'FUCK SPEZ': Reddit Users Unite to Turn r/Place Mural Into a Protest
Reddit's collaborative art project seemingly has one overarching message to Reddit's CEO.
'FUCK SPEZ': Reddit Users Unite to Turn r/Place Mural Into a Protest::Reddit's collaborative art project seemingly has one overarching message to Reddit's CEO.
The point of opening it this early again was to garner traffic. Don't go there at all. It would have been best if only mods and corpo shills were placing pixels.
This 100%. Engagement to show your protest is still engagement. Give Reddit your absence.
we can do one thing, pretend like a lot of the engagement is fake, being a chill for myself real quick
If you want to take a peek without sending traffic to them then there is a YouTube livestream of r/place.
My response to this was to delete my modded Sync and transition fully to Lemmy. Done dabbling.
Over the last few hours, many of the "FUCK SPEZ" drawings have started to be taken over by other image, causing users to suggest that Reddit admins are interfering with their art (there is no evidence so far that would prove this).
Except the fact that the over writing pixels all arrive in large blocks at the same time rather than individually like real users would place them, and also that they appear with no username attached to them like user placed ones?
They also went out of thier way to use the same checkerboard overwrites that they used on the guillotine, on a QR code that took people to a website promoting veganism.
QR code was a mistake and does not suite that use case. Changing a few spots would have corrupted the URL whereas a "Lemmy" sign would've been much better. Even with corrupted pixels, it would still be distinctly recognizable.
QR codes have error corrections up to about ~30% error tolerance when using the highest error correction level
It's worth noting the QR code from earlier went to this site and was not lemmy related
Ah, I actually did successfully scan the qr code to a website promoting veganism. It was Dominion.
(there is no evidence so far that would prove this).
i saw a (likely deleted) post saying there were pixels with no user names of those who changed it "aint that sus"
This r/place is a great visualization of the damage done to Reddit. Previous r/places have been much more interesting and vibrant. The current canvas has large portions covered with boring flags and overall there's just less going on, much less depth and variety. A great confirmation that Reddit has indeed changed, and a great visualization of how it has changed.
The fact that they're bringing this back in a month other than April is pathetic. I don't know what species is worse. You don't see them trying to fuck each other over for a goddamn percentage.
the problem is that the r/place this out of season will be known only by its meta because very few are posting for non meta reasons
This fuckin' guy is gonna burn it all down and somehow walk away with more money than I could earn in several lifetimes. There's something intrinsically wrong with a system that so egregiously rewards such gross incompetence.
Where is the incompetence? His competency is dependent on making money for a specific few.
It has nothing to do with the outcome of the site, beyond how that outcome influences said making of money.
If the shareholders cash out happy and the site dies out, he did his job, regardless of whether or not you think that's fair.
Yes, it sucks for the rest of us who liked Reddit. I am one of those people.
Saying this guy is incompetent just because his interests go against the interests of people who use Reddit is ludicrous.
The interests are in conflict, it sucks. That's it. We have Lemmy. Get over it.
Incompetent at not being a piece of shit
causing users to suggest that Reddit admins are interfering with their art (there is no evidence so far that would prove this)
If you watch the time lapse, you'll see that the guillotine was wiped away in an instant, which would either require mass coordination or admin privileges. There's also the fact that it was removed in chunks, not pixel-by-pixel. Also, it was proven last year that one of the mods didn't have a cooldown.
Reddit has been thrown into chaos because the company began charging for access to its API
No, it's because they began charging an amount that isn't affordable to third-party app developers and with very little notice. They also lied about being willing to work with developers and they made false allegations against Apollo's developer.
In some of the screenshots, it's clear that a brush is being used by the uniform distribution of pixels in the same size/pattern in multiple areas.
I don't really think the admins are concerned about concealing their actions anymore. They're just trying to cashout on a sinking dumpster fire while its valuation plummets.
Actually it's because he's a pissbaby
Why do people even participate after all this mess
Because they're hopeful they can save the site through activism. What they forget is that they are not protesting a government, they are trying to stop a corporate entity from fulfilling it's legal obligations to make money for it's investors.
I think using the site you're protesting against is peak slacktivism
There's nothing wrong with Reddit trying to be profitable. It should be profitable.
Apollo and Reddit Is Fun even had large subscriber bases willing to pay up to support our usage.
Reddit leadership is just really shitty. That is just the reality. Even if they wanted to be profitable, Spez simply doesn't know how to get there.
Hey spez, screw you!
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The fact that these articles are making fairly large headlines is proof enough that this event is backfiring.
