Good focus on the digital labor aspects of this whole thing. I sympathize with Reddit for not wanting to provide free value for generative AI (this is one of the trickiest parts of that conversation), but Reddit’s users are right to balk at providing free value for the platform. link to ‘Reddit Won’t Be the Same. Neither Will the Internet | WIRED’

C’mon Reddit. link to ‘Reddit is telling protesting mods their communities ‘will not’ stay private - The Verge’

Perhaps most interesting thing here is official comment from Reddit. It’s not quite “auto-reply with a poop emoji territory,” but it might actually be worse? link to ‘Reddit pressures mods to end the blackout as they find new ways to protest - The Verge’

I’ve linkblogged a lot of stuff on Reddit lately, but this is a good summary and reaction, so I’m adding it to the list. link to ‘Reddit Tells Mods That Protesting By Changing Sub To NSFW Violates The Rules | Techdirt’

Lots of ugh here. link to ‘Reddit Experiments With Removing Mods, Blocking Attempts To Switch Subs To NSFW | Techdirt’

I’m glad this article points out how much unpaid work mods do to make Reddit a place people want to go. They arguably add more value to the platform than employees do, and this strikes me as a bad move. link to ‘Reddit starts removing moderators behind the latest protests - The Verge’

Reddit’s response continues to feel tonedeaf and sketchy to me. link to ‘Reddit Communities Still Dark As Protest Continues - The New York Times’

Here’s Masnick saying some of my thoughts but better—and adding some observations I would not have come to on my own. link to ‘Reddit CEO Triples Down, Insults Protesters, Whines About Not Making Enough Money From Reddit Users | Techdirt’

Feels pretty sleazy to me. link to ‘Here’s the note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen - The Verge’

I get that any platform has to pay its bills, but Huffman keeps coming off as a real jerk. link to ‘Reddit CEO Steve Huffman: Reddit ‘was never designed to support third-party apps’ - The Verge’

Keep it up, subreddits! link to ‘Thousands of Reddit communities remain dark as protest continues - The Verge’

What I appreciate about coverage of this from The Verge and Techdirt is the way that it draws attention to questions of digital labor. link to ‘Reddit communities with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely - The Verge’

Good for them. Let’s hope it makes a difference. link to ‘More than six thousand subreddits have gone dark to protest Reddit’s API changes - The Verge’

This is juvenile enough that I feel guilty finding it funny, but it’s a good demonstration of the problems with this backlash against content moderation. link to ‘https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/26/subreddit-discriminates-against-anyone-who-doesnt-call-texas-gov’

This is a fascinating article on prepper communities on reddit. Great example of the importance of a gender lens. link to ‘Women are splitting off from Reddit’s preppers sub.’

I have a burner reddit account (for research purposes) that I only access through Tor, so the “communities near you” that pops up whenever I log in is consistently both amusingly wrong and genuinely (if not completely) informative.

I have discovered r/trains, and it is bringing joy into the chaos that is the last few weeks of the semester.

Working some this week on doubling down on RSS. Switching apps, trimming feeds, continuing to use it as my Twitter and newsletter interface, and trying to get more into Micro.blog and reddit by integrating them into my RSS “readflow”.