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Some Subreddits Are Now Filled With Porn To Protest Reddit 101

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: A handful of subreddits have classified themselves as not safe for work (NSFW) to protest Reddit's recent treatment of the platform's volunteer moderators, and as a result, some non-porn communities are starting to get a lot of porn. More than 8,000 subreddits went dark last week in protest of the company's API pricing changes that are set to shut down popular third-party apps. But as the protests went on, Reddit started to push back. In an interview with The Verge, CEO Steve Huffman said that, while the platform allows the protests, "the users are not in support of it now. It's like a protest in a city that goes on too long, and the rest of the citizens of the city would like to go about their lives."

In an interview with NBC News, Huffman characterized moderators as "landed gentry." And some mods have felt threatened by messages sent to them by the company. Thousands of subreddits have reopened; one tracker indicates only about 3,300 remain private or restricted. But switching to NSFW creates a new level of friction in reopened communities.
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Some Subreddits Are Now Filled With Porn To Protest Reddit More

Some Subreddits Are Now Filled With Porn To Protest Reddit

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  • Porn or John Oliver? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:25PM (#63618774)
    Tough choice. The real solution would be porn staring John Oliver.

  • NSFW = no ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hall ( 962 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:25PM (#63618776)
    From what I've read, reddit doesn't serve ads in subreddits or in message threads marked as "NSFW" so this will hurt them financially. The moderators went this intentionally and for this reason, it seems, as well.
    • Why no ads at all? If I'm a company manufacturing fuzzy handcuffs and horse dildos, why should I care about my product appearing next to a nipple? Seems like I couldn't ask for a better customer base, particularly if there's an r/horsecock [reddit.com] subreddit (I don't know if that's a real place, but don't click on that link. It's not going to r/kittens).

      They users will stop with the childish antics as soon as they find out they don't work and are only counter productive. Or they'll buy some penis enlargement pill

    • Yes, that was the plan. It's somewhat backfired because random idiot users suddenly see this as justification to post *actual porn* in these subreddits, since it's now an NSFW subreddit, right?

      My condolences to the moderators who now have to deal with that.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by Rockoon ( 1252108 )
        I have no sympathy for people struggling with their own self-made problem.

        All the moderators had to do to avoid this, was not allow porn ever, rather than to be the ones who began posting porn.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        Is there a process to take it back to SFW? And does it somehow, magically, not involve manually deleting all the porn, post by post?

    • Doesn't it hurt it from a usability point of view, perhaps prevents results in google searches too?

    • "From what I've read, reddit doesn't serve ads in subreddits or in message threads marked as "NSFW" so this will hurt them financially. "

      I forgot for a moment that Reddit users are to stupid to block ads.
      Thanks for the reminder.

    • It's not that they don't, it's that advertisers generally choose not to have their ads shown on such pages. Someone like Coke or Nike isn't going to want their product associated with such.

    • Allowing unrelated porn on the sub will make admins job of replacing rebelmods so much easier.

  • You know, before every self important asshole on reddit started walking around with their head up their ass acting as if their little domains meant anything.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      Anyone who thinks their fiefdom outranks porn is in need of an attitude adjustment, including reddit itself.

  • That escalated quickly (Score:4, Insightful)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:28PM (#63618780)
    The recent changes were to make Reddit more attractive to investors for an IPO later this year. Efforts like this hit directly at that goal more than going dark or pictures of John Oliver. Though I feel he would say a site with sexy pictures of him would definitely lower its value.
    • outright violence doesn't really either, what you need for a protest is what's called Good Trouble [cnn.com]

      And this is some good trouble :).

      • Right now a greater troll army is preparing for the day when Reddit foolishly cripples its own defenses. We will descend on the site crushing and devouring like violence spez hasn’t seen since they kicked r/WatchPeopleDie off the site!