A couple days of engagement traffic do not outweigh the negative PR and advertising impact from this event.
If you were a company, you might think twice before advertising on a site that has their users actively, publicly, and loudly trashing on the CEO. It says a lot that it’s happening in the first place. Says even more that they aren’t able to stop it.
Also, look at the activity numbers here. I’m not trying to trash on Lemmy, but we are a drop on the bucket. It’s far more effective for us to be visible and loud than silent and ignored.
For clarity sake, I’m not encouraging anyone to go do anything, nor the other way around. But if you want to, ignore the comments, saying that this is going to say, Reddit with traffic and engagement from you if you go. It clearly isn’t, and your loud protest is valuable. 
If you were a company, you might think twice before advertising on a site that has their users actively, publicly, and loudly trashing on the CEO.
Isn't this just wishful thinking? Let's be 100% real for a moment, those people posting fuck spez on r/place aren't doing it because they're moving or have moved to an alternative, they're doing it because they are addicted to Reddit and can't stop using it. The true protest is moving to an alternative like Lemmy.
If I'm an advertiser, all I see is a very captive audience. This isn't like the Twitter situation, where your ads will be shown to increasingly objectionable content. In fact, with all the users begrudgingly downloading the official Reddit app, the value of advertising on Reddit may be going up not down.
That being said, Reddit has never been a good place for advertising outside of a few niches, and that hasn't changed, so in the long run Reddit most likely won't survive. But in the short run, I don't think this is the victory lap.
There is no true protest. Let people react how they want. I don't understand the gatekeeping on how to respond against spez. If you want to leave Reddit completely and stay on Lemmy, great. If others want to burn the site down in protest, that's great as well. Why are so many people on Lemmy trashing people who similarly hate how Reddit is now? As if it would make a difference anyhow if they listened to you.
THAT WILL TEACH HIM!
Surely.
I think insulting is the wrong way. It’s just a level that I am disappointed to see people lower themselves to.
I see it as pointless and potential risks tarnishing the image that third party apps helped improve reddit (especially to normies/non techies who only use the official app and website).
What I don't get is what will damaging the ipo achieve now that a lot of 3rd party apps are toast (Apollo, rif, reddit sync). Even if spez or reddit as a whole did a full 180 nothing would change on the prospect of 3rdparty apps.
Only thing reddit can change is improving the first party app and mod tools (given their stance was the api was never meant for 3rdparty apps after flip flopping).
As a user you have more or less 5 options:
I hope this comment doesn't come of too corporate or shill like
And then they went back to using reddit. Hell of a protest. /s
That's the reddit logic for you.
Make a huge, heavily invested deal about a cause.
Do something that suggests that there's going to be a follow-up of change.
But actually do nothing about it and resume status-quo, while talking about how there could've been change, what can be done and act all defeatist.
And yet this is probably good for reddit. They live on amount of engagement and you dummies just fell for it.
Exactly, I'm fully expecting the admins to wipe out any undesirable things off the wall the second the timer runs out. And that's the wall they'll show to their investors.
If you run an ad blocker and no ads turn up when you browse , they they won't get ad money from you. Negating the value of engagement.
You went there, generated content for them which is generating publicity. Other people, without ad blockers, are going there to see it ..
There’s something weird about “protesting” a site by continuing to use their site. Hopefully it’s just bot traffic flooding /r/place rather than real people coordinating in real time.
Exactly. The real protest would have been to totally ignore r/place. Could you imagine a blank canvas. That would have been epic.
Problem is, that reddit themselves would just start using bots to create simulated pixel placements so it would look like people are interacting such that people feel they must start playing as well. Much like agar.io or similar .io games that are actually not real multiplayer games untill they gain critical mass, bit still probably contains bots.
Bizarre that people are on Reddit complaining about reddit still
I don't think enough folks even know what Lemmy is.
I have a product I'm trying to build and will be launching shortly to allow folks easy access to their own lemmy servers and I plan on running some ad campaigns.
The problem is people are selling Lemmy the wrong way, lol. The average user doesn't give a fuck about decentralization or federation. If you want to convince people that Lemmy is a good Reddit alternative, you have to show them the content/discussions and the UI/UX.
UI/UX is getting better, but still far away. The mobile apps are okay. Content is still behind, mostly because most lemmings aren't helping their communities in generating content and engagement. The moderators can only do so much in curating. You got to help them out by posting content as well or at least commenting on the threads. Don't just lurk.
There's a group of us working on a join-lemmy banner, it's a struggle tho since it's such a small group.
