I decided to take a peek at Reddit to see what kind of activity is happening, a good handful of the subreddits I am subscribed to are still super active with posts and commenters.

There’s quite a few news articles on the front page regarding Spez and the blackouts, I am surprised those articles are even still up for people to see.

The comment section is filled with people saying how they should just kick the mods out of the dark Reddit’s and take over, ofcourse these posts are heavily upvoted…

Perhaps there is some AI activity going on, I mean it’s kind of easy to do in this day and age. You just prompt an army of AI bots to defend Reddit, and try to keep users engaged.

I am so happy I found Lemmy, and I am so happy that there is a comfortable level of activity. Sure it’s only a small fraction of what Reddit is activity wise, but it’s so much more hearty and welcoming.

Reddit has just turned into one big toxic mess. Lemmy reminds me of what Reddit used to be 10 years ago.

  • smokinjoecalculus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The lack of societal solidarity for the betterment of everyone is sad.

    But that’s ok, reddit was never going to die after this protest.

    I think what took place was a successful test of what alternatives exist out in the wild.

    Now it’s up to those of us who migrated to post through the highs and lows of early adoption in order to encourage others to come and stick around when the next shitty move by Spez takes place.

    For example, I migrated to Mastodon in late 2018 during an initial surge. And over the years tried to keep posting content so that when the next migration took place when Elon took the reigns, people were able to possibly feel more at home.

    This shit takes time. A lot of time. But the internet is a big place and there’s plenty of opportunity for things to be better. We just can expect things to rush themselves

    • SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is the truth, when I heard they were trying to kick out the mods who were pushing the blackout, I knew that whoever is left after all of this is not going to be worth reading. Reddit massively underestimates the value the power users and mods give to the site for everyone else to use. Without them, the site is just a bunch of software trying to push ads on whoever stumbles on it.

      • HTTP_404_NotFound@lemmyonline.com
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        1 year ago

        Even a few conversations I have on reddit in the last week (after many already migrated)-

        Its obvious, lots more trolls. Lots more shittalk. Just- not pleasant.

  • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    what made the switch easier for me, was installing an RSS feed widget to my desktop and adding lemmy instances to it. gradually, i start to notice topics that interest me more and more which are viewable straight from the rss widget itself and i am able to comment on it, thus i have interacted more on here in the last few days than reddit. though it is still hard not to add :“reddit” to my searches online.

  • luminaree@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s funny reading posts that say something along the lines of “I’ve always used the reddit app and it’s fine, I didn’t even know there were third-party apps”. I get this might be astroturfing or bots but if not, congrats on not having a clue, I guess.

    • noodle@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      It’s probably not purely bots. My girlfriend is one of those people lol

      She isn’t tech literate and doesn’t get things like FOSS or 3rd party. To her, the Official Reddit™ App is a mark of trust and safety. She doesn’t use an adblocker (despite my protests) and just avoids services like Youtube where ads are unavoidable.

    • mindrover@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I haven’t used an app for reddit since Alien Blue. I was just on the mobile website. I can still understand the problem with what they’re doing. I don’t know why so many people can’t understand a problem unless it affects them personally.

  • thesoloist@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been on reddit for almost a decade and a half. Never have I seen so many users gilding pro corporate reddit/pro spez comments. It is almost always the former. It’s very unusual and makes me a tad suspicious. I’m not sure if reddit has evolved into a platform overflowing with users that I truly don’t synchronize with, or perhaps reddit is virtually augmenting these posts/comments, increasing bot posts to augment activity, etc. I accept either or and for that and many other reasons I have contently moved on from the platform. It’s just not for me anymore and has been fracturing into an environment that lost its luster. Too many common folk have saturated the platform, too many bots, too much corporate shenanigans, too many miserable users, too little civility, too much ignorance and a lack of analytical literacy. The fediverse has given a breath of fresh air and something of nostalgia from the early days of reddit. I do think this is the way forward with time and I’m here for it.

    • CoffeeBlood91@lemmy.caOP
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      1 year ago

      Scary thing is, if AI can take over Reddit, AI can also take over Lemmy.

      I can litterally copy and paste this post, and then you comment, as well as other people’s comments and instruct ChatGPT to reply in accordance. Then, if I feel like the comment seems obviously AI written, I can tell it to write it in the style of a redditor with a few spelling mistakes and it I’ll do just that.

      Now uses some script, and the prompt, and let the algorithm do all the work for you.

