Steve Huffman is pissing all over Aaron Schwartz’s grave, and completely abandoning the ideals that was once a foundation of Reddit. Reddit was originally open source, Aaron died in 2013, and by 2017, Reddit had abandoned the open source / community philosophy entirely.
Never forget Aaron Schwartz.
This is the main reason I haven’t been back to reddit since this shit began. All of this goes against the original ethos of Reddit that made me join and is a disrespect to all of the people who made reddit what it is. It disrespects the users, the volunteer moderators, the app developers, and the old employees. Most especially, though, it disrespects Aaron and, if I’m not mistaken, Alexis.
Alexis is no stranger to disruptive unpopular decisions either:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Ohanian#Victoria_Taylor_firing
He did fight for open internet back in 2010, but it seems he is mostly a finance/corporate guy now, seems he is a bit of a mixed bag.
Thanks for pointing this out. I didn’t realize he was involved in Veronica’s firing.
He must also have been part of Reddit abandoning open source. I don’t think they could make such a fundamental move without him.
I remember when Ellen Pao was the nightmare and spez wasn’t yet perceived as the fuck he actually is. Different times, I guess the devil you know is better sometimes. Otherwise you get spez, fuck spez.
Removed by mod
The glass cliff…
What she did was OK IMO. Banning revenge porn is absolutely necessary. Probably a legal requirement in almost all countries. The rage against Pau seemed to be from extremists who wanted reddit to allow discrimination, bigotry, racism, and everything in that vein.
The resulting uncensored Voat fork of reddit, was a completely useless cesspool.
I’ve seen a Lemmy server (feddit.dk) require posts and comments to be legal (probably for the country of the server). Which in my opinion is obvious. It should be a minimum conduct requirement for a social network anyway.
Banning revenge porn is more than okay, it’s the right thing to do.
I remember when he took over after Ellen he was given a hero’s welcome. Sad to see how far its all fallen.
I have to believe Aaron would be leading the charge to Lemmy if he were still alive today.
As a computer nerd I never knew about a lot of what this wiki article described, and I’m something of a news junkie to boot. It was a great read.
From the wiki article…
Swartz wrote in his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto:[47]
The world’s entire scientific … heritage … is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations…
And interesting quote, in light of the current situation going on at Reddit right now.
Intellectual property law is such a farce. It’s wild that he was on the hook for THAT hefty of a prison sentence just because he downloaded academic articles which should on principle automatically be in the public domain.
Absolutely, the way he was treated was criminal IMO. It’s horrendous that such practically illegal law enforcement isn’t held accountable. They twisted everything against him, and ignored all his rights completely. Secret service behaved like mobsters, and their accusations were complete bogus.
I’m so happy I live in a country where the law and enforcement is much more sensible. IP law is still important, but they won’t destroy you for breaking it.
Remember whatsapp annual 1€ payment? My fucking god what happened? Anyone defending this price is fucking insane.
Absolutely this!! Thank you for posting this, I had forgotton Aaron’s name and was unable to find him when this all had started. Can’t believe it’s been 10 years
Yes, it makes me sad, that many of the people who said “Never forget”, kind of forgot anyways. I’m glad I could refresh your memory, it’s as relevant as ever IMO.
His name was Aaron Swartz, his name was Aaron Swartz.
All I have to say about this is that this was a blessing in disguise for me. I’ve never heard of the fediverse until this Reddit fiasco happened. I’m having a lot better time here being part of something new and it feels good to start fresh.
Same. I’ve been diving into Linux and open source and self hosting lately anyway, and at the same time you’re telling me open source social media is a real thing and gaining in popularity? Count me in.
Same here, but I miss some niche subs.
Stick around and help this grow.
If you build it, they will come.
At least they took a stand. Thousands of other subs who got the same ultimatums just gave in no questions asked, no malicious compliance.
I can understand that, lot of smaller sub are build by themselves, not wanting to lose something you spend so much time building to some random smug is pretty much human, it isn’t about holding that jANitOr job. I’ve seen a country sub i frequent goes from 4 digit to 6 digit in the span of 6 years, it’s a lot of works. Also sub like r/projectzomboid is established by the company and mods are paid position, getting kick out is…weird lol.
The issue is, because it’s “understandable”, it’s also what gives spez the power here. If they weren’t willing to go all the way, they needn’t have bothered with the blackout at all. There was never any actual hope spez would change his mind from a 2 day blackout, anyone that knows anything about how he’s handled things in the past should have known this. This was always going to be a standoff.