        It will e a glorious day for greater and lesser trolls alike, but not so much for lesser trolls as naturally after the last pathetic human is dismembered and devoured we’ll move on to crushing lesser trolls as is tradition!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )

      I assume they thought that if they could kill off 3rd party apps then it would drive users to the official app where they could be bombarded with ads and the usual dark pattern BS. It might have even worked if their own app wasn't broken & annoying garbage, or if they supplied mods with adequate tools to perform their roles.

      But they didn't. If they had been smart about it, they'd have allowed curated 3rd party apps to use the APIs for free on condition that they were a) strictly moderation or quality of

  • No they're not. (Score:5, Informative)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:29PM (#63618784)

    CEO Steve Huffman said that, while the platform allows the protests...

    It's not "allowing the protests" when you remove the moderators engaging in the protests and replace them with people more amenable to doing what they're told.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
      There are rules, aren't there? Suddenly changing the adult nature of a sub seems like it would be moderators gone rogue even from the simple user's perspective.

      If you host parties and ran out of beer, wouldn't you also throw out the guests that start punching holes in your walls because there is no more free beer?

      • Hold it, since when does the "simple user's perspective" mean a damn at Reddit?

      • Re:No they're not. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SvnLyrBrto ( 62138 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @05:12PM (#63619038)

        That's really not a proper analogy. A better example would be:

        "You host parties that serve cocktails and one of your guests tends bar for free because he thinks it's fun. Then you decide to charge for the drinks. Moreover, you've decided to charge so much that most of your bartender's friends leave and a bunch of random assholish strangers show up, treat your bartending friend like crap, and generally make him feel miserable and unwanted. When the bartender complains, you tell him to piss off, shut the fuck up, and keep tending bar. So your (Uncompensated... Let's not forget that point.) bartender says "fuck it," starts to serve only Coca Cola, and then starts refusing to take money on your behalf."

        • Except as a web browser user my drinks are still free...
          • And the bartender has nailed the doors shut and brought in the ugliest hookers you ever saw to strut around nude.

            • Which would be a concern if I didn't literally have 1000 other bars that didn't shut. People still need to remember just how insignificant a couple of thousand subreddits are. Shutting down r/aww and the like is akin to blocking cat videos on youtube. There's still a fuckton of other content out there and people are still lapping it up.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          In that scenario I'd have every right to replace the bartender with someone else or kick them out of my venue. If they're not happy they can go start their own party, invite their own guests and pay for their own venue.

          • Sure you do - and if you replaced your unpaid volunteer(s) with paid staff and call it a proper bar you would be well within your rights.

            But if instead you try to recruit their close friends by throwing shade at their "attitude", hinting they are betraying their group, and insist your for-profit establishment is still a "community" of unpaid volunteers... don't be surprised if they refuse to play ball.

            Reddit CxOs could be the grown ups and say "seriously, this was a good ride but this is a real business and

    • Steve Huffman is used to lie about pretty much everything else, so why not this as well?

    • CEO Steve Huffman said that, while the platform allows the protests...

      "IT allows" doesn't mean "It endorses" and absolutely doesn't mean "forever".

  • Suddenly labeling a community that was previously SFW as NSFW and allowing it to be flooded has severe ramifications WRT the consent of the users who were part of that community. Reddit's leadership would be well within their rights to forcefully reopen those communities, rip the NSFW label off and then ban all of the users and mods involved in flooding them with porn (or allowing it).

    It's not a joke. If you're going to go all "consenting adults" then that can only happen in places that are known in advance

    • Re:This goes too far (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn@ear ... .net minus punct> on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:48PM (#63618830)

      The problem is they want to keep their user base. Otherwise they could just shut down for awhile and they require everyone to re register to get back on...and be just as picky as they felt like being.

      I tend to avoid rededit, so I'm rather uninformed about the conflict, but IIUC they want to have free moderators that will do what they're told to do, using the officially provided tools, and few moderators want to comply. They've got the *right* to just kick them off, but then they need to replace them, and still end up attractive for an IPO.

