Derek Powazek 🐐Jun 15, 2023
2023 really is the year of bad men finding out they can be bad enough to ruin their community sites permanently. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/reddit-protest-blackout-ceo-steve-huffman-moderators-rcna89544
Reddit CEO slams protesters, says he'll change moderator rules

Steve Huffman, the Reddit CEO, said in an interview that a user protest on the site this week does not have wide support and is led by a minority of moderators.

NBC News
Show threadRoss! at the LibraryJun 16, 2023

@fraying He really went to NPR to talk about how much money he wants to make off the content users give him. 🙄

"Reddit represents one of the largest datasets of just human beings talking about interesting things," Huffman said. "We are not in the business of giving that away for free." https://www.npr.org/2023/06/15/1182457366/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-its-time-we-grow-up-and-behave-like-an-adult-company

Show threadTHIS ACCOUNT HAS MOVEDJun 16, 2023
@LibraryofBabble @fraying this data moat is part of an ML strategy. Why isn't anyone talking about that? Where do you think the LLM massive data sets originate?
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Jun 16, 2023
@noplasticshower @LibraryofBabble because that’s just a PR strategy. Anyone running an API could make exceptions for data usage that makes the moderators lives easier. He has refused to do that. So it’s not about protecting from LLM data extraction at all.
Show threadTHIS ACCOUNT HAS MOVEDJun 16, 2023
@fraying @LibraryofBabble I am not a reddit user. But I am deeply familiar with LLMs (and LLM strategy), and it seems to me that this is about building a less permeable data moat.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Jun 16, 2023
@noplasticshower @LibraryofBabble if you look into what the protesters are protesting you’ll see that it has nothing to do with that
Show threadTHIS ACCOUNT HAS MOVEDJun 16, 2023
@fraying @LibraryofBabble you are not understanding my point, but that's ok.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Jun 16, 2023
@noplasticshower @LibraryofBabble I understand perfectly. The issue you’re raising is not why people are mad.
Show threadTHIS ACCOUNT HAS MOVED

@fraying @LibraryofBabble the mad people are missing the point. That doesn't make the API decision any less evil. It just clarifies why it is happening for me.

Over and out.

Jun 16, 2023 at 4:04amWeb
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Jun 16, 2023
@noplasticshower @LibraryofBabble then you’re missing the point of the protest.
Show threadfearghuisJun 16, 2023
@fraying @noplasticshower @LibraryofBabble He’s not talking about the protest…