Article is very biased towards Reddit the Company, and actively paints the protesting mods as being the sole instigators of the protest, calling them “super mods” which has a negative connotation, and makes no mention of the fact that many users and communities are also in support of said protest. It also paints the protesters as immature by positing the “question” of will the community “let [reddit] grow up”, implying that the protesters are stifling the growth of reddit. It is very sympathetic towards spez and calls the reddit community “rambunctious”, as if the reddit community are children, and only quotes negative examples of notable things the reddit community has achieved. It writes of the protests as if it’s a child’s temper tantrum that will go away with time.
The article paints the death of the Apollo app as the main reason for the protest, other than the one line of “Old-timers were also angry that the heady days of Reddit’s anticapitalist roots seemed to be officially over.”, which is inaccurate. It makes no mention of the many other reasons the community is unhappy and protesting, which includes, among others:
- the lack of accessibility features and proper moderation tools in the official app,
- the perceived dishonesty on the part of Reddit the Company,
- and the loss of faith in Reddit the Company in general.
It also doesn’t state the true reason why people were upset about the death of Apollo and other 3PAs, which is that those apps had the accessibility features and moderation tools that the official reddit app should have had but doesn’t, and the loss of these 3PAs means that the already back-breaking job of moderation is only going to get harder. It makes no mention of the fact that the unhappiness over the API pricing was due to the ridiculous price and the short time frame, instead painting these “apps like Apollo” as leeches that “send no money back to the company”.
tldr: article is very biased toward spez, making him seem like a sympathetic parent trying to control his rebellious children, generalising all protesting mods as bad “super mods”, and does not mention the real issues of the protest.
Pretty much all the media handling of this has been far too lenient on reddit, and far too happy to be critical towards moderators.
They mention in that article how reddit was strongly free-speech, but failed to address the fact that they are very far from that now
Mr. Huffman and Alexis Ohanian founded Reddit in 2005 as a site with a countercultural attitude toward the internet and its advertising-based economy. Reddit espoused free speech at any cost, zero ads and an insular culture that laid a foundation for Web 2.0’s meme culture.
Well how things have changed.
I miss Web 2.0. Hopefully the Fediverse can bring some of that back
… and they totally omitted Aaron Swartz as a founder.
The actions of Reddit the last few years (and especially the last few months) have probably increasingly caused Aaron to spin in his grave so much that he could power Los Angeles and San Francisco both with his beyond-the-grave outrage if anyone cared to harness that energy source.
Also a meh article, with spelling and grammatical errors (deliberate?) and omitting even simple details.
Not even mentioning Schwartz was a huge indicator that this is a bullshit paid-for story from Reddit/Spez. Absolutely NOBODY who would bring up the founding of Reddit without mentioning Schwartz unless they were paid not to. This is a hack piece from a paid shill.
NYT don’t do “paid” stories.
However, the journalism is superficial (lazy) and seems to skim across the surface. This was written by someone who doesn’t understand the tech – so they interviewed someone pro (Spez) and someone con (the super mod) – did some ping pong with quotes and TADA! An article!
Reporter: To sum up, this expert representing the major Meteorological associations says it is currently raining. And this expert from the “Crack Pot Society” says it isn’t. I have a window right next to me and…both sides make good points so you’ll have to decide for yourself.
What a disgusting article. I wonder how much spez paid for it, or if the author (apparently a ‘longtime Redditor’) had his account threatened. That, or maybe he’s just so used to corporate bootlicking that his first response to seeing a distressed billionaire was to start lapping at his soles.
Also, this puff piece reeks of arrogance. We fucking made that website what it was, and now this pathetic weasel thinks he no longer needs us? And there’s dumbasses on Reddit who defend this shit???
And there’s dumbasses on Reddit who defend this shit???
You gotta remember that there are tons of casual users (which probably outnumber 3rd party app users, if we’re being honest) that haven’t ever known anything else, and they see all this noise as an interruption to their day-to-day scrolling.
One of the subs I used to frequent most often (r/hockey) was full of users who were pissed that it was blacked out for the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, so there was no live thread for the last (and biggest, most important) game of the season, and thought anyone who supported the blackout was just being whiny.
I’ve just accepted that Reddit’s base has shifted, its no longer what I remember it being, and I’m not a part of it.
Then it’s a good thing we moved on.
We had a live thread here, and it was awesome.
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or if the author (apparently a ‘longtime Redditor’) had his account threatened
Why such an unbelievable theory?
You’d be surprised at how many dicks a ‘power user’ could eat to retain their account.
Made an account on Lemmy 3h ago, best thing I’ve done to counter the need to constantly check Reddit :)
Yeah, I don’t really understand what this all is, but after pressing through a few failed attempts to sign up and finding a compatible app, I figure if nothing else, it’ll give me something to read after next week.
Never thought of Reddit as a “social media” site. It sounds like he’s trying to turn it into Facebook, bloated and mainly used for corporate business and your grandma.
The definition of social media:
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks.
The term is more broad that what you are thinking of. Reddit is honestly closer to what a social media site is, since it’s a true form of sharing information. Facebook and Twitter are just echo chambers of people shouting into a void.
The whole framing that Spez is bringing maturity is incredibly disingenuous. The “mature” approach is to impose change with no attempt at reaching consensus over a community-driven platform?
What is the mature part of expecting volunteers to keep performing free work as they are actively antagonized? Is he going to pay all moderators and dissatisfied content creators? I don’t think so.
They are just using “mature” as codeword for monetized. Or maybe in that classist sense of “learn to submit to your betters, peons”.
They want to turn reddit into a cash cow and we are the product.
It’s sad.
Thanks for sharing with us!
The final countdown for the stock ticker fury
Damn, I wonder if the author of that fluffpiece spit or swallowed after he was done.
oh fuck yoooooou… with that bullshit, using mature as a way to shame people. WE FUCKING MADE YOU.
Is NYT paid to totally distort the truth like they did in that article?
Fuck spez!
The link doesn’t work, how about posting the text of the article?
Reddit is now further away from a public offering than it was last year, Mr. Huffman said.
Well, that slightly warms my heart.
That’s an odd way of saying he failed at his job.
task failed successfully.
We did it!!??
Meta AF.
