this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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I've seen that some subreddits went dark and said they'd come back in 2 days (June 14th), and others said they'd go dark indefinitely, until the API changes are rolled back. I'd like to make an appeal for the admins who're willing to go back: please don't.

I think Reddit wouldn't withstand 2 weeks to a month without their largest subreddits, and maybe they'd change their minds about API changes. Some may say they'd just make the subreddits public again and promote someone to mod (which I totally agree, they'll probably do that if the blackout endures for too much time), but I think most people don't realise the PITA it is to be a good mod, and just want to be one because of the status (I'm not an ex-mod btw, I just heard it is very complicated to moderate and I believe it really is).

Secondly, there's no guarantee that Reddit won't pull the rug again. Even if they roll back the changes and everyone goes back, they'll probably come up with this strategy again some time in the future. So instead of going back, stay in the Fediverse: all applications are open source AFAIK; you can run your own instance if you wish; you can defederate other instances if you wish; you can contribute with new features you miss or create a fork aplication of your own if you want to; heck, you could create your own Fediverse application if you want. And there won't be a scumbag to come and try stop you.

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[–] EndyDiD@lemmy.fmhy.ml 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The latest response from Reddit personally makes me quite furious https://tenor.com/038z.gif

So yeah.. Even if they revert shit I'm probably not going back there as much as I possibly can.

I say "as much as I possibly can" because Reddit has a stupid large archive of problem troubleshooting and solutions, which would make it difficult to completely abandon it in my opinion

[–] anonynorbi@lemmy.fmhy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am actually done with Reddit at this moment. This blackout showed me what Reddit is without the communities and the people. It felt really empty and unusable and it won't get any better. CEO of Reddit is a certified idiot. Right now trying to figure out how to delete my posts/comments and stuff (with a script) before deleting my Reddit account.

[–] ElCrusher@lemmy.fmhy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On Android there's an app called Redact that will scrub your social media accounts. I used it on my reddit account and it worked well.

[–] anonynorbi@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks for letting me know of this. It is even cross-platform... Works pretty much on everything. For the ones who are interested, here's a link: https://redact.dev

[–] Saitama@lemmy.fmhy.ml 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought from the beginning that planning a blackout for just 2 days was self defeating. All they need to do is ride it out. And they got enough disinterested users and subs still active these two days that it's not really hurting them long term. The only way it hurst them is if it's a longer strike against engagement with Reddit

[–] 0x4E4F@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Probably not, but I'd be happy if I was proven wrong.

[–] matzah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Correct - I’m out. I’m sure many will go back and my absence won’t make a difference, but I’m out and I’m not budging.

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

I'm sure as hell not going back unless they revert the API changes, greedy fucks.

[–] spicytuna62@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I'm not going back even if they do. I like it here.

[–] spez_swallows@lemmy.fmhy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I highly doubt they will budge. They're making a very loud statement by changing what they did. Because of that I will never look at reddit the same again. But on the other hand I'm glad it's came to what it has, I would have never sought out and found lemmy. I'm glad to be a part of something new.

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

Yes it feels like discovering reddit all over again! But this time we're all discovering it together :)

[–] AtreidesHawk25@lemmy.fmhy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I honestly don't plan to. I've been way less into it in recent years, I used to doomscroll for hours at a time but now I have TikTok and Discord servers that I am more occupied with. I like Lemmy a lot better already, we just need more people to use it.

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

How do you find Discord servers you are interested in? I have some game-related ones but not much else

[–] HectorBarbossa99@lemmy.fmhy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always find discord stuff weird because you really have to initiate conversations and its definitely the most "social" of social medias.

May sound stupid but idk its prolly just a mental block

[–] Poiar@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I feel the same. Also, you cannot see threads in a tree structure.

Discord could become the next Reddit if they introduced this feature (Edit: And a bunch other, Ofc)

Right now, it seems Lemmy is the best safe haven - albeit still in its infancy.

[–] nintendiator@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Isn't Discord more of the same tho? Closed platform, not indexable (unlike Reddit), centralized, etc.

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

I'm prob gonna get downvoted but I wanted to share exactly why FMHY is only doing 2 days.

