inclined ones like Ukraine that have a fair reason to stay open. Also some subreddits have made poll posts asking their users if they should go private like Gaming and NotTheOnion, so please don’t message those ones.
I agree with everything you’ve said and that it is disappointing. I do think there is merit in continuing to protest and send a message.
However, I don’t think there’s anything that can move the Reddit leadership team back. Because even if they went back on this API issue, the continued process of the degradation of reddit as a service has been a long term thing. It seems to me that the Fidelity downgrade of their evaluation has pushed them even further down this path.
I truly am done with them. Even if they come back from all this, what’s left there? Somebody else pointed out that over the year, generally interactions became more unfriendly on reddit, spam and changes to the algorithm increasingly pushed away from the platform we all loved.
I see this situation and how it was so exacerbated by Spez and the leaderships absolute failure as a blessing. There’s a lot of alternative ways to spend time on the internet, to connect and learn. Beehaw has been really good to me the last couple days, I am excited for a future here and ready to not contribute toward the mess that reddit has become anymore.
I’m excited to see how these new platforms flourish too. Even if Reddit do eventually concede and they drop their API pricing, the writing is on the wall. They’ve shown how little they care about the community that uses their platform. I’ll likely be leaving Reddit permanently, but I want to know I’ve at least done everything in my power as a long-time user to protest their awful decisions.
It’s become increasingly clear that Steve and his cronies are desperately trying to get Reddit to its IPO with value intact so they can cash out and leave someone else holding the bag. As I’ve said elsewhere, I wouldn’t be surprised if he and others end up shorting Reddit.
If he does, that’s insider trading and wildly illegal. Not saying he won’t, just that the ethical thing to do would be to treat Reddit as a Conman’s scheme and withdraw any value you’ve put into it sooner rather than later. Reduce the IPO value by not going back
What the big subreddits don’t realise is, on Fediverse many of their subreddits have not yet been recreated. If they don’t do it, someone else will and then they come in as just contributors. So may be in their interests to actually establish a presence, and gauge how much take-up they get.
May be they already realize it, meaning, they saw all the popular communities already created here, and would much rather stay there as mods.
I think so too but I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to come on the fediverse nonetheless. They can participate but not as mods. Once they build a reputation on the fediverse then of course they could apply for mod.
I have started calling the mods of those subreddit “Scabs”
I was wondering if I should delete all or leave some of my posts, but seeing subs I subscribed to come back was what made me decide to just wipe everything. Can’t do anything about the mods or what other users do, so felt like deleting stuff was the one tiny bit of control I had over the situation. Which itself is nothing, but at least it’s something.
I’m planning to wait and see what happens on June 30th before I do that. Over the years I’ve made some educational posts on music production that I still occasionally get messages about, so I’ll be manually going through my content to decide what to preserve and what to delete. I’m glad I’m not someone who decided to post a lot over my many years of Redditing or I would be in for a long dig lol (if you’ll pardon the pun RIP Digg).
You can request your data under EU’s new GDPR law https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request
They have to send you all your personal data. Once you have your data, you can they use a tool to delete all your data and wipe your comments before you deleted your account. Like Chrome/Edge extension RedditZapper.
Note that it might take a while though, so if anyone wants to get this done before the 30th (so you can use API-based tools to wipe comments), request it ASAP.
I requested…maybe two weeks or so ago? And it only came through today. So get to it y’all
I used Power Delete Suite to overwrite my comments and posts via API, it includes an option to export everything from your account to a CSV before it takes any destructive actions, and it’s super easy to use.
It was cool seeing years of comments get wiped. I could see why some people would purge their history every year even before the reddit controversy. It’s cleansing in a way.
I am fascinated by how the experience of other people can be completely different from mine, alien even. We can look at the same situation and come up with exactly opposite conclusions. I keep trying to put myself in the shoes of the other, figure out how they think. The behavior of u/spez is abhorent to me, but here’s how I would imagine he thinks about the community list of demands:
<AH mode>
Bringing the API pricing down to the point ads/subscriptions could realistically cover the costs.
The costs are reasonable and down to earth! We’ve been extremely generous. Our prices are in line with industry standards. The app devs are greedy and do not want to pay. In fact they are so greedy they are choosing to shut down and go out of business rather than pay their fair share! Also some apps are ahem inefficient. Those devs could stay profitable if they just code their apps better.
