Here’s the list of highlights from the article, as it’s a good TL;DR:
- The Reddit app-pocalyse is here: Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader go dark
- How Reddit crushed the biggest protest in its history
- Reddit will remove mods of private communities unless they reopen
- Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview
- Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout
- Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit — and why users revolted
- A developer says Reddit could charge him $20 million a year to keep his app working
I’m curious how Reddit thinks this is going to go. Community went NSFW and started posting NSFW content. Admins switch NSFW off, despite there being NSFW content. NSFW content continues to be posted, only now it shows up next to ads.
Like, the toggle exists for a reason. It’s not “incorrect”.
I think it’s pretty clear, by removing the ability to moderate NSFW content from their mobile app, that they’re trying to phase NSFW content off their platform completely. They’re going to slowly make it more and more difficult to post/browse anything NSFW on the site, until they announce an outright ban on it.
That’s what a ton of the casual users that keep their site chugging along are there for though…
You missed the part where spez does not care one bit.
When advertisers actually start pulling their ads as a result? That’s when he’ll care, but not until then. In the meantime he’s flexing, enjoying the feeling of “power” that it gives him.
I mean, they will eventually. There’s a reason those policies exist.
At a guess, he’ll try to spin it. Like “I’m being treated more unfairly than any leader in the history of the entire world has ever been treated anywhere, those meanies are harassing me when ALL I did was try to make the site profitable, that’s ALL!?”, and in combination with “Like everything else on the internet, people will get bored quickly and if you’ll just give it a moment, it’ll all blow over soon”. In short, he’s pushing to see exactly just how far he can take it.
And he may very well get away with it too. Unless someone actually does anything at all to stop it, by default he will reap the spoils of everything that he wants to get, b/c the VAST majority of people are just too lazy to care. He has caused US here to flee… but what does that even mean, overall? In the short-term at least, Reddit traffic has actually gone UP since the start of the protest - this “negative publicity” is still publicity.
Advertisers won’t give a shit what the reasoning is.
The advertisers will. Again, this policy exists for a reason.
If have worked worked in the industry and know this to be true, then I will bow to your actual experience. Otherwise, I am reserving judgement until I see it happen. Remember: Trump was impeached, twice, and he may still be elected again - and there are pictures of him with very underage girls at Epstein’s parties and personal 1st-party accounts from the girls claiming that he had sex with them (at 14 years of age iirc), yet still many pastors proclaim from the pulpit that “he is God’s man” - which is a very different matter than that the other side is worse (also, by that same line of logical reasoning, why wouldn’t Hillary have been “God’s woman” if she had managed to get elected? Or Obama after he actually was?).
I’m just saying that I no longer am willing to put my faith and trust in things that “must” happen, to actually happen. Especially if there is some kind of claim for it to be a temporary measure while they restore order. Maybe some sets of advertisers will be swapped out for another, or maybe all of NSFW will be removed from Reddit, I don’t know what to expect except that whatever it is, spez will expect to profit from it, with like a 99.99% chance of not admitting any fault whatsoever.
I don’t understand what any of that has to do with this conversation…
It’s very simple: people WILL call out companies for the locations of their advertisements and these companies DO respond to having their brands tarnished in that way. This is not speculation, this is history.
One more time: that is why this policy exists.
It’s now clear to me that, since being sold to Condé Nast, Reddit has never been run by smart people who know what they’re doing
A community site built and moderated by the good will of others isn’t sustainable when the folks running the site tell the community to go fuck themselves.
It wasn’t Erin by Emery people before Conde Nast bought them. The only reason the site still exists is because Kevin Rose fucked up really badly, not through anything the admins did
Maybe they plan on banning everyone continuing to post NSFW material on non-NSFW subs to remove the dissenters.