Besides, after everything spez has done, these mods shouldn’t want to be modding for the site anymore. Spez has displayed a level of malice and disrespect for everyone, especially them. Why give him free labor?
That’s all it is. Every minute you spend moding reddit is polishing the investment you will never see a single dime of. Spez is going to get a good deal of money off you while spitting on you, and you will get nothing but saliva. Continuing to mod there is an acceptance of that.
Also, let’s be real, this isn’t the end of it. Reddit will continue to get worse as Spez continues down the Musk-path. Users already can’t block certain advertising accounts; I promise you a day is coming when mods won’t be able to stop them in their own communities if they decide to post there. Mods will be forced to make their communities adhere to even stricter “ad friendly” content guidelines, just like YouTube. Etc etc, on and on, ad infinitum. Why stay there for all that?
This is the time to leave, to find a new place to start your communities again, get in early and find places as mods around here.
Spez has displayed a level of malice and disrespect for everyone, especially them. Why give him free labor?
Especially when it reinforces his batshit delusions of being a post-apocalypse slavemaster: “I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.”
Money and fame make you fucked in the head.
Have you noticed that all of those loud doomers are the rich Silicon Valley type? Him and Sam Altman and Musk et al. I mostly think that their main product is not tech, but fear, so they can sell themselves as the Messiahs of the unwashed masses and the only people responsible enough to control their technology.
These tech people really need to read more sci-fi, even their delusional doomer scenarios are just so unimaginative.
That’s pretty evident given that they don’t actually produce anything themselves. Musk’s not smart, he’s not even a halfway good leader. He can’t even do the shitty things without relying on others like the local governments to let him break unions or whatever. That’s just the billionaire way, they’re all fully reliant on others and the only reason we’d let them be in charge of anything is because, for some vague reason, we think they should be.
If ya can’t be good without cheating, ya aren’t that good.
If spez tried to tell me to do anything in a post apocalyptic scenario, I would use him as bait to catch food.
That article certainly confirms all of my suspicions about the kind of (crappy, only in it for himself) person stevie is.
“Every minute you spend moding reddit is polishing the investment you will never see a single dime of. Spez is going to get a good deal of money off you while spitting on you, and you will get nothing but saliva”
That’s why I MANUALLY(R***** won’t care deleting, cause those are, of course, their source for investment, so only I have to) delete all my posts, comments, history, profile and account including disjoining communities and connections (takes time 😮💨 but at least relieved from fear), forever and tough (let it go🎤🎵🎶), so that, the ungrateful head won’t ever milk anymore information I had put.
Information(data stored on databases) has made their success and profit(of course necessary but became greedy), and now they disgrace and maltreat the ones who’d helped the site flourished to become a wonderful world we’d ever wanted.
I won’t allow them to exploit any information from me whether personally, actually or technically (even a short comment or pic or data or a bit of silly word) for malice with AI coming(already here happening) to Internet.
Do to do fair action.
I think you’re reading too much into it. Active users is where the money is, not outdated data. Just dont login or otherwise engage with reddit -that’s what hurting them in the long run
I don’t well know about active users as a criteria of profitability (I’m no IT nor businessman), but that’s a good indicator. But thinking deeply, why do (active) users or real online people (
not bots) or such I go to that website? Because to me, I visit for information, anything whether current or ancient (especially with the help of search engine). Without information (from real online people who’ve posted/interacted/contributed/shared), why would I visit a website where I won’t find anything I like to look for or converse with? R***** has served as a news aggregator (despite they don’t create themselves but disseminate info), then a forum/discussion meeting (by users still providing info as comments/advices/knowledge/code…), then a meme rating and so much more, plenty of info. Without it from users voluntarily (generouslyeven some info are deceptive/toxic/nonsensical), why would the other active users or the lurkers even visit a room nothing but people walking by?
That’s why I MANUALLY(R***** won’t care deleting, cause those are, of course, their source for investment, so only I have to) delete all my posts, comments, history, profile and account
Manually or not - do you think they will stay deleted? Reddit has the data, from a technical point of view they can restore whenever they like. If that’s legal (at least for EU citizens under the GDPR) is a different topic; I’m not restoring a technical answer to a technical question qualifies as private data. Probably that’s different when it comes to r/relationshipadvice or similar subs.
it’s also what gives spez the power here
I doubt it is the small communities with less than 100,000 members which give spez the power here. I think it’s the bigger ones, the ones people often find when googling for solutions to certain issues. Unfortunately, even if those subs close down and even if users “delete” all their posts, reddit holds the power to restore them (if this is lawful or not, at least for EU-based users according to GDPR, is a different topic. I’m not a lawyer.)
