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"Protest and dissent is important,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told the AP. “The problem with this one is it’s not going to change anything."

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[-] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 93 points 1 year ago

I’m presuming when he says “we” he means the royal “we”, ie “I”. I’m not expecting him to negotiate on it. The next CEO will, though, in a couple of months.

[-] LostCause@kbin.social 57 points 1 year ago

"Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.'"

  • Mark Twain

Yeah, so which is spez again?

[-] brownpaperbag@kbin.social 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

While that quote has been attributed to Twain (and several others) over the years, there is nothing to suggest that Twain used this particular phrasing nor was he the originator of it. That credit goes to George H Derby, under the pseudonym John Phoenix, back in 1855.

The trifecta of “kings, editors and people with tapeworm” has been widely attributed to Mark Twain, but like so many witticisms credited to him, there’s no record he ever said it. It’s also unlikely that Henry David Thoreau ever made the remark once ascribed to him: “We is used by royalty, editors, pregnant women and people who eat worms.”

Worms, or more specifically tapeworms, figure prominently in we-­related humor. The earliest known joke to combine parasites and pronouns comes from George Horatio Derby, a humorist from California who assumed the pen name John Phoenix. “I do not think I have a tapeworm,” he wrote in 1855, “therefore I have no claim whatever to call myself ‘we,’ and I shall by no means fall into that editorial absurdity.”

New York Times, Ben Zimmer, 2010-10-01

[-] LostCause@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the info!

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[-] velourium_camper@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

The tapeworm

[-] kokoapadoa@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

king. people with tapeworms are actually fairly cool, but kings have historically been rather cruel and unjust.

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[-] doctortofu@kbin.social 50 points 1 year ago

The pigheaded doubling- and tripling-down on this is impressive in a way. Let's see in a couple of months how many actual content creators left reddit and came here or somewhere else. I do hope spez is left with an empty site full of lurkers and bots, after all people who actually provided content for free for years leave him in the dust...

Then again, I'm not going back there anyway, so to be completely honest I don't care that much - the fediverse is my new home (even though I'm repulsed by the name).

[-] HelixDab@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

I can't go back; they banned my account, after 12 years, and a few hundred thousand karma. I like to think that, in some small way, I helped make reddit a better place than it had been. And now I couldn't contribute, even if I wanted to.

But really, why would I want to? The point of contributing to a community is to make it better for everyone. Huffman/spez has made it clear that these contributions are not valued, even though they're the currency that allows them to make money by selling advertisements.

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[-] Alexmitter@kbin.social 46 points 1 year ago

How is everything he says just such a gigantic PR disaster.

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 15 points 1 year ago

Seems like your typical dumb tech bro, who lucked out by failing upwards all his life. The only valuable thing in his life is his bank account.

[-] Nepenthe@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Taking a poll on this one: Spez's PR people

  • have all been fired in one broad, disastrous sweep like his idol muskrat did

  • are tied up in the closet, ugly crying into their ball gags and slamming their heads against the wall

  • inhabit shallow graves

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

His ego is too big to listen to any advice.

[-] Khalic@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

He admitted having calls and beeing inspired by Muskrat

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 13 points 1 year ago

Dude, looked at the dumpster fire twitter is and though to himself, that's what I want!

[-] Khalic@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

These billionaires/millionaires, they live in a different world. Nobody around them contradicts them if they don’t value dissent, and most don’t. You wouldn’t believe the universe in which they live in…

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[-] blightbow@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Taking a poll on this one: Spez's PR people

  • have been replaced with a poop emoji
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[-] Hubi@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago

I'm genuinely surprised he was able to keep his mouth shut for all these years. You could tell what kind of person he is if you paid close attention, but it seems the protests have removed the filter he had before. I feel like it's such an odd and sudden change.

[-] BrerChicken@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Because he's only in charge by accident. Reddit was built by Redditors, but he had the password 🤷🏻‍♂️

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[-] hihusio@kbin.social 39 points 1 year ago

I don't even give a shit about the future of reddit or going back anymore. reddit is dead to me. what I am wishing to see, though, is spez being ousted as ceo and looking even more like a dumb bitch. that will be hilarious news

[-] BrerChicken@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I don't even give a shit about the future of reddit or going back anymore.

I'm with you there. For me, the important thing is that you can have great communities online if you keep the noise down. If he wants to take his game home let him, we can play somewhere else. I just hope all the scientists make it, especially Andromeda. So many great discussions, I hope it can continue as we continue to navigate our way out of the mess that is the 2020s.

[-] briongloid@aussie.zone 8 points 1 year ago

Ellen Pao 2: Electric Boogaloo

[-] Cube6392@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

This time, they're angry at the right person

[-] McBinary@kbin.social 31 points 1 year ago

It's interesting that this story is being picked up by business news sites now. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's at least catching the business world's attention.

[-] velourium_camper@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Yeah, wasn’t part of Reddit’s reasoning for not backing down that the API backlash only affects a small subset of users and that most of their use base won’t notice what’s going on (besides being inconvenienced by the blackout)? This kind of shines a spotlight on the fact that everyone is seeing what’s going on.

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[-] incompetentboob@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

What is wrong with this guy? He has cause irreparable damage to the brand and the platform.

For someone who said it’s the app developers who aren’t willing to work with reddit to reach an agreement, it sure sounds like he was (surprise surprise) lying.

[-] gk99@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

I mean, we knew he was lying before the Blackout ever happened. The Apollo dev made it pretty clear in their thread.

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[-] VulcanSphere@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago

The Lord of Snoo is locked to the IPO, hopefully the IPO will fail and the board of the Snoo Platform, Inc. fired him.

[-] Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago

Yep. Because them forcing/strong-arming subs to reopen definitely speaks to the Reddit admins believing this is not changing anything.

Even if a vast majority of people don't protest because they're simply lurkers, the problem is it's the power users, the ones who generate quality content and moderate their subs for free who are protesting.

If I were Reddit, that's the bit I'd be worried about.

[-] joe_archer@feddit.uk 19 points 1 year ago

As Louis Rossmann quite rightly points out, nobody has ever gone to war with the internet and won.

[-] Nivekk@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

"Now if you'll excuse me, my ship and I have an appointment to keep at the bottom of the ocean."

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[-] holo_nexus@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

This guy is a founder of Reddit right? One seriously has to wonder what the hell happened. The damage control by Reddit so far has been nothing short of shambolic and in large part because of their treatment of its users.

I mean, it’s like he’s never browsed Reddit before.

[-] Soziele@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

Yeah he is one of the founders, but Huffman was always in it more for the profit. Aaron Swartz was the one with the vision, he was an activist and believed in free information. Sadly Swartz committed suicide after being arrested for sharing academic journals from a secured computer at MIT. Federal prosecution decided to make an example of him for multiple felonies.

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[-] parrot-party@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

He's one of the founders but it seems not the smartest of them.

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[-] skellener@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

This guy is a real piece of work. I don’t know why anyone would continue using Reddit at this point.

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

I wish people would cut down with this noise(see what I did there). F him and his platform, coming here and having to read about him everyday, it kinda annoys me.

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

This guy is setting himself up to fund the IPO from authoritarian state sponsored VCs. They're going to be most impressed by his hardline stance

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[-] pasci_lei@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Did this guy wake up on the wrong foot some time ago?

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[-] BreakNeckJim@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

“The problem with this one is it’s not going to change anything."

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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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