I do not like Reddit or their actions, I know there's a lot of other people who do too, but it's a necessary evil for resources (like FMHY.) Even after having multiple backups and linking them in the private subreddit's message, lots of people were still relying on the Reddit version. (Apparently some people can't see the message - possibly a bug on Reddit's end.) There are also tons of people who are unable to get answers and whatnot from private subreddits.

Also, FMHY is going to fade to obscurity if and when it gets off of Reddit. It's where nearly everyone came from, and outside of that, there's not a lot of places people can find out about it. Same for r/piracy and other similar subreddits.

We're probably going to do a poll on whether or not to do a one/two day/s per week blackout, but doing it indefinitely is off the table.

[–] valveman@lemmy.fmhy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

I'm one of those who found FMHY and piracy related things through Reddit, and I understand you, like a lot of other communities there. But if everyone thinks the same, then Reddit will have almost every big community up and running, thus making this protest pointless.

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A subreddit I moderate is shut down. When the other moderator started it, he checked the message showed up for both old and new reddit, and it did. Later, I got a flurry of notifications about join requests, and checked again. The message still showed up in old reddit, but not new. They might have intentionally hidden such messages either to keep people unaware of the reasons for the shutdown or to annoy moderators into reopening, or it might have been that they were A B testing something that accidentally broke it.

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

I won't go back to a place where I was worried of my wonderful piracy communities getting the plug pulled on them. This place is home now.

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

I feel the same. Can't believe those piracy communities survived this long on that platform...

I was pretty baffled by it myself and I'm a newcomer

[–] knowncarbage@lemmy.fmhy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's looking promising between Lemmy & Mastodon, things seem smoother than when I last checked them back when Elon started snapping Twitter.

It still doesn't seem to be anywhere near mainstream, it's mainly tech people and bots by the looks of things and I'm not sure how this is fixed without advertising and maybe not having to copy and paste links between servers.

Reddit had variety. Some of the neckbeards there didn't even use linux which, whilst being wrong, added a little color.

Reddit was moaning about the cost of maintaining a public API that is being heavily farmed by AI learning, could this be an issue for the hosting of Lemmy?

On the plus side, copy & paste in a browser works here!

[–] penisthightrap@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree. Front page of reddit has been trash for the past 5 or so years. But it's smaller subreddits are where I spent my time. It became mainstream enough that there were communities for literally every topic or hobby imaginable. And they'd been around long enough for extensive wikis and info, and every question you can imagine has probably been asked and answered at some point. That's the part that I'm going to miss, something that took a decade to build.

But it's worth rebuilding that somewhere with the infrastructure like Lemmy. Not tied to a company.

[–] knowncarbage@lemmy.fmhy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not really fussed about the wiki's and historic data but the fractured communities are a sore one.

I suspect after the blackout has eased it may be time for some evangelism about the fediverse on Reddit. But before evangelizing to anyone I need some experience of the platform and how it relates to the other areas of the fediverse to see if this is a realistic option for the majority of people who want something that 'just works'.

I heard quite a few subs mentioning backup Discord & Telegram groups and it would be nice if we could sell the fediverse to these groups as I'd really rather not deal with Discord, Telegram & Reddit regularly. I will tolerate it, like I do Whatsapp, as a tool to communicate with worthwhile people who don't really care about my views on software, if the alternative is a social media stream that's 95% free software enthusiasts.

[–] valveman@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like your idea of evangelizing people on Reddit, but I'm kinda concerned with how we'd keep this infrastructure up and running in the long term. I don't think everyone would like to donate some bucks to help keep their home instance running, and the massive migration has already made some instances to upgrade their servers, raising their cost.

I'd love to see the Fediverse expand as a whole, but it must be a sustainable growth if we want to get somewhere.

[–] knowncarbage@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The longterm is anyone's guess. There's a lot of people not happy with Reddit and Spez at the moment and a viable alternative could see a rise in funding in the short term alongside the increased activity due to this.

I may be overly optimistic but suspect if Reddit refugees found a safe space they may donate a few pennies to the cause.