    • the consent of the users who were part of that community

      My my, the internet drama is so thick you could cut it with a plastic knife.

      Here's the long and short of it:

      !/ Reddit is only one of a multitude of internet forums at the end of the day. Cool down, it's not life and death.

      2/ Users who aren't happy about what's happening - be it what the forum's CEO is doing or what the moderators are doing - are free to express their discontent by leaving. If they really feel the need to interact in a forum, there are plenty of other forums to choose from, join and start ya

      • Telling everyone that doesn't like the way mods are doing this to leave is just wrong.

        In return I would ask the mods that are acting like babies to leave. There now Reddit is empty. Or is that the goal of this stupid protest?

      • Users who aren't happy about what's happening - be it what the forum's CEO is doing or what the moderators are doing - are free to express their discontent by leaving.

        I generally agree with this but - what I don't agree with is subreddits still dark, because that is breaking links to valuable content. There the moderators are kind of holding everyone else's content hostage to their demands.

        Or porn-flooding forums, against the wishes of people just trying to enjoy a topical forum. To me that crosses a line

        • Re:Sort of true but... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by sfcat ( 872532 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @05:06PM (#63619026)
          Nothing on Reddit is that valuable. If it was, you should have posted it somewhere you own.

          • It's not about me (or you), it's the totality of knowledge.

            If it actually were not valuable, no one would care. Yet here you, and many others are posting all about it.

            Your very words bely your premise.

            • youre ignoring boards like r/pics, which post nothing that wasnt already posted somewhere else. Rosco is right, youve got no right to complain if youve never paid a penny. If the users/mods really are the worth in reddit, go and start your own site and see how far that gets you. The reason you all havent jumped yet is because you know full well you cant match reddits traffic or infrastructure, and actually your "valuable" content doesnt stand up so well on its own shitty little empty server when you have to

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Lordfly ( 590616 )

            Try searching for an esoteric technical issue on Google without appending the search with "reddit" and count how many first-page results are functionally useless to solving your problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )
        This is about 3rd party apps. You don't seem to understand what this situation is about in any way and every fact you posted was wrong. There is money involved and people have paid money, and the users are just fine with what is happening. Tell Steve he can change back his API policies whenever he wants. But in about a week, nobody is going to care anymore and he will have to resign if we wants this to stop. Its only going to get worse from here.

    • They might be within their rights, but moderating a large number of posts for NSFW posts is not easy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      So you advocate for Reddit to accelerate its currently ongoing suicide attempt? Yeah, makes sense...

    • Re:This goes too far (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Can'tNot ( 5553824 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @10:34PM (#63619800)
      You're missing the point. Here, the mods of r/interestingasfuck explained it [reddit.com] pretty well:

      The subreddit will be opening Monday June 19th with new rule changes. Reddit has made it clear that users, not volunteer moderators are the true owners of subreddits. So the community rules are changing to reflect that.

      Going forward the only subreddit specific rule is that any content you submit must be something you consider interesting as fuck. That's it.

      The sub is marked NSFW because that's what happens to a sub (or any forum) when you don't moderate.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ksc ( 651788 )
        Left r/interestingasfuck for this very reason. New posts were porn, porn and hey, look MORE porn. Don't want it, don't need it. I don't agree with the moderators form of protest, so I did the consumer thing and left the forum.

    • If you're going to go all "consenting adults" then that can only happen in places that are known in advance to be places where that is done so those who don't consent can be expected to exercise their freedom to avoid such things.

      There's nothing to prevent "consenting adults" from changing their minds in either direction. You just don't like the choice they made in this case and therefore declared their choice as "illegitimate." While also asserting that the majority of the "consenting adults" involved didn't approve of the change. How about you actually go grow up somewhere else? Others do not have to warn you in advance of their opinion changes nor have them approved by you before implementing them.

      It's not a joke.