  • eldingo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I wish people would just drop it. Do not visit Reddit. The blackouts are meh, to actually be effective, do not visit. No clicks, no views, no content.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      That was what the blackout was supposed to be- no clicks, no content. It had some effect but perhaps not the overwhelming effect that was desired. A lot of Reddit traffic now is just idiots scrolling in the app who probably never even notice the blackout let alone care.

      That said- I think the effects of the last few weeks are going to take a longer time (many weeks or a few months or more) to truly play out. For me at least, the biggest effect is now I’m diversifying- while my social media time WAS almost 100% Reddit, now I’m trying to do as much Lemmy as I can. The bubble of trust is popped. Unless Spez gets fired and the Reddit board or his successor publicly walks this back and makes commitments to openness, I don’t see myself putting any trust at all in them going forward. Too bad really :(

  • JDPoZ@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This may just an old interwebz man talking, but I’d say “Don’t worry.”

    It’s not a 1:1, but this is similar to what happened with Digg in the mid 2000s. I was there. I migrated from there to Reddit - specifically because Digg had decided to ignore its vocal user base and fundamentally change what the site was.

    It ultimately resulted in this : this

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      The scale is so much larger now. Reddit could lose 1m users and its a blip.

      • Lanfordr@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Not if the redditors that leave are the ones that do the majority of the moderating and quality posting. If the quality goes way down, people will look elsewhere. Also, I have a feeling we’ll see a much bigger migration once the third party apps all die on the 30th.

        • x3i@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Well, “unfortunately” some of them will stay up since they are classified as open-source and non-profit by reddit. So, while I’m glad that these projects live on, it will certainly soften the blow for Reddit on 30th.

        • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          I have noticed a huge quality decline on reddit. I hope people get fed up and search for other options.

            • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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              1 year ago

              I’m new as well. Made my account a few days ago. First time participating in the fediverse and I am loving it so far. I love the vibe and building new communities. I wish I better knew how to spread the word because up until last week I never knew any of this existed.

              • sudsieskymo@lemmy.sdf.org
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                1 year ago

                There’s been so many threads I’ve read on lemmy where pretty much everyone was able to voice disagreement in some way, but the discourse refrained from being toxic. That seemed so very rare on Reddit. I wonder if this is due to the lack of the total karma metric or something.

                • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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                  1 year ago

                  I think that it’s because the bad users aren’t here yet.

  • GreenCrush@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I mean, is it out of the realm of possibility that bootlicking comments are those made by Reddit themselves? Comment sections can quickly become echo chambers, I’m sure reddit knows this and uses that to their advantage.

    Not to say that there aren’t plenty of addicts and general idiots all over reddit.

  • Thalyssa@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    They can’t admit they’re addicted. I was a daily Reddit user. Stopped going there once the blackout hits. And now, the subs I care about are still private. Good.

    And somehow, I turned out fine.

    • cannache@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      Addicted to reading comments, I can’t say I’m any better lol

      But I do my best to contribute in a positive manner, share bits and pieces of my journey or what I observe in others that I find funny or imagine would inspire good 👍

    • coldv@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Same. It’s like a moment of clarity from detoxification. I don’t miss Reddit as much as I thought I would. I just read subs like news and worldnews through an RSS app now.

      • Thalyssa@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I actually comment a lot, at least one a day. Presumably these are lurkers who think they are owed content.

        Surprisingly I don’t miss it. I have Discord and Kbin. I’ll probably cease browsing Reddit on mobile once RiF dies.

  • Kissing Ash@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    People have been saying it but were being ignored for weeks: this blackout thing will not work. And we were correct. It was a useless attempt to try and win over the majority.

    Plenty of people use the main app and are the majority of users, and it is what it is. The ones who care about the Reddit API fiasco should move away. That’s the only valid move.

    I’ve done it, and everyone else who care should. Leave the ones who are fine with Reddit on Reddit.

    • MrPear@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think it’s particular the main stream of Reddit that is protesting, it is indeed a small percentage. However, I think the discussion in the recent Waveform Podcast hits the nail on the head:

      That small percentage that left Reddit are the people that care most about Reddit. Those are the powerusers. The users that generally contribute most to the platform, be that in the form of content, informative comments, moderation, writing tools or other stuff. It’s the people that are most valueble to the website. When those people leave there might others might not notice it instantly, but after a while the overall experience will deteriate somehow.

      It is somewhat comparable to if when many of the big youtubers were to leave Youtube after bad management. They might be only 1% of the people uaing Youtube, but they are also the people that are important to the website for the experience of the other 99%.