Our Matrix chat is here for any who want to join in on the effort: https://matrix.to/#/!hiNoQZCxnHSsATzzmo:data.haus?via=data.haus&via=matrix.org
Who asked?
I also think this whole place thing being back up is a test from Reddit how engaging the community is in their “Quarterly Reports!”. Many people and old time users left Reddit stating that losing the active or dedicated users will be enough for them to go down and Reddit needs data to support the opposite. In Reddit’s eye if “F u/spez” generates clicks and ad revenues, why not letting it loose!
Louis Rosmann put it nice on his series of videos about the topic. And unfortunately Reddit will still have that portion of users that are so invested in it, that will play along with whatever Reddit cooks for them.
For me, the simple fact that Reddit thinks they “own” the data that millions of people have put the time into making, was an enough reason to stop participating in anything there. Including upvoting and downvoting.
Half the problem is, that's where people are.
The network effect exists because adoption is a feature you can't design.
EDIT: I attached this to the wrong comment
if you don't want the drama, you can always block the reddit communities from your account, be a pioneer for the new culture of Lemmy, ping me if you found something cool. we are constantly getting new people who aren't over our "shared Ex" yet. be patient with them.
Protest about reddit using reddit is not a great idea
Ya all weird as heck. People who decided to not leave reddit because that's still their main content provided try to vent their anger in any possible way. And while there's no thing like bad PR, according to the saying, the truth is that media coverage is underlining bad management from reddit side and how uncooperative it's users became (they literally fight administration at this point ). So while reddit may have gained numbers in interaction, I don't believe potential investors can simply omit all these news and quite evident burning of company.
I'd say if they ain't gonna leave, doing this is the second best thing. Keep it up, redditors, keep it up.
somebody should really build a Fediverse version of r/place so anybody from any ActivityPub-powered site can join in and place a pixel every 5 minutes
You might have something here. Development would be easy but maintenance and moderation is another beast.
which is why it should be limited as a yearly event similar to r/place right now.
It's not federated but there is pixelcanvas.io, which is like r/place but infinite and not controlled by Reddit
Also an app called Everyone Draw
Pathetic the people that participate in this r/place, such protesting! wow! you're so brave! You're still giving reddit traffic btw...
please be patient, people cant know everything, teach them to stop but don't jeer at them.
Okay I admit I was a bit harsh, but arghhh, sometimes it gets frustrating...
That's not a protest, that's a statement.
Efforts ought to be focused more on redirecting people to / advertising Lemmy. Any entailed increase in DAUs for Reddit would be, ultimately, temporary.
It's not easy to advertise the fediverse because the choices easily overwhelm people. Just like email, what needs to happen to thrive is for large providers to appear such that there's like 4 big options to choose from and then the bunch of small options for those that want to look deeper.
It was the worst time to run Place, but it was also the best time to run Place
Best protest would be if people didn't obsess over clicking pixels in r/place, giving the site traffic. I can't stand these people.
Over the last few hours, many of the "FUCK SPEZ" drawings have started to be taken over by other image, causing users to suggest that Reddit admins are interfering with their art (there is no evidence so far that would prove this).
Can't you track who draws the pixels and timing of said pixels or some shit?
Yea, a bunch of admins edited at the last minute to remove spez-comments
Journals talking about it is a great thing, a pixel that holds 5 minutes will have a small impact, a jour Al that is indexed and appears when you write "Reddit" online, will have an even bigger impact
Spez Démission! in true french fashion. Proud to be french. 🇫🇷
we did it reddit!
Who could have foreseen this?
Especially with apps like memmy and avelon, the fediverse is much better than reddit will ever be. Now if only everyone knew about them. And reddit users just stopped using reddit.
Spez is just a scapegoat. He's supported by his board, which would continue this path with or without him as the "leader".
Maybe Lemmy should change their icon to this mural /s
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Edit: https://web.archive.org/web/20230722004403/https://www.vice.com/en/article/epvbvk/fuck-spez-reddit-users-unite-to-turn-rplace-mural-into-a-protest but no images.
Edit 2: Loads with Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1)
I don't get it, if it's so bad being on redit then don't come. Or is it like those women in abusive relationships where their husband/boyfriend beats the shit out of her and she still crawls back to him and for some reason can't imagine a life without him?
Because abusive relationships force people to stay in them for reasons people who haven't been in that situation could never understand. Seems you haven't been, so you drag people who have. Women, specifically. Fun!
I asked if those are related because I know that the second happens. But reading it back I agree I phased it very badly, sorry for that.
