this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
114 points (96.7% liked)

Malicious Compliance

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People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

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r/steam (maliciously) complies with the call to open again (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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The subreddit r/steam, about the digital game storefront, received as many other subreddits a notice to open the community again, or else the mods would be replaced by those who abide.

The mods followed suit posting the following automod message under every new post:

As ya'll likely know, we've been dark to support the blackout against reddit's antagonistic behavior towards its own userbase. The admins sent us a message today saying we must open or get removed, so here we are.

For those of you browsing this subreddit on non-official apps (Reddit is Fun, Apollo, Sync, Boost, etc), they will break on July 1st due to reddit's new policies. We're opening back up but will leave permanent stickies in the subreddit and threads to keep folks in the know.

Our Discord [contains link to https://discord.gg/steam] server is active, don't forget to check it out.

Good luck and god speed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

On visit, you quickly notice there is a community wide effort to focus on the literal topic of the given name and post about vapors, steam trains, and kitchen appliances. While posts about the gaming platform get downvoted.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This blackout has really shown which subs have actual in-touch moderators, and which ones are just the admins' puppy dogs

A while ago, I had a comment auto-removed on WPT and got a message it was because my account was "not in good standing." When I messaged the WPT mods, they explained that they were test piloting a new tool the admins plan to use. For example, if you have a throwaway email address, no email address, or are connecting via VPN, you may be "not in good standing."

With things like that on the horizon, even if they roll back on what they're doing now, we're still not likely to have a very good time on that site.

I can't blame the mods who are trying to make change through protest (and who may not even be aware of the "not in good standing" BS), but I don't plan to stick around, and I don't foresee a very bright future for reddit at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What a great idea. Just use an algorithm to ban any unprofitable user. Can't lose!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

That explains why I got banned a while back and was told I violeted the TOS, but the crime they listed (Abusing the report button) was neither in the TOS nor something I actually did.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah. So basically China's Social Credit system, but for Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-untangling-myth-reality

Often, the SoCS is merely invoked as a metaphor: either to depict some technological threat at home or to portray a techno-dystopian China.

This is symptomatic of a tendency to see China not as a real place with real people, but as an abstract “negative opposite” of “us”.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

How/why would mods have access to an accounts mail details??

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honesty I think the big political subs are incredibly bot infested. Political content is an amazing way to make people mad and get them to spend more time on a platform, increasing engagement and letting reddit deliver more ads. It's not like it would be the first time they used bots to drive engagement and make communities look bigger.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The whole site is bot infested! Especially the large subs, but I've personally had scambots pop into my posts even on smaller subreddits.

People who say they won't leave reddit because "there's no good alternative" really have their head in the sand about how bad it really is. Nearly every alternative I've seen suggested is at least better than reddit (except for the really far-right ones like voat).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty much any big sub is totally unusable. The only reason to be on Reddit is for the niche hobby subs

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

And unfortunately, those are the ones most difficult to find alternatives for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Worse than bots. Active foreign influencers.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reddit is trying to go to war with the kind of people responsible for Boaty McBoatface and they think they're going to win.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I want that sentence on a t-shirt!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reddit execs don't care when people post like this. They aren't browsing the sub, all they see is user engagement is back up and that's a win. They can sell that to advertisers as a win. If you showed them the page they'd think it's weird but they probably wouldn't know it have ever been any different.

The only win to be had with the sub re-opening is to post nothing at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hardly anyone is going to spend hours browsing pictures of steam and engaging with it vs actual content so this certainly is not great for reddit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah but that's not what they're doing. They're doing a contrarian circlejerk that'll get boring after a few days or until the next thing happens with the steam platform that they all want to talk about. There's already a highly upvoted post there about the UI update.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the mods are true to their word they should be deleting anything related to the steam gaming platform because now its a sub about steam engines

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Did the mods actually make any kind of decree like that, though? It sounds like they're just doing an easily ignored automod message on every post and letting the users do as they will. The post i mentioned has 7k upvotes right now and its a been up for at least one full day. https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/14bww9f/about_this_weeks_update/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Loving this age of anti-Reddit malicious compliance creating content for Lemmy!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's a great way to kickstart this place! I found my way to malicious compliance solely because I wanted to see what the subreddits were getting up to without opening the official reddit app.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I love these wonderfully petty reactions to the Reddit issues.