      • zouden@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thing is though, only those power users are likely to care about the decline in content quality.

        The people who just use it for memes and funny videos won’t even notice

    • sudneo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I see the blackout as a nudge to overcome addiction. A few days or weeks without content, and people start looking around. The the network effect (downward) will make the rest.

      I want to specify that I have no interest in all the userbase of reddit moving to Lemmy, but just an initial influx of people who care will help making it reach a critical mass. After that, reddit can even reopen fully, at that point it won’t matter.

      • Kissing Ash@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Except those people went to twitter, Instagram, and tiktok for their memes, news, and funny moments. All the major subs that I subscribed to are back on and people are back as usual there. The blackout was useless and another lazy version of internet activism, and it made people hate the mods instead of Reddit for “power tripping.” Literally made people side with Reddit because of that lol.

        • sudneo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I had a different experience, to be honest. The sub I am more active in, /r/Italy is open, but it has still a ridiculous activity, and most of the active users wanted an indefinite blackout. A sibling sub, italyinformatica is even more desert (yesterday last post was 4 days ago). I think that in principle the blackout is a very effective way to protest, it worked like a charm to keep me off the site, at least, but I agree that saying “we do it for 2 days” undermines the whole thing.

  • sibachian@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    It would appear it’s mostly bots, probably paid for by reddit (or interested groups) to muddle the waters.

    I have seen countless posts trying to discredit the fediverse, how it won’t work because it isn’t financially backed (completely ignoring that email is still a thing), or how Mastodon apparently failed. On top of that, there are tons of comments in the threads for subs that went dark where the commenter argues “all this does is hurt the sub”. but when you look into the commenter, they have no previous history of being active in these subs at all.

    But, i’ve seen this kind of activity all over reddit for the past 2 years. Especially when something unpopular is happening. There is a lot of the same type of crap you see during the presidential elections of the US. A lot of fake comments, posts, and statistics, and other things to try steer the public opinion in an engineered direction.

    • Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      how Mastodon apparently failed

      Saw this on my Mastodon home feed:

      12,484,940 accounts
      +2,493 in the last hour
      +66,136 in the last day
      +273,430 in the last week

      Four time-based charts

      Upper blue area: Number of Mastodon users
      Upper cyan area: Hourly increases of number of users
      Lower orange area: Number of active instances
      Lower yellow area: Thousand toots per hour

      For current figures please read the text of this post https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount/110554252061792575

  • atypicaloddity@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Don’t worry too much about it. There’s still going to be people using Reddit. You’re never going to convince everybody about everything. My parents still use Facebook.

  • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The comment section is filled with people saying how they should just kick the mods out of the dark Reddit’s and take over, ofcourse these posts are heavily upvoted…

    Thing is, all the people in favor of the protest left Reddit. So now pro-Reddit content is being upvoted.

    • cyanide@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Thing is, all the people in favor of the protest left Reddit.

      Except the mods. Now they’re getting abuse from those that didn’t care about the protests.

    • DaveFuckinMorgan@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’m sorry but the protest was a complete failure that accomplished nothing. The real successful protest would be making a sub on here and redirecting their uses to it.

      • Sam@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Lemmy went from a few thousand users with very little activity to 100k+ with constant activity. It was a massive success.

        • Tango@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          For a website with over 800 million monthly users, 100k is nothing, barely even a rounding error. You can say it was a success for lemmy, but as far as the actual goal of the protest it achieved basically nothing.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    1 year ago

    I noticed earlier today that all the top posts were reposts of previous top posts on each main sub.

    Like they literally just reposted all the top posts of all time.

    That’s the kind of thing that is possible when they own it all.

    Lots and lots of gold too. Has anyone ever bought it? I have my doubts.

    • CoffeeVector@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      As much as I feel that Reddit was pretty underhanded, I doubt that they’re using AI to fake content to keep people on the site 'cause (a) people would catch on pretty fast by looking at the history of the account and (b) running LLMs probably cost more than the earned advertising revenue.

      What’s more likely is that people/bots have always been reposting for karma a while

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        I don’t think they’ve used AI to do anything or even create fake content. They just reposted things that are already known to be popular, so that new users will experience good content.

        Or maybe if Reddit didn’t do it, then it’s just karmabots taking the front-page, because there is no good OC to beat them.

        Personally I think Spez and his staff are currently glued to the screen and handing out votes and gold for whatever isn’t about the protest.