Reddit’s menswear hub is the latest casualty of its battle with moderators | TechCrunch

Reddit may have won by shutting down the protest against its API changes, but not without lasting damage to its relationship with its users. #RedditMigration

https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/09/reddit-male-fashion-advice-mod-take-over-api-protest/

TechCrunch is part of the Yahoo family of brands

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The widespread protests against Reddit’s API changes reached a boiling point last month after the company forcibly reopened r/malefashionadvice — the largest subreddit that stayed dark after the blackout — booted the moderators, and appointed new ones.

In June, thousands of subreddits went dark to protest Reddit’s API pricing, which effectively shut down popular third-party apps like Apollo because of the high fees.

Though many of the most popular posts portrayed users in very sophisticated, tasteful outfits, the majority of threads revolved around teaching guys how to dress for everyday life.

In an increasingly snarky social media landscape, earnest communities like r/malefashionadvice are sorely needed to “make spaces feel welcoming to noobs,” Guy said.

Comments applying for the vacant position, as archived on r/SubredditDrama, accused Reddit of wanting “fresh free labour to replace the old unpaid serfs,” and vowed that “this community will not accept scab mods.”

Under a daily thread about fashion advice, a user asked, “what pair of shoes goes best with a black t shirt and slim fit chinos that i just pissed five minutes ago?”

I’m a bot and I’m open source!

GitHub - RikudouSage/LemmyAutoTldrBot

Contribute to RikudouSage/LemmyAutoTldrBot development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Reddit is doing the mod swapping in a creepy way. First the community is banned, then it comes back under new management by corpo drones

I don't see how this works in the long run, if they have to put paid corporate drones in charge of moderation. Wasn't the entire point of Reddit that they don't have to pay moderators?

This kind of strategy is lose / lose. If spez want an IPO, well this kind of crap is tanking that IPO.

The "corpo drones" in this case are people willing to follow the directions from Reddit/Advance Media, but not get paid.

Reddit may have won...

Now let's outline how they really lost in the rest of the article.