Reddit gives the apps time to make whatever adjustments are necessary
The apps had plenty of time. We’ve been perfectly transparent. The API changes were announced months in advance. The first bills do not arrive until months from now in August, and are not due for another month after that. The apps have enough time if they are serious about working with us.
Rate limits would need to be per user+appkey, not just per key.
Rate limits are for the free tier. The paid tier is a flat fee per 1000 API calls without rate limit.
Commitment to adding features to the API; image uploads/chat/notifications.
We are always working on new and exciting features! We have so many mod tools in the pipeline. All the hottest features will appear in our native app first, which is where we can best ensure everything stays compatible. Have you tried using that?
Lack of communication. Why were disabled communities not contacted to gauge the impact of these API changes?
We are always in communication with our communities! We’ve been discussing these API changes for months, collecting community input, and interacting with our users in AMAs!
You say you’ve offered exemptions for “non-commercial” and “accessibility apps.” Despite r/blind’s best efforts, you have not stated how they are selected.
We communicate with developers on an app-by-app basis. We have already confirmed the inclusion of two accessibility apps! We support accessibility for blind people!
Parity in access to NSFW content
Cannot be done for lawyercat reasons.
Now that we have addressed all of the listed community concerns, we are looking forward to welcoming all of you back to reddit!
</AH mode>
P.S. the fact that u/spez specifically stated that “old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere” confirms in my mind that old.reddit will be gone within 9 months. Screenshot this.
Once old Reddit goes leaving is not a matter of choice for me.
Man, I read your word vomit like 4 times, I believe you are right about all of it.
I read all of the apps threads about why they’re quitting on the 30th, for Apolo which has already charged its users he would have to foot the costs the whole time until the next subscription re-up for many/most of his users, and we’re supposed to believe the reddit guys?
For others, even the ones that want to make it work with added subscriptions, the lack of full reddit access via the API makes one wonder, what’s the point of even trying?
Reddit has been an awful site for nearly 20 years, the only thing that made it usable was third party apps.
I’m not sure I’m going to miss it, I hated it before 3PA, and I’m willing to hate it again now.
The only thing I’m going to miss is world news updates and stuff that is here, the volume is basically muted in comparison.
old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere
“We are keeping it right here on our servers and it’s not going over the internet to your browser.”
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Right! I was trying to model u/spez as sincere, but with views so diametrically opposed to mine as to sound insane. “Lawyercats” was an actual reason he has cited previously. I agree that the much more likelier explanation is that reddit execs are lying out their ass and are simply deliberately killing off 3rd party apps to make their IPO look better somehow, and using the fuck-you pricing as a convenient excuse. The execs must have been drinking their own start-up cool-aid, having forgotten that the real value of reddit is not in them but in the community. u/spez keeps calling it HIS data that 3rd party apps are profiting off, when it is really OUR data. Or maybe they are aware, but are expecting that they can bend the community to their will regardless.
But wait. I have a NSFW subreddit, and reddit doesn’t allow you to upload pictures directly to reddit if you’re on an NSFW subreddit. Right? So how can it be the primary host?
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It’s disappointing seeing people cave so quickly when under the slightest inconvenience. It doesn’t matter for me, though - I’m not going back. If anything, this has helped me realize the unhealthy relationship I had with Reddit and was a good way to break that.
To new and better things.
I’m happy to stay on lemmy. Just like mastodon, it had a boy that will fade but then I think it will continue to grow.
Reddit’s always had inept management, Spez in particular can’t help but antagonise his users with a daft unforced error every couple of years. We don’t need to ‘win’, we don’t even need to actively do anything but exist. As long as nice places like this exist and Reddit does too Reddit’s inevitable cockups will provide a small but steady trickle of users.
I deleted my Reddit account on 6/12 and they just simply didn’t process it. Losers
https://github.com/andrewbanchich/shreddit
This should help!
this has helped me realize the unhealthy relationship I had with Reddit and was a good way to break that
Exactly, now that I have an unhealthy relationship with Lemmy I can’t put effort into the one with Reddit.
Same. Replacing doom scrolling on Reddit with posting on beehaw.
I started reading Reddit (and now Lemmy) through RSS feeds because I was exhausted from the constant scrolling. I think that’s really helped me cut back on my link-aggregator of choice. The RSS feeds here could use some TLC though – the feeds smoosh the title and url together and if there is any sort of post text, it’s not much to go on.
