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spez/Steve Huffman did not attack third party apps to make the site more valuable for IPO, but rather to reduce the effectiveness of one of the largest progressive platforms on the internet
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If you are going to make an extraordinary claim you have to back it up with evidence. Is your theory just a hunch? What can you actually show to support your post?
Not just at themselves but at whether tildes is right for them. This is a place of long-form discussion. Debate is encouraged. We can't be taking bs at face value like this; we're better than that. Yes we hate spez, but we aren't going to start saying he's the devil because he did bad shit. We can call him on what he did actually do and continues to do.
While I do agree the take here was highly unsubstantiated, I’m curious what makes you use the term witch hunt?
We like a story with a good villain that is easy to hate on a fundamental level, right? No one wants an indifferent villain, we want someone that hates us back, and for a reason that is unique to us. We want it to be personal.
That is somehow more comforting than "it's all about numbers".
That’s fair. I don’t think it technically lines up with the term’s meaning – nor is it particularly consequential here given that spez is a public figure who’s given many better reasons already for people to dislike him – but it’s a perfectly understandable take.
Frankly, I do think OP’s post was a bit off-the-wall, but I’m having a hard time attributing bad faith here. Zany posts aren’t exactly malicious ones.
Yeah... you can criticize content without witch hunting.
I'm definitely not enjoying this trend of users accusing other users of not being "Tildes worthy". As if we were some kind of internet elite.
Yea, this is complete nonsense. This is all about money, not some right wing attack...the internet is mostly left leaning anyways.
Quite peculiar OP created account in 2018 and this is their first post minus one comment last week. On Reddit such old accounts with no previous history are infamous for spreading misinformation, conspiracy, and bot spams. It's possible OP was just lurking here and didn't feel interacting before but having this as a first post is certainly doubtful of good faith participation.
As another account that was made in 2018 and only started participating recently, I just made one when I first heard of Tildes, forgot about it pretty quickly, and then came back because of the recent reddit drama. I don't think that activity pattern necessarily indicates a lack of good-faith participation -- the indicator here is solely the contents of this post, which wouldn't be any less conspiratorial if they'd commented throughout previous years.
Well, this is my new favorite 'conspiracy' theory.
Makes just enough sense, but can't be proven and fits a nice narrative that we would like to believe.
I believe once both Occam's Razor and Hanlon's Razor are applied here, the theory is cut down to nothing. The premise is believable, and definitely not outside the realm of possibility. However it requires a level of forethought, planning, and malice that is highly unlikely.
It is easier and convenient to blame complex problems on a single person, and that's a key reason why the role of CEO exists in the first place. However even though the super rich (like Musk) wield an inordinate amount of power and influence, they are not gods, and they do not play 4D chess.
I disagree.
Advertisers (how your site is monetized) make money by placating the most amount people...which in the USA, is far, far and way the left.
There are no political-4D-chess moves being played here by spez or Musk; they are simply incompetent and idiotic.
Musk has restored accounta of previously-banned right-wing accounts, promoted right-wing content, gutted hate-speech protections, and down a lot more to make Twitter a less-safe space for minority, LGBTQ, and progressive voices. Whether Spez is politically motivated is another question, but a lot of Musk's actions have resulted in the loss of advertising dollars specific because he's pandering to the far right and making Twitter a playground for them.
He's incompetent, and he can afford to lose $40 billion, but that doesn't change the fact he is 100% actively trying to make Twitter into a right-leaning platform.
I agree that he's trying to make the space a right wing platform. But I don't think he planned on losing $40B because of it.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if someone convinced him (or he convinced himself) that there would be a a bunch of advertisers eager to jump on his "free-speech" platform, and that he'd somehow unlock all this magical value that no other right-wing company has managed to find.
Never attribute to ideology that which can be sufficiently explained by greed.
So far I've not seen content like this on here that just doesn't belong on tildes. I'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense, with no supporting arguments.
Don't get me wrong. We'd all like to believe this. In a world quickly encroaching on rights and liberties, in a world where fascism has taken notes on what failed and seeks to employ modern methods to perfect their mission, we want to believe that everyone and anyone is out to stop forward motion away from rising fascism. But some people are not intentionally aiding it. A system of capitalism, and those that seek to gain immensely off of it off the backs of others, seems designed to aid it. But the people a part of it aren't all trying to; they just want to be their own successful. They think this shit - what spez is actually doing - is how. It's kinda even more sad and reveals them to be true idiots, that over running a platform that can foster ideas and be easily accessible and customizable they'd rather do what they're doing now. But it's not about shutting people down; it's so much more sad than that. It's just about money.
Ehh, I dunno.
I mean, musk is absolutely a conservative these days, and he's trying to couch things in "muh both sides" rhetoric because ultimately, he is desperate for people to like him. But I really don't get this "born again conservative" vibe with huffman. Maybe he shares the desire for people to like him, but that's about it. huffman has always struck me as your typical cringey internet libertarian, which certainly isn't great, but I don't think this is all part of some plot to e.g. hand desantis the '24 presidency or anything. I think he just wants the IPO to happen so he can cash out and have more finances for his bunker or whatever.
This post should be removed imo. Or make a thread titled “What’s your pet conspiracy theory for why Spez is doing what he’s doing?”
Disclaimer: I am a leftist
Spez is not being anti-progessive. This exact claim was made about conservativism by the right when they cracked down hard on right-wing subreddits.
They banned massive right-wing subreddits, and hundreds of small ones. For awhile after, subreddits that made it to the top of r/AgainstHateSubreddits would get the ban hammer within the week and sometimes within the hour. Eventually I assume these trolls got bored and left Reddit. The band were a sound financial decision for Reddit; these subreddits made Reddit unfriendly to advertisers.
The user make-up of Reddit is vastly different to the Reddit of 2016 because of these purges, and actually made the site more usable and accessible to folks who don't want to confront hate speech on the front page every day.
I hope my unfounded conspiracy theory is true and not yours.
It's because bot farms were using 3rd party apps to manipulate content and spread disinformation.
My subreddit doubled it's interactions by 100% in one month and stayed there for 3 months until today. I'm talking millions, not thousands. Same pattern was there right before Russia invaded Ukraine and stopped when there was news about Ukraine busting huge troll farms.
Agencies finally got a hold of spez and told him he has to stop supporting foreign bad actors or will end in a tiny cell.
But it's unfounded besides some traffic data I took from reddit and probably a lot of wishful thinking.
Truth is probably more grim and reddit won't become bot free at any time soon.
I don't see why a 3rd party app would be more useful than using the website. Unless you're talking about some shady not talked about 3rd party apps... which Reddit could just deny API access to while allowing others.
Interfacing with the website is the easy part.
IMO, to suggest this is suggesting that most (or all the big) 3rd party apps are complicit in this bot action.
First off, they would likely say something publicly first. Example: TikTok
Secondly, you would have heard something because it would never be just a meeting with Huffman, they'd have to go through assistants just to set up a meeting and legal (and others) would be involved.
Third, unless he's actively part of it then they would have no legal grounds for an arrest, also how hard would he reaaally have to try before saying "look, I'm doing it, I'm trying my best!"
Fourth, you cant just disappear the CEO of Reddit, and even making the threat would cause him to put safeguards in place.
Indications of bot action shows there is bot action... what else?