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On The State of /r/PICS: Profanity, Offensive Content, and An Open Letter : r/pics
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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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I think there's always been a bit of an unspoken understanding between Reddit and its moderators: Reddit provides the platform; moderators get to run their communities as they see fit (as long as they're not doing anything that gets Reddit in trouble). And with this framing, moderation didn't feel like working for Reddit, it felt like working for your community. It was always seen as fair enough if Reddit makes back to money to pay for the platform they're providing. It felt like wins all round: Reddit makes money, moderators get to have somewhere to maintain their communities and shape them as they see fit, users get communities they can join.
It's only now that Reddit's interfering with how moderators run their communities and interact with the platform that people are seeing it as working for Reddit. It doesn't feel like a collaborative effort any more, but rather Reddit just wanting unpaid labourers. The unspoken agreement feels like it's been broken. That doesn't retroactively make all the moderation done in the past count as working for Reddit (even though Reddit obviously benefitted from it), but it does mean that any moderation going forward is something that should be viewed through that lens.
That's always how it works out tho. If you work for anyone you never do it as an unspoken agreement as the rules will change later on. No matter the assurances.
It's that one clause that's the whole hangup right now.
Reading between the lines of everything Spez said, there's one abundantly clear fact - Reddit is not profitable - and that's a big problem, one the board and everyone is pushing to see fixed at all costs. Investors and ownership expect ROI, customers expect ROAS. They're not getting it, and they're getting to the end of the rope. I believe we're coming to a real existential issue for Reddit now - either they get profitable and drag the company over the line to the IPO (so that all the investors can cash out), or there's no more Reddit. Either you work with the company to bring profits, or you're a cost needing to be cut.
This does kinda explain why reddit is behaving like this. However going too far in cost cutting- well it’s like cutting off your own arms and legs. So reddit as we know it may be doomed either way. Can’t survive if they give into the protests but also can’t survive once the mods and subs have been irreversibly alienated.
Either way, we lose because Reddit as we knew it is dead.
The thing is, they need to be accessible or they are liable for lawsuits if I understood it right. They took all the labour TPAs do in this regard for granted. So much so they weren't even aware it was necessary and had regulations in the first place.
Profitability needs somebody who understands what their product is and what kind of legal requirements they need to fulfill. So even under the profitability lens their behavior is destructive.