A ton of moderators have been making changes to their subreddits’ rules (e.g., only allowing certain posts, going NSFW, loosening rules a ton) to protest without getting kicked out. Do you think this strategy of turning a subreddit into shitposts is effective or not?
I’m curious to see what the people in this community think, so please share your thoughts.
My opinion is that these forms of protest, while fun, don’t actually help. Most bring more attention and activity to the sub if anything, giving Reddit more ad revenue (which is really all they care about). And the few that are actually harmful (e.g., allowing NSFW content) are being shut down by Reddit.
It’s been made clear that Reddit doesn’t care about what its users want and is willing to reorder, remove, and shadowban moderators to protect profits, so I’d like to see more people moving away from the platform. Even if the alternatives still need development and are missing important features, mods should start making plans to establish communities outside of Reddit.
I think it actually drives people away from reddit, since they aren’t finding the content they’re looking for. Just read this post the other day: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/81954
Sweet. It’s good to see that the protests are getting some people off Reddit who wouldn’t be otherwise, but I still don’t think this is the most effective way to do things. Many of the people upset with these changes are riled up in the “haha funny shitpost” movement and are staying on the platform when moderators could instead be encouraging them to leave. I think this would be more effective at getting migration while also not giving Reddit all the extra activity and ad revenue.