The reddit blackout is a nice stress test for Lemmy. I have to say after joining on lemmy.fmhy.ml everything has been really smooth from the server side, no complaints there. My main issue is that even fairly techy friends would find it confusing atm, I couldn't go onto r/randonsubreddit and explain Lemmy is a simple alternative everyone on the sub can easily migrate to.

[–] valveman@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I've been facing the same issue. I miss my country's subreddit, specially now we're having big things happening politically speaking, but people here don't have that much of interest in tech things, specially if it's a bit harder than normal.

I've been thinking of running my own instance and try to bring these people here, but i don't know if it'll be worth my time. I think I'll just enjoy Lemmy for a while and see what happens in the next weeks. If people get at least interested, I might give it a try

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

Agreed, I think it's a good time to be here: Mastodon has been gaining a lot of ground these days, thanks to Elon; other apps like Peertube, Pixelfed, Lemmy and Kbin are growing as well. Now I actually enjoy the experience of the Fediverse, and I hope it keeps growing and maybe dethrone current mainstream media.

Reddit was moaning about the cost of maintaining a public API that is being heavily farmed by AI learning

TL;DR: Spez is a scumbag and don't care if people use Reddit content to train AI models, he wants to kill 3rd party apps.

I don't think they're actually worried about people using their data to train AI models, since Sam Altman (OpenAI's CEO) is a Reddit investor and was a former chairman until 2022. I mean, either spez knew Sam was using it (my theory is that they're "friends" and spez knew it all along) OR spez didn't see Reddit content as valuable until now. Either way, Reddit started to limit access from mobile browsers, forcing users to use their official app. I don't know, but it seems to me spez is trying to kill 3rd party apps instead of just creating a better protection against scraping.

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[–] Undefined0968@lemmy.fmhy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"I think the wouldn't last 2 weeks"

Unlike digg, I think they would. I think they will :(

[–] 0x4E4F@lemmy.fmhy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Agreed. As much as I'd like to think they won't, they will. They'll find a way to monetize the OF promotion subs, plus make the site more microblogging like... cuz apparently, that is what works regarding social networks. That and the fact that the crowd that they now dislike (us) has left, leaves them a clean slate to do whatever they want. And they will, just not with us.

Reddit is not gonnna crumble, wait and see.

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

undefined> https://tenor.com/038z.gif

I agree but I think also most of the quality posters will begin leaving as the platform becomes more shittified, beyond those of us that are quitting in protest. I have been noticing a significant decline in the quality of conversations in the last couple of years in a few of my subs, as some people obsessed with karma started inserting themselves in every possible conversation and steering the subs in the direction they wanted. Which is not Reddit's fault, but it seems to happen every time a social media platform reaches critical mass, and the karma system encouraged that. Some people almost literally live for the karma - how many times have you seen redditors complain about being downvoted? That sort of thing ends up attracting people desperate for attention.

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[–] valveman@lemmy.fmhy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know about Digg, but the blackout kinda crashed their website/app. I think if we keep the protests going, they'll either have to roll back the changes, or open the subreddits by force and deal with low quality moderation.

Also, I think they did some irreparable damage to their image by not listening to their users, and this hopefully will kill their platform on the long term.

[–] 0x4E4F@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's not FB or Twitter, thus, no one actually cares. There was only one news report regarding the blackout, one.

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

There were bunches, most of the major news networks. Hell pbs newshour covered it.

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[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I plan on going back, but only to encourage mod teams to move to lemmy.

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

Reddit is being shelled with astroturfers right now, they're really desperate. That's why I just made my account and a new subcommunity for tulpamancers. If they start forcing subs online, it's all over for them.

Who am I kidding? I'm typing this on another site that isn't reddit, they're proper fucked.

[–] ski11erboi@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

I haven't been this excited about the internet in a long time. It feels good to be a part of something that belongs to us, the people. Watching this grow gives me hope that one day we actually will be able to break free from capitalism.

[–] LetterboxPancake@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I will go back. To delete my users.

[–] penisthightrap@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I'm sad thinking about all the valuable info out there that'll be deleted while people leave reddit, but I also don't think the company deserves the value the users have put into it.

I ran a tiny subreddit dedicated to my favourite author, Bill Bryson. That's gone forever. I used Apollo.

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