      Could have fooled me. I though

  • So nothin's changed

  • Landed Gentry? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by newbie_fantod ( 514871 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @04:10PM (#63618874)

    That's an odd phrase to describe unpaid workers.

    • Re:Landed Gentry? (Score:4, Funny)

      by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @04:45PM (#63618982)

      They're paid in power. And there's no shortage of people who will gladly take on a bit of responsibility for power over their peers. Just look at Slashdot moderation and meta-moderation...

      • Re:Landed Gentry? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by labnet ( 457441 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @05:12PM (#63619040)

        /. Isn’t so bad. Wikipeadia on the other hand.

        • Slashdot, for all of its flaws and idiosyncrasies, did get a few core things right 25 years ago. Cap the post scores, don't let someone post and vote, and don't let any one account have too much control (e.g. infinite mod points). Meanwhile Wikipedia is infamous for its turf wars and editors protecting their pages.

          Reddit ends up being somewhere in the middle of all of this. There are a lot of good, hard-working moderators, especially in the smaller subs. But there are also the power mods, which control a wi

    • help me understand this.... theres someone giving away message boards, ie they take care of hosting, advertising, the ins and outs of running a multi-million user website and backend.... and you want them to pay you for the privilege?

      • Advertising is the way the entire enterprise earns money, that's on the earning income side of things, not expenses side of things. Hosting is of course a cost and a big one, but there is not a whole lot of manual labor involved so its relatively cheap. But to make a site valuable advertising real estate, you need moderation and that's a lot of manual labor. If you had to actually pay for it, it would be a horrific cost, or you would resort to bot mods that do a much poorer job. If you don't have moderation

        • But to make a site valuable advertising real estate, you need moderation and that's a lot of manual labor.

          you know what youre getting in exchange for that, right? A FREE MESSAGEBOARD YOU UNGRATEFUL SWINE, let that be enough for you. unless you want to start paying for hosting, or god forbid actually do it yourself, but you wont do either

  • landed gentry (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @04:27PM (#63618930)

    Huffman calling other people "landed gentry" when he himself literally makes his money by doing nothing but watching other people create content on his website is the most self-unaware thing I have ever read outside of U.S. politics.

    • People generally use visual or abstract metaphors that they're familiar with. Why he would use this language begs me.

    • He's well aware of how stupid he sounds. It's just that there are plenty of idiots, even here on this thread, that will believe and agree with him.
    • They're not landed gentry when they're being purged for protesting. /r/mildlyinteresting just went restricted and back to public multiple times over a 5 minute span. Now suddenly /r/mildlyinteresting is public and has no mods. Fuck Reddit, and fuck Huffman in particular. I'm done.

    • literally makes his money by doing nothing but watching other people create content on his website

      It's so easy to criticise it as making money of others. Sounds simple right? Why don't you run a reddit competitor then? And when you think of your excuse remember you're really just arguing against yourself at this point.

  • Which subreddits? (Score:5, Funny)

    by weepinganus ( 767987 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @06:23PM (#63619228)

    Which subreddits?

    Asking for a friend.

  • It's great to see Redditors burning down their own city. They're typically pretty insufferable so the only real danger is where they'll flee to.

  • Yes, to protest, that's exactly the reason...
  • It's enough from these crybabies. Reddit needs to just remove and ban the mods being little babies about this.

  • Such arrogance from the CEO (Score:3)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2023 @04:01AM (#63620160)

    The CEO acting like an absolute douche bro is sure to win over the protestors and allay the fears of potential investors in this platform. There are so many way that the platform can be disrupted by users & mods - garbage content, spambots, trolls, moderation strike, censorship, porn, inactivity, etc and they all devalue the service. The important thing is the protests continue unabated and continuously until either concessions are made, or the IPO flops and douche bro gets replaced by someone a little more reasonable.

  • Reddit mods are landed gentry. The CEO is kings. And I am the peasant caught in the crossfire of these idiots.

    They can both burn in the coldest darkest hellfire.

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