The Battle to Save Reddit

On the Media

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4.6 • 9.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What might be the largest moderator-coordinated social media protest in history.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the On the Media Midweek podcast, I'm Michael O'Neer.
0:05.7	Two weeks ago, I received a very interesting message on Reddit.
0:10.8	It was from a volunteer moderator from the On the Media subreddit.
0:15.2	That's right, we have a subreddit, Reddit.com slash rslashon the media.
0:19.4	The mod told me they were stepping down.
0:22.0	They would no longer help run our forum or any other forum on Reddit as part of a massive
0:27.6	protest against changes coming to the site.
0:30.9	And sure enough, within a week or so, it was all over my timeline.
0:34.9	Thousands of Reddit forums have gone dark in one of the largest user-driven protests
0:40.3	to hit the platform.
0:41.6	Moderators organized a blackout, effectively collapsing the website in protest of its new
0:46.7	plan to charge third-party platforms.
0:50.5	Reddit CEO needs to turn the company to a profit because Reddit wants to offer stock
0:55.6	to the public and IPO.
0:57.9	And Reddit does not make a profit.
1:00.0	It's a massive conflict between the giant cohort of volunteer moderators that make Reddit
1:05.6	work and Reddit, the company, which hopes to juice its business model and woo investors.
1:12.2	Last Monday, moderators from nearly 9,000 subreddits shut down their forums, including
1:17.3	summed with over 30 million followers each.
1:21.8	This like R-slash funny, R-slash gaming, and R-slash music.
1:26.5	Although the blackout began to die down within 48 hours, according to its organizers, over
1:32.2	3,000 subreddits are still inactive to this day.
	...

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