Hey everyone. If you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy!
Hey everyone. If you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy!
If i may dream, the actual solution to this issue would be a mod/user takeover along the lines of a factory occupation, or a more peaceful worker buyout. (Sometimes the former leads to the latter.)
When the tools of production are a server farm, how do they get taken over? What does it look like?
To be a little more grounded, the real targets of this action should not be “reddit” or /u/spez. It should be whoever is actually in charge. Do we know who that is?
Disturbingly, there is really no way to know who actually owns a private company like Reddit. Once it goes public, then the owners will be the shareholders (and in reality, the owners are the major shareholders who have a controlling stake).
The only clue to the current ownership is whatever management wishes to disclose. Spez wrote a blog post in 2021 indicating that they issued $250M in “series E funding” to existing and new investors.
If there are any finance bros around here, they may be able to dig up some sort of disclosures from bond auctions to try and see who bought it.
The only confirmed investor I know about is Tencent. They invested in 2019. Its possible they were also some of the “existing investors” Spez referred to in 2021.
Bottom line: nobody knows who owns Reddit. But apparently the owners think this guy Spez is a good fit to run their company, somehow.
He’s exactly what they want. A complete straw man with a hateable face, a genuine Nimrod that thinks he’s the smartest guy in any room he’s ever been in. Sprinkle in being a privelaged yes man and he’s the perfect face for an ownership group that wants to remain anonymous. He’s literally Tom from Succession, might even be who that character is based on IRL.
The older redditors may remember that he was moderator of some VERY dodgy subreddits back in the day and tried to cover it up. We remember, it will come back to haunt him at some point.
Do you mind me asking which dodgy subs? I’m mostly familiar with his election 2016 (non)work and half assed too little too late follow up. I was on Reddit from 2010 or 2011, but I really don’t recall knowing anything about senior leadership until 2014 or 2015
/r/jailbait
If you can sate my curiosity, what dodgy subreddits?
It’s difficult to prove these days as most of that era was wiped and the internet archive doesnt have much from that time.
There are some people saying it was possible to add arbitrary users as mods for a while, some that say he made himself a mod as part of cleaning up that subreddit. but a lot of people also say he was a mod for a very long time.
/r/jailbait
Yikes, I had no idea Tencent is a Reddit investor. That’s another big reason for me to steer clear of Reddit!
I think the Fediverse is an illustration that innovation can thrive without profit motive. Maybe just copying services, picking up the pieces, and moving there is the only reasonable protest anyone can do on the Internet.
In essence, to make one’s own website, with blackjack, and hookers.
Actually…forget the website!
And thus lemmynsfw.com was born
I don’t know how you’ll get a capitalist prepper to surrender his golden goose.
Dont ceos serve the board? I am only vaguely framiliar with this kind of business but i donnot think he “owns” it? But i may be confusing that with a post IPO structure.