I’m pretty convinced that Livejournal was Russia’s test bed for weaponizing social media. I think they used it against their own citizens first, and data-mined the English-speaking side to understand how it worked, and took what they learned to perfect the shit-storm of lies on modern social media (on Tumblr/Twitter/Reddit/everywhere.)
The more I analyse the news and what is happening in the world as a whole … I don’t think nations matter any more. It doesn’t matter if you say it’s Russian, Ukrainian, American, German, Chinese or even Canadian … the power and influence is controlled by corporations and many of them have way more power and wealth than the smallest nations. They exert so much power that they influence (at least) or control (at most) every nation in the world.
They’re so wealthy and powerful that they can bend, break or manipulate any and all laws of any nation that stand in their way.
It’s not a conspiracy at this point … it’s just an observation.
I’ve heard that moneied interests are paying Twitter and now reddit behind the scenes to ruin their respective communities. It’s because every time something happens that shakes the foundation of who’s in charge, it’s always a social media coordinated public effort behind the push for change. The most recent one I can think of is the Twitter-fueled women’s rights movement in Iran. Or even the push to get progressive names like AOC elected.
So now we have rich interests paying CEOs to sabotage their own companies in order to better maintain the status quo.
I know this concept falls squarely into conspiracy theory territory, but with Twitter and reddit, both once bastions of progressive organization, going to shit at the same time, and threads popping up with the messaging that they explicitly want to avoid news and politics, you can’t help but wonder if there’s a concentrated effort behind the scenes to break up communities that are actually starting to make a difference.
It doesn’t sound too outlandish. The destruction of Twitter seems to attract some replacement from the far-right groups, Threads is already gaining far-right pages promotion and Reddit is still in the phase of destroying a once very influencial community. And all in the same time as the beginning of the US electoral campaign. It really aligns with a concentrated effort
I mean what makes far more sense is that interests rates have skyrocketed, which means VC money dried up, which means these platforms that haven’t made money in over a decade suddenly have to figure out how to run themselves.
It’s not just Reddit and Twitter, it’s YouTube and Twitch also.
It also might have something to do with the people running the show are now being tasked with real work and it turns out they aren’t good at their job.
Yeah I think this is the Occam’s razor explanation that makes more sense. And why might Reddit be doing such a similar thing so soon after twitter? Spez has said he’s in touch with Elon and admires his business decisions. Simple as that.
For those in control … there is no more terrible thing than to have all your workers talking amongst one another to discuss how terrible their situation is and what they could all do about it.
It’s the same in prison … if the guards and management keep everyone in control by isolating them all. Once the inmates start talking to one another, they start to conspire and plan on what to do about their situation. If they plan long enough, they’ll figure out how to do illegal activity, find specialty items or contraband … give them more time and they’ll start trying to figure out how to break out of their situation.
Then when things go too far and all sorts of illegal activity is taking place and people are trying to break out … the guards and managers will shake up the prison and breakup the communications system they were all using.
This is my thought - many good content creators left and they are now desperate for getting them back. Wiping all awards and coins in the process is an idiot thing to do tho. Seems they’re just making more people mad.
I never bought coins or whatever, but I had inherited a bunch somehow. I jumped on reddit just now to find an old thread I'd saved and found this in my inbox:
Hello from Reddit,
We’re reaching out because you have Reddit Premium and/or Reddit Coins on your account.
TL;DR: We're making updates to awards and coins on Reddit that we'll complete by September 12, 2023. As part of this, we made a decision to move away from Reddit coins and awards. This includes the 700 monthly coins* and Premium Awards, which are currently part of the Reddit Premium experience.
You'll still be able to use your Reddit Coins until September 12, after which they'll be removed from your account.
Note: all other current Premium perks will still continue to exist, including the ad-free experience.
As we looked at our current awarding system, there was consistent feedback from redditors that stood out – particularly around the clutter from awards and all the steps involved with awarding content. We also learned that redditors want awarded content to be more valuable. With that, we are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. We will have more updates to share soon.
If you have further questions please check out our announcement post to read more about the update.
This perk is part of the paid Reddit Premium experience.
Thought it was kind of funny considering I never once cared about coins in the first place. Just checked and apparently I have "13325 coins to spend." I'm just going to let them go unless someone has a more maliciously compliant suggestion.
I can’t think of anything too maliciously compliant. Maybe give Reddit Gold to posts describing how to join Lemmy or something? Awards should boost visibility. It’s at least a little ironic to use Reddit 's own awards to help people escape.
It’s surprising to hear this; given reddit’s current mass-enshittification I don’t expect to see a change that both improves user experience and reduces the money they’re making. Clearly they’ve got something more sinister planned, but awards were a blight on the reddit experience and had I not already left I’d appreciate this change (for now!)
The irony is that the comments that got me the most karma weren't the ones I considered of highest value. A detailed, genuinely helpful response in a small subreddit might only garner a half-dozen upvotes while a snarky one-liner in a big sub can boost karma by thousands.
I think part of it is about retention .... retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.
I'm currently in the process of ending my four accounts I have on reddit. Two of them are over 100,000 in karma and when I read this post, the very first thing that popped into my mind was .... HOW MUCH WILL MY ACCOUNTS BE WORTH?
So it's now making me think ... if I can just keep up my account for another while, maybe I can cash in on all that karma I accumulated.
I am sure that many other redditors are thinking the same. The way this reddit admin posted the info is really weird too ... it sounded like some salesman just enticing people into an idea but not fully being able to say much about it and instead making vague suggestions that something big is coming in the future.
I know a sales job when I see one .... and this is a sales job. Many people will fall for it ... if not just to hang on to see if they can at least cash in our something ... anything when the announcement happens.
Say or think what you want about me ... but I'm ending this relationship and deleting my accounts ... I don't trust big corporations to say or do anything that might give me a chance at anything. Any action they elicit from me or any user will be gamed to only benefit them. If not enough people figure that out ... reddit will make bank in the short term and that is all they are counting on.
I think part of it is about retention … retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.>
If they were actually serious about retention of high karma users they could at least consider not suspending/ banning such users without a very good reason. My previous account on there was nuked for reasons I dont understand to this day, I would have happily stayed on otherwise. I have a temporary account there now which I had no intention of putting any money into - well now the one reason i might have been tempted to do so is going away anyway.
The award/ coin system was great, and I spent a bit of money on it, it was also a very good way to pay for or be paid for small international transactions - I assisted a few people with minor things and they paid my costs such as they were with reddit coin, saving them and me international bank transaction fees. I also liked rewarding intelligent and incisive comments that needed recognition as such.
So killing a feature before any replacement is ready; cool. I’m sure those who pay for premium and will stop receiving a stock of coins will see a commensurate price reduction. Right?
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