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Two of the biggest Reddit communities reopened in the funniest way possible (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 year ago by ManamaKhan@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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All posts on r/pics and r/gifs must now be about comedian and Last Week Tonight host John Oliver after users voted.

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[-] danc4498@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago

They can say the moderators aren't doing their jobs and deserve up be replaced when the sub us shut down. They can't do shit when they open the sub and turn it into whatever they feel like.

Also, I'm waiting for them to replace the moderators and get flooded with banned content with no ability to moderate.

[-] agentshags@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 year ago

Watching it all burn is cathartic

[-] Harpuajim@lemmy.fmhy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Is it really burning though if people are still engaging the platform and seeing ads?

[-] jeansburger@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Are you really going to interact with the ads though? If you're going there to cause discord you're not going to see an ad and go "Oh! Cool I've been meaning to try thing that's as close to a scam as legally allowed" or it literally is just an outright grift. Plus because of that the percentage of interactions on the ads is going to drop hard, meaning now Reddit is a worse place to stick your ads because there's not a lot of engagement with them.

[-] MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Lol this comment just made me realize how awful the average reddit experience is. Especially compared to this.

[-] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Of the saddest words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: "SRS was somehow right, burn Reddit down."

[-] athos77@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago

Apparently, /r/art is only allowing images of John Oliver looking artsy now.

[-] Graphine@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

I feel like the ONLY way this could work is if all the big subs collectively agreed to go this route. As it stands though, you’re still giving Reddit traffic.

[-] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

The point is to make the site less useful and thus drive users off of it.

Admins have made the point that subs will be opened whether the mods like it or not. But mods can still control the topics of subreddits.

Thus now the rules are changing to make the frontpage stale and drive people off of Reddit. Already /r/pics has mysteriously fallen off of /r/all.

[-] BoxesOfPepe@lemmy.one 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's fucking awesome, toss some gas on that fire baby

[-] olrik@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Oh no, you should never toss any flammable which makes fumes on a fire. Stick to slow burning liquids like Diesel or fire starter liquids. No gazoline or ethanol. Very dangerous.

[-] PrunesMakeYouPoop@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

This is way funnier than it should be.

[-] SocializedHermit@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

I visit Reddit but without an account. I don’t vote, comment or post. UBlock Origin and Firefox take care of the ads. No engagement/read-only mode costs them money serving up content while I add nothing. I save my engagement for Lemmy.

[-] JWBananas@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

If it were only about the ads, they would allow third party apps to show their ads via the API.

The statistical data that they collect from your usage is still extremely valuable. They're still fingerprinting you and tracking you around the site. They're still A/B testing you with suggested content.

[-] Jojo-Mcfrost572@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

You are still an active user. Don't visit and the site will die.

You are crossing the picket line

[-] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

It's funny, but I don't quite get the point of this. If you are boycotting Reddit then you shouldn't be going there to post about things. If you ARE going there, you are no longer boycotting. Reddit doesn't care what you post about. You are still participating in the site. It's just driving traffic back to Reddit, which harms the cause.

[-] LazaroFilm@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago

Lowering the quality of the content means that sure they’ll get a surge of viewers to see the ruins, but then people will leave sure to the lack of valuable content. This is the idea behind it. If Reddit is forcing to stop the blackout, the removing the content value is the next thing. Sure you can boycott, but the amount of people that land on a Reddit page from a SEO or don’t know/care about the blackout are still significant. If those people have no reason to get to a Reddit page then the damage to Reddit becomes critical.

[-] crowsby@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

If you show up to vote in a poll and immediately bounce, then yes you'll show up in their Daily Active User count. But it's a vanity metric. The important thing is posts viewed /session length, since that's what matters more for serving up ads, and also contributing content.

I suspect this may be a more impactful protest than simply blacking out, because in the case of blackouts the front page algorithm will find content to spoonfeed users from other subs. On the other hand, if the top subs are flooding the feed with inane posts and upvoting them all, I suspect that's more likely to drive away casual users and really impact the $$$ metrics.

[-] Majjam@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

I think the decision to only post pictures of John is helping reddit. Its funny, the pictures are great, its drama-full and happening on reddit. Sorry I wish it wasn’t but I think this is good for reddit.

[-] LazaroFilm@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

It’s a novelty. And yes it will generate a surge, but it is not a substantial value over time and will depreciate Reddit on the long run.

[-] MrBubbles96@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I kinda agree, as funny as this is.

Now if anyone ACTUALLY wants to not help Reddit, upload a gig or 5 of just noise just playing in a video and cause the site to crash: apparantly some folks on Twitter are doing so, with instructions

[-] justinalanbass@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I would prefer a peaceful revolution, no need to DDOS them. I prefer to take the moral high ground and let the community figure out for itself how much they care about the content they produce, and which platform is most appropriate to retain control. There might always be a place for Reddit, but if they want draconian control let it be over data they produce.

[-] MrBubbles96@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Fair enough. I can respect your opinion even tho I don't necessarily agree that a peaceful revolution is the way to go here (to be clear, I'm not saying that peaceful protests aren't effective and don't have thier place, they absolutely do. I just personally don't think people like Spez or Musk will listen to one. They seem to be the type that need to be sat down and made to listen)

Although who knows...some people are commenting here that this is going to drive value for Reddit down if it keeps going, and if that's the case, I'd say "keep painting Reddit John Oliver"...but the point is to not stop until this is no longer something that'll just "blow over".

[-] zalack@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Yes and no. It's driving traffic but it also denies companies the ability to post their content in related subs and -- once the initial amusement dies down -- will probably result in lower utilization.

[-] coldhotman@nrsk.no 6 points 1 year ago

he is abandoned

I also checked and can confirm that r/gifs are now ~~mostly~~ exclusively gifs of John Oliver.

[-] xc2215x@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

It is a very funny way for sure.

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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023

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