Hi Snoos,

Starting last night, about a thousand subreddits have gone private. We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as much. While we knew this was coming, it is a challenge nevertheless and we have our work cut out for us. A number of Snoos have been working around the clock, adapting to infrastructure strains, engaging with communities, and responding to the myriad of issues related to this blackout. Thank you, team.

We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor.

There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward. We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.

While the two biggest third-party apps, Apollo and RIF, along with a couple others, have said they plan to shut down at the end of the month, we are still in conversation with some of the others. And as I mentioned in my post last week, we will exempt accessibility-focused apps and so far have agreements with RedReader and Dystopia.

I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.

Again, we’ll get through it. Thank you to all of you for helping us do so.
  • BigFig@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    ·
    1 year ago

    I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.

    Both pretending to give a shit about his employees and painting protesters as potentially violent people.

    Fuck you spez, the only person deserving of a gut punch is you not your employees.

    • malcyon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      We shouldn’t be punching anyone in the gut. Violence isn’t the answer.

        • malcyon@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          “I am okay with violence, as long as it’s my side that’s doing it. That’s because our cause is just.”

          If everyone followed this philosophy, the world would be a much worse place. You can’t be this way and be on the right side of history. If you have 100 great points, this undermines all of them.

          It’s also silly to see someone complaining about being portrayed as violent and then immediately going into talking about violence.

          • areyouevenreal@lemmy.fmhy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            If someone takes violent action against you or people you care about, what do you suggest to do?

            That’s unfortunately the situation for a lot of people in this world. It’s also sometimes the only way to enact change. It should be a means of last resort, but a means nonetheless.

            Absolute pacifism is functionally and morally equivalent to giving up in certain circumstances.

            • malcyon@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Nah, I’m not a pacifist. I just think if we’re getting a fresh start in a new place, maybe it’s a chance to be a little more civil.

              • areyouevenreal@lemmy.fmhy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                The comment I replied to seems to indicate you don’t support violence in any circumstances. Maybe you should reword it if this isn’t your beliefs.

  • 2Xtreme21@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    1 year ago

    The right thing to do would be for the subreddits that went dark to go permanently private on June 30th. The two day protest can be framed as a warning.

    If this doesn’t happen there will not be any changes. The Reddit leadership treated the protest as simply something they would need to “get through” before things return to normal.

    • towerful@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      ·
      1 year ago

      The modcoord sub that organised the initial blackout are encouraging subs to remain dark in response to this. It seems like a lot of subs are going to remain dark.

      If a sub doesn’t want to go dark (stopdrinking was given as a community support example), then a touch-grass-tuesday is recommended to close the sub every Tuesday as an ongoing reminder.

      Seems like Reddit has taken the protest as “a bit of noise, but business as usual soon”. So, time to kick it up a notch

        • Martineski@lemmy.fmhy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Opened infinity and went to r/modcoord to find info on how they coordinate with each other but I found nothing

          Edit: bruh, I’m blind, I missed this info when checking their subreddit description:

          Edit2: I can’t send screenshot so there’s text version:

          Discord - you can request access by sending us a modmail from your own subreddit’s modmail (for mods of subreddits participating in the blackout)

    • artaxadepressedhorse@lemmyngs.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s basically every major corporate strategy this day and age – wait 6 months everyone will forget. They keep seeing it happen again and again, so of course they’re getting bolder and bolder. We the public need to quit being pushovers. Where we spend our time energy and money is a far more valuable vote than the one at the ballot box. We will die from our own conveniences.

      I don’t know if Lemmy is the solution, but it certainly feels like the right direction to me.

      • PascalPistachios@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        Hell, even if people move back to reddit, I’ve made the choice to stay on Lemmy, and give a small community everything I’ve got.

  • confusedbonobo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    ·
    1 year ago

    This guy is an asshole, but unfortunately he is right. A 48 hour “protest” isn’t going to solve anything, either go indefinite or don’t bother. If almost everyone comes back it just means they won. This could the time for change, but it probably won’t be.

    • Deestan@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      It did have an effect. Remember the context: Reddit is trying to look 📈 big and growing now, because they will start selling Reddit shares. If no visible protest, buyers would just see the reality that Spez is showing them like “ad revenue remains stable” and “app adoption is skyrocketing!”

      Even if temporary, that amount of outage made the news, which means potential buyers get to see a bit of dirty underwear sticking out of Spez’s drawer. Business Insider reports on “Reddit’s falling IPO valuation” already.

      It is costing them, which may cause change. Clearly too little too late for too many people, but hey at least the assholes lost money.

      • lawliot@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 year ago

        Business Insider reports on “Reddit’s falling IPO valuation” already.

        Good.

      • confusedbonobo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        The good part here is that they’re losing money, but I doubt it’ll be enough for anything more than a sop. Spez the asshole seems pretty firm on his decisions, and people are eventually going to come back. Like Louis Rossman said, this is just showing them is that no matter how bad they treat their users, they’ll always be back in 2 days max, and that’s what counts in the end

    • Mothra@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      I also think it had an effect but won’t be immediately visible. Just look at Lemmy. It grew exponentially. There’s people here now. And reddit has reached tipping point, so from now on it will slowly go downhill, just like it happened with so many other behemoth platforms. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s just that slowly but surely creators will keep migrating and that’s all that matters

    • DubiousInterests@lemmy.fmhy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree, but I don’t think you need to go whole hog on the first round. Makes you seem more amicable to go dark for two days then see what the company does.