Are there any other good examples out there for me to enjoy (I have already seen r/pics.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think these malicious compliance subreddit responses are as fun as the next person, but honest question: doesn't this work out in Reddit's favor? They don't care what's posted as long as content is being generated and traffic being driven to their site, right?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is the nuance to it. The subscribers did not sign up for this initially. Therefore they will have to build a new community up which certainly won't have as many subscribers for a very long time and none of the post history.

At the same time posts actually asking about the Steam platform get downvoted heavily and thus dissuade further interaction.

Effectively the sub becomes useless, just the same as if it had stayed closed. It will drop in engagement in the long term.

The John Oliver memes attract more mainstream attention and clearly signal to investors the platform is not healthy, irrespective of the traffic it causes.

With more and more subreddits joining in on this, the All page gets flooded with shitposts annoying everyone. Those who stay certainly won't want to deal with this all the time and unsubscribe.

Of course group dynamics are unpredictable at times, but reddit is certainly more in turmoil than whatever traffic.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really. The traffic they're getting from it is unsustainable and any would-be investor who is paying attention will notice this. This is really more a tactic to shatter the narrative that the mods do not represent the will of the general user and they are forcing the protests onto them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would they? I'd assume they're getting most of their info from spaz, who will just point to the dip and then "see, number go up."

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IPO's are risky for the investor. If the company is overvalued before the IPO, a huge chunk of money invested disappears almost immediately as the stock drops. So the big investors will be doing their research before putting their money in.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The only way to invest in Reddit is to short their stock.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Uh

c/steam ?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is going to be interesting in the long term for a lot of subreddits when people sort by top posts. Similar to when every sub had a net neutrality post stickied

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Nothing better than looking for some good NSFW content, going to the top of all time, and seeing nothing but net neutrality posts

I'm glad those were there but they did lead to some funny situations

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This is terrible! I went to /r/steam to learn about steamed hams but they were clearly grilled! I'm not even sure they were hams?!? 1 star, would not visit again!!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The best way for the Reddit community to fight back is to leave to another community. In order for that to happen the Fediverse options have to keep growing and improving, like they are, so that people leaving feel comfortable knowing they have a good option. Reddit will be dead in 6 months.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It makes me sad to see what happens on Reddit, but actions like this keep my hopes up. Not for Reddit itself, but for the community and its people, wherever it will be. :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I was surprised that r/godot didn't turn into a discussion devoted to Samuel Beckett.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

"It's an Albany expression" - so good :D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From an ad revenue point of view, does this matter? Posts/ views/ clicks are all the same to them, no?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

People will eventually stop visiting if a subreddit no longer contains content that is interesting for them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Love it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is the way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wish some of these subs would stand their ground and make the admin replace them. That would cause the admin seven bigger headaches down the line, because a lot of the mods they impose would likely not be as good, not be as committed, and would be less strict in moderation, leading to a big pain for advertisers who suddenly would see lots of content next to their ads that is very not good.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I kinda like the idea of no moderation at all

Quiet quitting the mod position lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why funny, this just gives Reddit noise and numbers regarding blackout and numbers

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

u/spez tries to paint it was just mods trying to be powertripping and not standing for the communities. This refutes the sentiment along with the reactions of /r/pics and the likely coming r/aww action.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That though process won't even cross their mind. More like "See? The reopened communities are very active and actually generate MORE clicks now. We were right to force them open!". Only if the new direction would produce less clicks or advertisers are bothered by it ("I wanted to advertise my camera in r/pics but the new direction makes it unprofitable") they might look into where that "sabotage" is coming from and care about it.

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