All mods of /r/self and /r/shittylifeprotips were removed and suspended for 7 days without any warning first.
We toggled to 18+ and sort of let nature take its course by only enforcing TOS. I say "we" but in reality I was the only active mod on either sub, so I do feel bad for getting awkwardtheturtle banned by association (lol). After the fact got the "It’s not ok to show people NSFW content when they don’t want to see it.
Mods should not make malicious changes to their communities, such as allowing rule-violating behavior or encouraging the submission of sexually explicit (18+) content in previously safe-for-work spaces."
Shittylifeprotip: if you run an unprofitable forum website, assert your dominance over your users by fucking with them. They'll respect that you're an alpha Chad and give you more money and views.
The best part is that many of these are huge, moneymaker subs from the front page. Surely the average facebook-y lurker that Spez was pandering to will have noticed the drama by now as well.
I don't think there are any moderator rules at all. Reddit is just doing anything they can get away with, which is what corporations do anyway.
I am a bit surprised at how slipshod they are about it though, I'd have expected them to hammer out an action plan and then trigger it all in the same hour, but we're getting this slow trickle of changes which suggests that they don't have a plan at all, but are just sort of flailing.
There's a prevalent misconception that the most deserving become successful, rich, powerful. That those running the world's largest companies are especially talented, intelligent and hardworking. I suspect this is also why for a long time people assumed people like Boris Johnson, Putin or Musk were geniuses or especially talented.
It's an example of the Just World Hypothesis. A religiously inspired cognitive bias that leads people to think that people get what they deserve, that you reap what you sow, that what goes around comes around. It's comforting to think that by being a good person, acting a certain way, and doing your best, you can prevent bad things happening to you. Of course, life doesn't always work that way.
The reality is that life is often unfair. Very talented, intelligent and hardworking people end up dead in a ditch. Utterly average people end up running billion dollar companies or even entire countries.
To quote Jean-Luc Picard: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life".
The opposite is also true. It is possible to get exceptionally far in life, with a bit of luck, nepotism, and by being a tool.
TLDR: Steve Huffman will almost certainly continue to bungle this spectacularly. He will then be rewarded millions when reddit IPOs, millions for an entirely misjudged 'effort' that literally amounts to worse than nothing at all. That's just how the world works.
Is there actually a particular rule against turning SFW subs into NSFW subs?
No, and historically it's been the admins' stance that it's up to the mods to determine what is an acceptable level within the sub. They're absolutely just making up the shit as they go and trying to retroactively justify their impulsive actions after the fact.
Previously, reddit admins could distance themselves from what the moderators were doing.
You know plausible deniability. "We allow our users to post stuff, users moderate themselves. Oopsiedoodle. We allowed users to post pictures of underage girls on reddit for years, time to fire the volunteer mod responsible."
Obviously, anyone who's been on reddit for a while, knows that's bullshit. Reddit's perfectly happy to profit off questionable and outright illegal content. But the admins had that excuse.
But now they're literally and openly forcing subreddits like /r/piracy to re-open.
This strikes me as legally questionable. They're not just tolerating or even condoning some of the more questionable content, they're now actively promoting it.
Reddit's own guidance on the topic says the presence of profanity could cause a post or a sub to be NSFW.
A moderator toggling their sub NSFW due to the presence of profanity would be fully in line with their own guidance, and I'm pretty sure r/shittylifeprotips had a little profanity. (Hint: it's in the name.)
Reddit is just desperately trying to interpret their rules in whatever way they desire because they're panicking at losing revenue.
The funny thing is the bastards are still trying to pretend this is all just about people losing free access to the API, when it is now quite firmly about them and their plantation mentality toward users and their unskillful power tripping. It's all how weak people think strong people act, and it's equal parts infuriating and pathetic.
I wish there was a way for all users to grab their data back and agree to sell it back to reddit if they want to profit from it. They truly do not understand that people are mad because they are trying to profit off of free labor.
I think it's important to go through this process so that more visibility is placed on Reddit. I've deleted my account and am done with it, and I do think this may be the beginning of the end for that platform, but it's clear it won't go down without a fight and to suggest otherwise wildly underestimates how desperate Reddit's execs may become when faced with the possibility of the platform's demise. Even if it survives all of this, I think it and the perception of the platform will forever be changed.
I don't think anyone truly believes the site is ending from our actions. It is more to trash the place on the way out. Reddit will make a clean sweep and everything will go back to their perception of normal, except a whole lot of active users will have left. It will sustain itself on bot reposts for a while, but in a couple of years the place will be boring and lack the humanity that made it great. People will wander off and end up where the humanity is, which might be the fediverse but maybe not. Everything is currently up in the air, but the shift has started. It's like how everyone used Facebook until they didn't. Sure, some people still use it, but a lot of people moved elsewhere.
This isn't the first time reddit has removed moderators -- I'm sure everyone remembers the_donald. While the td mods did get plenty of direct warnings from the admins, ultimately the admins don't need to provide any form of warning. Reddit does own the platform (and your content), after all.