flybynightpotato

Outside of it being a Meta creation, the fact that it is inextricably tied to an Instagram account is enough to keep me away. Even if the app itself isn’t collecting your data (it is, though), all of your information is bundled together in a neat little package, stretching across platforms.

Sometimes I feel like the internet is a huge mistake, but then I see stuff like this and am just all, “bravo, you crazy assholes,” in the proudest, most pleased, way possible.

Like Elon, his big mistake was thinking he was smarter than he is and deciding to open his mouth thereby alerting the public to the fact that he’s very much not smart.

Genuinely curious because I have no experience with modding: would it seem okay if a bunch of incapable people who don’t know how to moderate a very large sub got in there as mods? How long would it take for things to completely fall apart? (I guess - how long before it wouldn’t seem okay?)

Hahahaha of the list of all the people not to emulate in this day and age, Elon definitely tops it. Well done, Huffman. How’s that last thunk from the final nail in the coffin sound?

I read it! And I agree. Reddit isn’t going to collapse. It’s going to turn into something else that most of those of us here don’t want to participate in, probably lose a decent amount of credibility (and users), but march on kind of the way Twitter has (I don’t participate there anymore, either). We are free to leave (so we are) and other users who just “want their content” are free to stay (so they are). “Enshittification” is exactly the right term, though.

edit: inserted a missed word.

Christian Selig is too decent and mature for his own good. In his place, I’d probably make the [immature, bad] decision to go scorched earth.

He’s probably relying on the fact that the numbers are now skewed in favor of people against the blackout because those of us who were pro are extricating ourselves from the site and not posting/commenting/interacting with content as much, if at all.

Yeah, I’m basically done. I log in every couple of days to just kind of keep tabs on things and then log back out - it’s gotten particularly unpleasant as it feels like the active users on bigger subs are now largely trollish and inflammatory. (Obviously running the risk of being trollish and inflammatory myself by saying that.) I’ve deleted Apollo from my phone, and am mostly focused on figuring our Kbin and the Fediverse.

He’s a big fan of the strawman argument.

Under the law, they also HAVE to respond to all requests within a month, regardless of whether they intend to comply. So it seems like it would be possible to completely overwhelm them with GDPR erasure requests and let them panic.

I think one could make an argument that data Reddit has falls into the category: “Personal data basically means any information about a living person, where that person either is identified or could be identified. Personal data can cover various types of information, such as name, date of birth, email address, phone number, address, physical characteristics, or location data – once it is clear to whom that information relates, or it is reasonably possible to find out.” People post all kinds of information on Reddit that leads back to their identity, making it reasonably possible to find out who they are (hence why people get doxxed). https://www.dataprotection.ie/sites/default/files/uploads/2019-07/190710%20Data%20Protection%20Basics.pdf

Edit: But that said, there are exceptions where entities may retain data in furtherance of other objectives, and erasing data isn’t the same as formally requesting its removal, so while this is all super shitty and shady, it might not actually be illegal. We need the data privacy experts to weigh in!

What’s endlessly fascinating to me is how quickly Reddit (spez) dug this hole for itself. I’m (or was) an Apollo user, but didn’t pay close attention to the finer technical points of app use, and was only half paying attention when the API changes were announced. In a matter of about two weeks, I went from not having particularly strong feelings (like a shrug personified) to be vehemently anti-Reddit and Steve Huffman. And it has literally all been based on the things Reddit (spez and his mouthpieces) have said and done. In other words, there hasn’t been any “persuasive propaganda” that swayed me. Just them, in all their idiocy, taking me from neutral to bury them in an incredibly short period of time. The level of incompetence is truly impressive.

Moderate 5000 new communities using unpaid labor specifically. Because we all know Reddit doesn’t have the employee power to commit to moderation and they definitely don’t have the budget to hire it out.

He’s like the dictator with the secret police who “disappear” people but who outwardly makes grand statements about protecting democracy and protest. Bad vibes all around.

Yeah - obviously Reddit isn’t going to go down in a fiery blaze, wiped from the internet, but it’s entering a long, slow, spiral, imo, after having made a series of terrible decisions and bad PR moves that are likely significantly reducing its value as a company and casting doubt on its longevity as the power house its historically been. As far as I’m concerned, the protests were a success because it’s forced Reddit to show its hand in a very public way (after all MSM picked up the story).

Shows how powerful inertia can be. Momentum keeps things shambling along even as critical parts fly off.

I said this elsewhere, but almost all of the articles (Verge excepted) miss the larger points. Someone coming in cold with no sense of the context here could easily walk away with the idea that Reddit is behaving reasonably (e.g., why shouldn’t they charge for API usage? they’re a company trying to make money!) and users and mods are completely out of control. These articles rarely address the concerning accessibility issues being created by the API changes. They rarely address the price to be charged is vastly larger than the price that it costs to provide API access/recoup losses from inability to advertise to 3P users. They don’t address the fact that the changes were announced with barely any lead time to allow 3P apps to make necessary changes on their end to avoid insane fees. They don’t cover the damage to mod tools or the fact that the moderators are working for free and occasionally working at a loss (due to purchasing their own servers, for example). They also don’t address the fact that Steve Huffman pointedly lied about Christian Selig threatening to blackmail Reddit, that he doubled down on this in his AMA, and that if you sift through his c&p statements, he doesn’t actually answer questions or provide any kind of information or reassurance. It’s all very annoying.

Yeah, I’m hoping it was just a trial run/muscle flex to show that coordinate efforts to shut down large swaths of Reddit work. I’ll guess we’ll see what happens after the 30th/as things progress. The hardest part of a protest is continuing it after the excitement and attention has died down, and it remains to be seen whether Reddit users and mods can hold fast. Spez is betting on us/them not.