I think the value comes from the science-, open-source, diy- and IT-based subs. Those create the value people look for even years later via Google. Those are also user with sufficient technical expertise to maybe move over to Lemmy, or maybe even run their own Lemmy instance. If those subs stay firm or move out, that will seriously harm Reddit. And the smaller communities will follow eventually.
not wanting to lose something you spend so much time building to some random smug is pretty much human
This should be a lesson that the thing they spent so much time building isn’t theirs to lose in the first place. It belongs to Reddit.
It’s a shame the moderators can’t unionize.
The end result is the same so what did that stand achieve exactly
“Why even try?”
You don’t stand for much, do you?
Shit, I’ve been sitting the whole time man…
At least they don’t donate their time and effort to Reddit anymore.
For some it ain’t much about the result, just the principle of taking a stand against something they precieve as not right.
For some it ain’t much about the result, just the principle of taking a stand against something they precieve as not right.
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Even when you know you are going to lose, you still have to fight.
Looks like the nazis are gonna win might as well pack it in and accept it…right?
Presumably now there’s no one moderating the sub?
If the mods of mildly Infuriating want to jump ship they are more than welcome to have their old positions back!
https://lemmy.world/c/mildlyinteresting They are way ahead of you!
Hell yeah!
…I’m disappointed by the lack of porn.
Looks like they are removing posts about it in reddit too. The main subs are scrubbed of all mention now.
I dunno about that fresh blood might be what this site needs, mods end up getting too rooted in their ways and act all too irrational.
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Thank you spez for introducing me to Lemmy, I appreciate that.
For real. I never heard of Lemmy until this happened.
Me either! Now I feel like I’m getting in on the ground floor of something big.
I’d heard of Lemmy and wanted to switch for at least a couple of years now, but without a critical mass of other people to post content there was no point. I’m excited that it’s finally a viable community!
Same. Would have signed up years ago if I’d known about it. I miss the old usenet days!
I needed a kick in the ass to get me here, and the second and third and … waves of reddit fuckery finally got me to join. It’s a shame. Reddit was once a good place on the internet. Now it is entirely enshitified.
Agreed. Seeing mod teams get nuked was what drove me away.
I went back today…i have some plant id subs left and a couple of things that are still good, but yeesh, i had a lot to do today and i ended up wondering what is going on there. At this point there are things that are not safe for life, dammit. Cool to have this place now, i have to say.
I haven’t been back since the blackout originally began. Kinda intimidated because I know I’m going to have a lot of backing up to do. Plus the emotional toll of gazing upon the dumpsterfire with unprotected eyes. Once I get my backing up done though I don’t think I’ll have a single reason to go back. I don’t think there’s really anything anyone can do to stop spez and I think it’s only a downward spiral from here on out. Starting fresh is the way to go. Spez made sure of that.
When you think about the situation, it’s really just Reddit cracking down on unions… Of unpaid workers… Who are defending customers’ interests… Which in turn support them… And all of this while pretending that they crack down on unions for the benefit of customers. That’s a really shitty move Reddit is pulling out right there.
yeah, but we are not the customer. we are the product.
Yeah, thats the funny part, those mods were unpaid. They have no rights to do anything just to obey reddit.
they didn’t follow Reddit’s “Moderator Code of Conduct”, here’s a summarized version for anyone who wants to take their place:
Rule 1: Suck Steve Huffman’s dick.
Rule 2: Suck u/spez’s dick.
Rule 3: Suck it all the way to the balls.
Rule 4: Suck it like it is the most delicious shit in the world.
*New rules:
Rule 6: You are not allowed to put anything other than Steve Huffman’s or u/spez’s dick in your mouth.
Rule 7: Pay Steve Huffman and u/spez 20 million dollars a year each for sucking their dicks.
You don’t even wanna know what rule 5 is!
Rule 5 is nobody talks about rule 5.
ah sheet I just noticed I can’t count
Shh we don’t have to let them know that 😉
fuck u/spez
fuck u/spez and fuck reddit’s board of directors.
Bit crazy watching Reddit devolve so FAST.
That’s what you get when you model your behaviour as CEO on Elon fucking Musk.
Elon fucking Musk
talking about me?