      As we can see they apparently need to ramp it up to get it into their heads that people are not happy

      • confusedbonobo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        As long as people are actually willing to go back on strike if nothing changes then yes, you’re right. But I have my sincere doubts about it.

  • nogooduser@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    1 year ago

    about a thousand subreddits have gone private.

    That number ended up being more than 8000 and there are still more than 7000 in private or restricted mode. Although they are starting to come back online now.

    He’s right though - it will pass. The question is, will Reddit be the same once it does pass? Will enough moderators and contributors leave to reduce the quality of the content?

    Personally, I don’t really care anymore. I’m not going back if I can’t use a third party app and I haven’t had a problem using Lemmy for the past two days instead. I just need to find the best communities for me which will take time but I’m sure that it’ll be a good replacement.

    • fennec@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m at a point where even if I could use third party apps again I wouldn’t return to Reddit. Don’t want to support a guy like spez.

      • Pankkake@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’ve discovered Lemmy, which I like a lot, so I wouldn’t return to reddit either.

        Although I do miss the large communities, but oh well, hopefully more people will jump ship towards the fediverse.

      • CalcProgrammer1
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Same, Reddit’s behavior has been absolutely disgusting. I don’t even use apps, I always use old.reddit. I was saying if they ever get rid of old.reddit I’m out, but I have no desire to go back to that mess even with old.reddit. Lemmy is amazing and federation is the future. There’s a user style out there that makes Lemmy look pretty close to old.reddit as well.

    • oaklandnative@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 year ago

      Of the 8,828 participating, 7116 are still currently dark according to: https://reddark.untone.uk/

      I’ve been using that website to track for the past few days and it has been accurate. It has links and status of every subreddit. You can click on the link to easily confirm the status is accurate.

      Screenshot

      • Space Sloth@feddit.dk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Fucking love the inginuity that people have for solutions and workarounds like this. I’d never thought to kick up a website like that to monitor the subreddits participating. This is so well made too!

  • misterundercoat@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    1 year ago

    I had forgotten how nauseating corporate doublespeak can be. This can’t be for employees. I cannot fathom how any competent professional would actually this seriously.

  • frostprophet@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    1 year ago

    Spez (Verb): to ruin something out of a combination of ignorance and malice

    “I’m going to completely spez this place.”

  • Glunkbor@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    ·
    1 year ago

    “we have not seen any significant revenue impact so far” - coming from a guy who is known to edit users comments about him to make criticism disappear and just days ago was caught lying to people about the Apollo dev . And when Spez got called out for it, he wasn’t even man enough to apologize. If this lying weasel says the sun is shining, I take my umbrella out.

    • Xanvial@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s only two days, and their revenue mostly come from ads that most likely paid based on contract. So I also don’t think it will affect their revenue

    • mobyduck648@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Yeah lots of people apparently haven’t been in a tech company with the CEO saying ‘everything’s fine’ only to get hit with layoffs shortly either, even if his word was worth more than the square root of fuck-all which we know it’s not he’d be obliged to lie if ad revenue was through the floor.

      Also he’s blundered pretty badly but he’s not a moron, that memo was inevitably going to leak and it’s classic strikebreaking tactics to go over the heads of the ‘union reps’ and try to get the ‘workers’ (not sure what the terminology is when nobody’s actually a paid employee) to fight among each other.

  • annenas@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    1 year ago

    A little off-topic, but who calls their employees ‘snoos’? Am I missing some context here?

    • malcyon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      31
      ·
      1 year ago

      I have observed that corporations often use cult tactics to engender loyalty in their employees. But they call it “culture” and play it off like it’s a good thing.

      • annenas@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        You’re not wrong. I work for a company that really tries to make new employees feel like they’re part of a “family”. The longer you work there, the more you become immune to their bullshit though. Mostly because the low-level employees get treated worse than those working at headquarters. Luckily it’s only a parttime job and I’ll be leaving as soon as I’m done with my masters.

      • annenas@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, no kidding :’) Guess we have to wait for spez to sprinkle golden wrappers across the platform to find users to pick the new CEO from

    • Alec
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I interviewed for a company nearly 10 years ago where they unironically called their employees “Boomers”.

  • J_Ditz100@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    1 year ago

    The only long term solution is improving our product

    Then why do you only do the opposite?

    • Aaron@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s only true when you use a generally accepted definition of the word “improving.”

      When you use the capitalist robber baron definition, he’s spot on!

  • surfrock66@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    1 year ago

    It feels manipulative to paint this whole thing as if there is a violence risk to reddit employees. Spez is seeing hate because of his direct actions and he is, IMHO, deserving of a lot of the vitriol. Also, this is clearly a management move, not a decision by employees. Lastly, reddit gear exists for non reddit employees, I’ve seen meetups with users in reddit shirts. I think that comment was a dog whistle to playing the victim under the guise of being a nice guy to his employees, when his direct action is causing the problem.

  • tiwenty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    Tbh, he’s not wrong. Subs are coming back up, so why would he have done something

      • TheFrenchGhosty@lemmy.pussthecat.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Absolutely. He also pushed a lot of people over the edge (including me). I know at least 2 people who quit Reddit, and for at least me and one of them, it’s permanent.

        They definitely are loosing users with this move, even if the subreddits come back.