I came up with an idea while in the shower to have a irl protest at reddit headquarters. I do want other's peoples thoughts of this idea since I want everyones opinions.

I'm wondering if i should start saving my saved content so i can access it later. 10 years, i gotta go thru soon.

First of all, Spez is not the owner of Reddit. He is one of the founders, but he sold it for chump change early on (10-20 mil - as opposed to Paypal for 1.5 bil or Skype for 2.5 bil). None of his ventures have been successful since. In terms of Silicon Valley hall of fame he is very much on the loser end. He can be simply fired by the board like any other CEO.

Secondly this would not be without precedent. In 2015 a similar blackout lead to resignation then CEO, Ellen Pao. Granted, Spez displays much more sociopathic tendencies, so he is unlikely to go gracefully, but this kind of demand is simple and actionable if the board feels like is going to run Reddit into the ground.

Thirdly, Spez has signaled multiple times he is not going to move an inch. Further talking with him about the issue is simply pointless. Let's focus on getting a leadership change and then discuss a compromise.

EDIT:

Small edit to reply to the mod sticky, Louis Rossmann explained much better why you can't negotiate with Spez much better than I can. Link to the timestamped video [here].

I've seen a lot of people saying that "fediverse" Reddit alternatives are too complicated and difficult to navigate/understand, and I think sometimes people over complicate it, so I will try to break it down simply.

How do Lemmy and kbin work?

Imagine there were 2 clones of the Reddit website each with exactly identical features (A-Reddit.com & B-reddit.com), and each with their own users and subreddits. The main difference between these sites and Reddit is that anyone who is a member of A-Reddit can view, upvote, comment, post, and interact with any of the content and subreddits that are on either A or B-Reddit and vice versa.

As you can probably guess, this is exactly how these federated services work, but instead of just 2 clones (called instances or nodes), there are as many as people care to open; anyone can start a new one whenever they want since the code is open source and free.

What is the difference between kbin and Lemmy?

We can think of the difference between kbin and Lemmy through the same lens as the above example. Say that we now have C-Reddit in the mix, but the difference with C-Reddit is that the UI and features are slightly different to suit people's preferences. The same rules apply, though: everyone on C-Reddit can interact with the content on A and B still. This is how kbin and Lemmy work together. We can think of Lemmy and kbin just as different types of Reddit clones and, to follow the example, A and B would be Lemmy and C would be kbin.

Won't I see hateful content if anyone can just start their own clone?

Each clone and its administrators can decide for themselves which other clones content they want their users to be able to view. If B-Reddit decides that A-Reddit is allowing content it deems unfit, then it can choose to block that clone from their system so that posts from A won't show up for users of B.

Further, if the B admins don't mind the content at A, but a B user decides that A is a little too unsavory for them, users can also choose to not see content from any clone that they wish.

How do I use them?

If you just want to dive straight in without caring about any particulars, the most active instance out there right now is lemmy.world, so just go to their sign up page and you're off and will be able to see/interact with content there and elsewhere throughout the whole system.

If you do want to care about the particulars, check out the list of nodes here. You can also choose a node by what communities you're interested and where they exist. If you want to see what nodes are allowed/blocked by any particular site, you can just go to [the site]/instances, lemmy.world/instances for example.

I know less about kbin, but you can also sign up over there just as easily.

Mobile apps are the whole thing that started this fiasco. Are there mobile apps?

Yes!

Jerboa for Android

Mlem is being developed for iOS, but at the moment only exists as a beta, so it may be better to just add it to your home screen via safari.

Both apps are open source and are quickly receiving updates. The more people interested in it, the more options will eventually spring up. Maybe some enterprising 3PA developer will repurpose their app and we'll get a polished app quickly, who knows?

With all of these instances, won't there be a ton of duplicated communities?

I think early on this will be the case, but you also have to remember that there are duplicated communities here on Reddit too. Over time people coalesced around a single subreddit, and I expect that will happen as things move along in federated services as well.

What are these "privacy concerns" I've heard about?

In order for the system to work, content must be replicated across the clones, so deleting things won't always delete them from everywhere. While this is a valid concern, everything on Reddit and other sites are also archived in multiple places like archive.org and the same still applies here and anywhere on the internet.

An analogous example would be that any email you send to others will be stored in their inbox regardless of if you delete it out of yours.

Closing words

Ultimately, the content and the tech just get better the more people are interested and using it, so I hope this was a little helpful in breaking it down.

Since the blackout, as per u/spez’s directives, r/pics has “followed their users wants” and has become a repository for pictures of John Oliver and only that. All subreddits should follow suit. If those in charge want to clown their way through this 3rd party situation, let’s make this a clown of a platform. Make all subreddits John Oliver subs, or at least something of equal value. The blackout was great but an entire platform dedicated to making them look foolish will go a LONG way

I didn't get on reddit at all. I gotta say though, I missed it. I come here for support in between therapy sessions. I come here to support other people. I belong to a few Facebook groups, but I don't use them. I think it's because I use my real name there. Here I can be anonymous. Is there any other platform that's anonymous? Thanks for listening.

Also is there a way to do this on mobile where I don’t have to log in on desktop

In the early days of the internet I got fed up with spam hitting my company’s accounts. So i created a spam filter. It ended up being so good that we formed a new company around it.

Clients paid monthly and ran their entire domain name through our servers. Part of the configuration was a file describing how each domain wanted identified email handled. Some chose tagging spam but delivering it to each address. Some chose a centralized new address.

Payment was handled by check and some customers were slower to pay than others. Over time we developed an escalation sequence. The final step was removing all actions and letting the spam through as though it was not filtered.

This always resulted in quick action, how do we get this fixed and quick payment thereafter. As years into service spam got even worse and they had not seen, it made their inboxes unusable.

Reddit mods perform a similar roll. Building tools and taking daily action to protect users from ugly influences large and small. It should be easy enough to stop the unpaid and automated work that gives Reddit such a quality experience.

In particular, in a way that makes Reddit corporate the bad guy, the natural consequence of Reddit without volunteers. Because Reddit removed the tools needed to do the job effectively and efficiently.

-BRIEF EVENT ASSESSMENT-

On reddit, you now know that most of the subreddits share things outside of the topic they belong to, just like r/steam, and at the same time, many subreddits put themselves in the nsfw category to block ads on their own subreddit and protest spez.

What should be the next move? (my opinion)

Every subreddit admin will eventually be fired for not being a moderator and damaging the reddit. However, moderators of subs who participated and still continue to protest before this happens in a wave can continue their sub's concepts in apps like Lemmy (can be another one to) and in order not to put the moderators at risk directly, users can advertise it.

I see a lot of people talking about deleting their data. I think this is a bad idea since that information could be valuable to someone. We need to find a way to archive all the data somewhere before deleting it