Depends… Is your name elon ? And are you fucking musk?
Elon is that you?
No, my son’s name is also Bort.
Reddit thought it was immune to diggifying itself
That we will still see. Its quite possible there will be a crazy big cleanup and still people will stay.
I guess disaster movies are right, we do go straight to hell real quick.
Yeah, they’re gonna keep ruining Reddit while we steadily migrate here. We’re just being a pain in the ass on our way out.
Someone told me i was going to get banned for saying i joined lemmy.world on reddit… and it’s like… Okay?? This site is shit now anyways, so you’re going to ban me for using a different website, that’s a great way to retain users during your mass-user revolt crisis.
Probably specifically because the admins (Spez) don’t want people hearing that competition exists
Where you banned?
No but my post was deleted
Back when there was exodus from digg people started posting links to stories on reddit to digg. I think the same should be done right now.
Make sure you’re willing to abruptly lose your Reddit account if you do. Reddit admins are being pretty cunthroat about this all.
Is there a value in an account you aren’t planning to use on a site you don’t like anymore? I think many people will wear “being banned for advocating to migrate” as a badge of honour.
That really wouldn’t bother me at this point
What does an account matter? Make 10 more. Make them with names insulting admins.
thank you for teaching me such a clever word
Steve Huffman is a bastard man
Indeed, he is garbage in human form.
He’s a real bastard man
Sitting in his bastard land
Making all his bastard plans
For redditors
There needs to be a massive resignation of reddit moderators.
If reddit refuses to hear the mod’s voice, why would anyone give them their labour for free?
Let the power-tripping mods stay, and let the sane mods come to other platforms. Let the site go to shit or make Reddit spend millions investing in its own moderation team.
I closed down my subs and moved here and started new ones. I’m not looking back. My subs were only moderated by me, so they can hire someone if they want to open them up again.
It would be better if the mods stopped moderating, without removing themselves. Just let the communities become overwhelming cesspits, making it that much more difficult for the admins to scrub. That is the nuclear option, though, and it seems that the mods actually have hope for Reddit to compromise.
Removed by mod
Any mods willing to stay aren’t mods I’d want here, anyway.
I think what they’re doing is the most impactful. If the mods just stop, then under ToS they can be legitimately removed as inactive. If they’re active and following the clearly-expressed will of the community as determined by voting (you know, that core principle that all of Reddit is built on) then any action taken to remove them is an obvious and egregious violation of Reddit’s stated policies. If the community will just happens to be something that makes the website less programme l monetisable… well, that’s a shame, but nothing in Reddit’s user ToS says "you must work towards helping us profit from your interactions with the site ".
Plus, many of these communities are voting to do things that accelerate the transformation of their subreddits into hard-to-clean-up cesspits.
Reddit is going to do whatever the fuck it wants and will gladly fuck over the mods and users in the name of shareholder interests. These actions are chilling for anyone still considering building a community using Reddit.
They should migrate to lemmy.
Just did.
What a fucking circus that reddit has become in just the last couple of weeks.
I was still popping last week, but its all but slowed to a trickle at this point. Reddit fucking sucks today, and I say that as a 12 year user who thought it sucked 3 years ago.
Yes. 16 year Reddit user here. The last pieces of the puzzle with themes and moving to lemm.ee are falling into place for me. Lemmy’s front page is now more interesting than Reddit. Very much reminds me of the Reddit I joined. Way more intelligent and topical.
There’s nowhere near the amount of activity on Lemmy as there is (er, was?) on Reddit. But of course Lemmy is still in its infancy (comparative to Reddit, which has a collaborative seventeen year history behind all the threads/subs).
It’s a very good sign to see that perhaps we collectively just need to be patient, give it some time, and Lemmy could thrive.
Activity by itself does not make a good community. Reddit has thousands of times more activity than it really needs. You don’t need a comment thread with 100,000+ comments in it. A few good users will trump millions of users any day. While I’m not suggesting that Lemmy has quite enough users yet, my fondest memories of Reddit were right at the beginning 16 years ago. I think the golden number of users is not far off for us… A few more and some bug fixes and I think we will be seeing the golden years here. At the rate we are going, that might only be a few weeks or months away.
Just registered on lemmy, i hope it will gain more people so it will be another cool open source project that has actual interest in the masses
I’m still hoping for more discussion on the news communities, but it’ll get there.
Misread and thought you were saying you were 12 at first. You’re very mature for your age!
