Reddit

Wanted to write a little about what's been going on with Reddit lately, although I had to catch up on quite a lot of info since I was traveling and couldn't stay up to date on everything, it was hard to miss the "protests" some moderators of certain communities/subreddits did for a couple days. I watched this video recently that seems to have summed things up quite well and also brought up some of the past of Reddit that may explain quite a lot about its trajectory since. RIP Aaron Swartz.

In a TIL kind of way, it seems to boil down to a mix of, copy what Twitter did to avoid costs from those feeding off of Reddit data such as the rise of AI using it to become better at what they do along with monetizing themselves. Same goes for other apps or front-ends that allowed people to browse Reddit outside of the official Reddit website and their mobile app, whether or not they were monetizing it doesn't matter since many used them instead of official Reddit apps where they lost out on adrevenue. Along with Reddit hoping to become an IPO later this year it would naturally help them to show higher numbers of revenue generation on top of all the data their users give them for free (except for a minimal fraction of a % that may earn through Reddit).

One of the worst things about the restricted API access according to moderators of Reddit seems to be that it restricts most the helpful bots from operating. Although I have to give props to Reddit for at least allowing limited usage for free of their API's which will allow POSH for the time being to operate without costs (check out @redditposh and sign up on hiveposh.com to participate). This of course will make it quite difficult for moderators as many have used different tools to "background check" accounts. You could compare it to using Hive SQL and other services that use it to make life harder for curators and abuse-fighters here. Another thing is that it's going to make it harder to detect and moderate actual AI accounts and content, while that may not be that difficult here on Hive on Reddit it's quite another ballpark given its daily unique users and effects certain comments, upvotes and attention can have to the rest of the internet. It's a little bit ironic to think that many of the AI's we know today have grown and become good at what they do thanks to scanning Reddit, Twitter and other socials for free to now not be able to do that any longer but instead act like regular users on those socials with unknown motives and agendas controlled by unknown people/companies. Most likely for the usual things which have plagued Reddit for a long time, such as ads hidden behind genuine looking content.

Another issue discussed in the video linked above is the unfair power dynamic of certain users controlling most of the biggest communities a.k.a. subreddits on Reddit.

To put this into perspective, it would be as if our OCD incubation would not just have a moderator spot itself in certain communities here on Hive, but also be the leading role such as admin in them rather than letting those who initially started the communities have their say and control over content and users posting and commenting within the communities. This is an issue I personally haven't seen used much on Hive, i.e. "censorship" of accounts posting within communities by moderators just because they don't like them or because they disagree with them. While I don't think it will never happen, it is something that occurs a lot more on Reddit and given how most of that decision making lands in the hands of just a few for subreddits with literally millions of subscribers and daily readers you can imagine how much that could be abused and probably is.

It's funny they mention Reddit user Gallowboob in the video as he's been someone known for sharing and farming karma for years. There was a time I was in contact with him about checking out Hive and remember he wasn't happy that his username had been squatted so he went with @thegallowboob instead, although failed to follow through with giving hive a proper try. Went and looked for our dm history just so you don't think I'm talking out of my ass:

Apparently, he's also known for using his moderating powers to his advantage to silence and ban users from subreddits he's in charge of along with being known for reposting content often or deleting if they don't do too well to then re-upload it later. Who knows what else goes on behind the scenes when the database is private and regular folks outside of admins can't check who's voting on what and when, compared to Hive for instance this makes it possible for anyone and everyone to check through our many block explorers. As you can imagine these moderators wield a lot of power and with that comes quite a lot of possibilities for earning if they now and then share content that's actually an ad and boost it up using alt accounts, their reputation and moderator status, connections, pinning posts, etc. They basically have full control of certain subreddits, similar to communities on Hive of course but here it's quite easy to shoot up a front-end or just read the block explorer to see what posts and comments were muted by moderators to distinguish if it was a fair mute or a personal mute.

The video also mentions how important mods are to Reddit and obviously being as #web2 as they are, mods don't really get rewarded for their time and contributions, something I've been doing differently with our curation and moderation system in OCD & through our community incubation. If you can't reward genuine and helpful contributions that lead to better communities and user experience for everyone interested involved, the mods are eventually going to start doing things for something else. With great power comes great responsibility but if that power isn't rewarded to continue doing good, people will eventually falter and choose the dark side, i.e. hidden paid advertisement, powerhunger, censorship, disagreements and vendettas, etc. With no one being there to spot when these infractions occur, those on the other end of them literally not being heard because they're completely muted and banned from the subreddits, it gives the moderators immense power and leeway to continue abusing their positions time and time again.

As I'm writing this while watching the video a second time I realize it's quite wide about Reddit's history with Aaron Swartz and how Reddit went full corporate so I'd rather recommend giving it a watch and re-linking it here as this post is already getting quite long and some of my followers really aren't fans of that. If however you are a new user who can't fully comprehend or see how Hive is different from Reddit in most of the instances mentioned in the video, feel free to ask in the comments and I'll try my best to answer even though I lack developer skills and that point of view.

This video also kind of makes me want to put some thought into if I were to create a Reddit copy on Hive, how I'd go about doing that. Maybe that could be something I could post about next instead while trying to keep it short.

Thanks for reading and congrats on being here where changes like the ones Twitter and Reddit and in the future I'm sure many others will propose won't become reality on Hive. If I were to guess I'd expect Reddit to soon add subscription models for certain subreddits and features and maybe even rate limiting users based on if they're paying or not like mr. Musk is doing currently. What a joke.