What RSS feed application are you using? I’m thinking of doing the same. Just pulling in everything from multiple sources into one interface
I use https://reeder.app/ with https://feedly.com account. Checks all the boxes between being able to access my RSS feed on any device (as Feedly has a website) and have it great user experience on my phone / laptop.
I wonder how much of this caving in was, because a lot of lame mods were worried about losing their past time and or control over large communities.
There are a lot of little Lukashenkos out there that will immediately cave to a bully as long as they’re allowed to remain in control.
Then we still win and Reddit still loses. Little Lukashenkos don’t make good moderators.
Well, give young people some credit, though. Mostly they’re the ones that have been closing their subs and migrating here and working to develop FOSS software like Lemmy. I say this as someone in my late 30s.
I’m probably going to delete my account or at least cut back drastically on my usage, but I’m currently the only active mod for a small fan sub for an old fantasy book series. I don’t really want to leave that sub unmoderated but I’ll have to find another user willing to take on mod duties before I feel alright abandoning Reddit altogether.
What book series?
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
Yeah, the niche subreddits are what I really hate to leave behind. I could care less about leaving r/politics, r/AskReddit, etc. But I’ll miss r/EtrianOdyssey (niche video game series).
But we’ll just have to create these communities on Lemmy. I’m in it for the long haul.
As the only mod, would you be able to export the data to lemmy and inform the users that they can continue posting here? I have no idea, genuinely just interested.
I have no idea whether that would be possible, but I’m also not sure I would want to do it. It would be one thing to encourage folks to move but I don’t own that subreddit (I’m not even the founder or the head mod, just the only one that actively moderates) and I wouldn’t want to grab other folks’ posts and comments and put them elsewhere.
That makes sense. It sounds like you are the right person to be that moderator, so I tip my hat.
Malicious Compliant Deep Thoughts : You could create a group here on Lemmy, start topics and discussions there. Then link those Lemmy posts on Reddit. The Reddit Users will figure it out. :)
…an old fantasy book series…
(My ears prick up)
An old fantasy series? I’m big time into old fantasy series. May I ask what it was?
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny.
Cool! Zelazny is one of my favorite authors. I assume you’ve read his Lord of Light?
Incredibly, I have not. It’s on my TBR list, I’ve just never gotten to it. Pretty bad for somebody moderating a Zelazny fan sub but it is what it is, lol
It’s his magnum opus. Enjoyable as Amber is (and I wish he’d written more), Lord of Light is absolutely incredible. Although a lot of people get confused by the flashback that starts with Chapter 2 and lasts for more than half of the book.
only active mod for a small fan sub
That attachment is what they (Reddit) are counting on. It’s your community, not Reddits; and they don’t care. But you do… while admirable in itself, its being used against you.
I don’t disagree with you, but I still feel a certain responsibility to that community. I’d like to start divesting myself of that responsibility, but it’ll take time if I don’t want to just abandon it.
From what I understand of how this whole system works here - you can just host/create your own instance for that community. Make some mod post on your subreddit about how you’re migrating the community, if anyone can help host it if you’re unable, and if they want to follow over they can.
Yeah it’s an idea for sure. I responded to @curiosityLynx a minute ago that I’m really burnt out on that particular series so I think it’s probably time for me to find somebody else to take it on and just move on myself.
How about you make a lemmy community or a kbin magazine and officially migrate your subreddit there?
I’ve considered it, but honestly I’m kind of tired of it lol. It’s an older series and so all of the arguments/discussions are just kind of retread endlessly, and I’m not as into it as I used to be. Also there are discussions about making a tv show and I wouldn’t mind being as far away as possible once that kicks into high gear. I saw what r/WoT was like when that show came out and I don’t want any part of moderating that crap.
Ah, makes sense.
Which series? My guess is Riftwar based on that description, but I’m curious if you’re open to sharing.
Not Riftwar, although I did love those books and even had a rogue on Ultima Online named “Jimmy the Hand”.
It’s a series called “The Chronicles of Amber” by Roger Zelazny. Great series but not without its flaws and never super huge in the public consciousness.
It won’t be the last time reddit fucks up. And everytime they do, more people will come this way, especially as this place gets better and better
It’s disappointing seeing people cave so quickly when under the slightest inconvenience.
The whole protest was slacktivism of the highest order. Minimum effort, minimum results.
