It's time for Reddit to die
Blocking search engines, blocking the Internet Archive, signing $60M+ deals to Google and OpenAI to train AI on, plus the massive pitfall of centralization in the first place... It's time for us to...
A somewhat sensationalist video. But a lot of good point are made. Preaching to the choir here...but I thought you would all like it.
What I learned after 12 years on reddit: the admins are Nazi sympathizers, pedo protectors, and propaganda enablers.
Looking at that place now, it's crazy that people are still putting up with the bullshit. Everyone is getting censored/banned, comments removed, threads the admins don't like (especially anti Trump/Elon or pro-Palestine) get locked almost immediately. Reddit is literally bottom of the porta potty enshittified.
Agree on all accounts. I got perma-banned for making fun of the conceptual average Reddit user. Now I’m here. That website is a hollow shell of what it once was.
As predicted, their stock going public INSTANTLY made the website 10x shittier. Bots, propaganda, karma-farming, tyrant power-tripping mods/admins, misinfo, and algorithmic front page is just too much.
Looking at that place now, it's crazy that people are still putting up with the bullshit. Everyone is getting censored/banned, comments removed, threads the admins don't like (especially anti Trump/Elon or pro-Palestine) get locked almost immediately. Reddit is literally bottom of the porta potty enshittified.
Reddit still has a lot of value for me, and I still see loads of critical comments almost every day tearing down certain topics & figures that you touch on above. If the censoring / banning were really that bad, I doubt I'd be able to read all that on a regular basis across their site.
What I learned after 12 years on reddit: the admins are Nazi sympathizers, pedo protectors, and propaganda enablers.
I think it's probably simpler than that: 1) they're a big social media site out to make money first and foremost, 2) they want to avoid agitating powerful figures of the day, and 3) they see their users moreso as convenient assets than individual voices who might stir up trouble for them. It's pretty much just the corporate model of the day in a late-stage capitalist reality.
My point here is that I'd rather not buy in to and perpetuate false assumptions and false narratives. I don't want to just assume that all their admins are really as bad as you think, when in reality many of them might just be trying to give users a fair shake. Many might in fact be 'resisting.'
I got permbanned for saying Neo-Nazis should be named and shamed. Spez edits comments that are critical of him. There was a massive ban wave a few months ago of anyone posting the names of Elon Musk's DOGE goons (who btw are supposed to be known as public officials) because Musk whined to Spez about it. Mods of r/news locked several recent topics on the atrocities committed by the Israeli government, without explanation and within an hour of being posted. On topics critical of the Trump regime, from what I can gather from replies and even quotes, the [removed] comments are tame, yet they continue with their draconian crackdown on "advocating violence"
And on that subject, I got caught in a 3 day ban for "advocating violence" when I was joking about a mosquito smoking a cigarette and getting cancer. My appeal was denied.
And I haven't even touched on the thousands upon thousands of bots I've seen posting, commenting, getting awarded and boosted, and even running entirely-bot populated subs while admins and powers that be throw up their hands saying "welp nothing we can do" at the same time making it easier for bots to sign up, spread propaganda, and hide their tracks. Why? Because bots are their bread and butter. They drive up engagement. They boost reddits active user count (big number = investors happy). There exists an incentive not to do anything about it.
Reddit is biased, bots are everywhere and their mods and admins are out of control. The platform is circling the shitter, from personal experience.
Edit: I mean don't get me wrong, reddit was a good resource for a great myriad of things from like 2005- ~2023 ish. But now, it's become so permeated with misinformation, disinformation, astroturfing, and LLM slop that it's currently unsalvageable, in my opinion.
They recently permanently banned my account for saying some CEO is a lazy pos that should be fired because if i have to do his job for him then he shouldn't have it and this was a call for violence, so i write this in my appeal "you banned my account for calling someone out for exploitation? ok, i have alternatives, goodbye." exact words, they restored the comment but my account is still banned, so yeah it's definitely time for them to go.
I was looking up a review of a mediocre tech gadget the other day. It turned out it sucked, in research Google took me to Reddit and every third post about it was a glowing "I use blah every day and it works perfectly for my needs and I'm glad I bought it." The negative posts were obviously real with details about annoying quirks and the very positive posts were obviously AI/sponsored. And it reminded me why I left and how normal this has become.
Guys if you have still a Reddit account do some advertisement for the fediverse.
It certainly helped me to transition! I think it was r/redditalternatives
Reddit was absolutely not an image board to begin with. To begin with there wasn't even a convenient way you could even post images! Which is why imgur was created 4 years later!. Reddit 2005, Imgur 2009.
Reddit was originally 100% text based. Reddit was originally a general discussion forum, and the structure and dry text only format attracted mostly (to some degree) nerds and intellectuals, so the knowledge of users was generally above average, and so reddit became an amazing information hub too.
Unfortunately more "user friendly" design and the increasing popularity and the end of Digg resulted in more noise from users that detracted more than they contributed. When I left I estimate more than 90% of users weren't even familiar with rediquette, which laid down excellent principles for how to behave. Like don't downvote because you disagree, only downvote if a post doesn't contribute to the discussion. It was almost never mentioned, and it was clearly not followed by the vast majority.
So being a debate forum with many knowledgeable people, slowly went out the windows, so more than a decade ago it was over IMO, and the quality of posts and discussions had dropped so dramatically at that point, it was no longer worth it.
To me all the shenanigans after that point are basically irrelevant, reddit hasn't been worth it for more than a decade IMO.
Apart from that he has some good points, especially the centralized and AI parts.
I feel the youtuber is getting a few more things wrong. E.g., he doesn't point out that forums (which he makes out to be inherently Good or at least better than reddit) are just as centralized. And not just forums, essentially that applies to all sites.
Good point.
I left Reddit with a good conscience. I'm toying with idea of leaving here. But where would I go? Shit's fuckup up yo.
When it dies, some of the normies who inhabited it looking for advice on DIY home repairs and cooking and TV shows will come here, take one look at the pissposting freaks they’d be trapped with and run for the safety of Facebook and its AI boomer slop with their tails between their legs.
