Reddit mods are destroying the internet. And they're being paid for it. This video explains how Reddit makes money and how Reddit became trash and why Reddit...
the entire first minute is just unfounded petty insults
For real? Come on.
reddit does have major, systemic issues with major moderators, some which are touched upon very well, and some left unsaid such as known political think-tanks inserting moderators into national and political communities, but the video creator’s approach, especially a generalized grouping of ‘reddit moderators’ as a single conspiring group, is just a silly way to start. It encourages people to just dismiss it as ‘moderators are just bad people who are powertripping bullies and wannabe police officers’ instead of realizing that there is an important diversity in who moderators are, on any site, and that systematic issues cause the rise of the worst despite the majority. It’s important to realize this phenomenon isn’t distillable to just ‘reddit moderators’, it can and should be generalized to any sufficiently significant site, especially any with money or a wide influence involved.
As this documentary hints, reddit is and always was a for-profit company, bound by venture capital and shareholders to be the most popular it can be. Aaron’s and even Alexis’s ideals aren’t going to stop that. Reputational damage is bad for popularity. The site dies if popularity dies. They are FORCED to censor to survive, at least when any popular media makes a fuss and scares their shareholders.
And in a way, that’s where Lemmy has a chance to thrive where most (not all, most) reddit-like sites fail. Look at the ‘alt-tech’ platforms that made themselves home for banned reddit communities, then turned out to just be venture-capitalist censorship-happy (politically rather than language) places that died out in years. Lemmy on the other hand allows groups to thrive independently, even despite the views of the developers or any funding. The devs of lemmy.ml couldn’t shut down wolfballs or here even if they wanted to, or more importantly, if they took up funding from someone who wanted to. The software’s operating and funding model effectively eliminates the need to conform to popularity as it grows. Of course, that still leaves other issues like political and social control of mods over instances they volunteer for, but the removal of economic subservience is a major advantage.
For real? Come on.
reddit does have major, systemic issues with major moderators, some which are touched upon very well, and some left unsaid such as known political think-tanks inserting moderators into national and political communities, but the video creator’s approach, especially a generalized grouping of ‘reddit moderators’ as a single conspiring group, is just a silly way to start. It encourages people to just dismiss it as ‘moderators are just bad people who are powertripping bullies and wannabe police officers’ instead of realizing that there is an important diversity in who moderators are, on any site, and that systematic issues cause the rise of the worst despite the majority. It’s important to realize this phenomenon isn’t distillable to just ‘reddit moderators’, it can and should be generalized to any sufficiently significant site, especially any with money or a wide influence involved.
As this documentary hints, reddit is and always was a for-profit company, bound by venture capital and shareholders to be the most popular it can be. Aaron’s and even Alexis’s ideals aren’t going to stop that. Reputational damage is bad for popularity. The site dies if popularity dies. They are FORCED to censor to survive, at least when any popular media makes a fuss and scares their shareholders.
And in a way, that’s where Lemmy has a chance to thrive where most (not all, most) reddit-like sites fail. Look at the ‘alt-tech’ platforms that made themselves home for banned reddit communities, then turned out to just be venture-capitalist censorship-happy (politically rather than language) places that died out in years. Lemmy on the other hand allows groups to thrive independently, even despite the views of the developers or any funding. The devs of lemmy.ml couldn’t shut down wolfballs or here even if they wanted to, or more importantly, if they took up funding from someone who wanted to. The software’s operating and funding model effectively eliminates the need to conform to popularity as it grows. Of course, that still leaves other issues like political and social control of mods over instances they volunteer for, but the removal of economic subservience is a major advantage.