📢EDIT: a_knife just removed ALL OTHER MODS!
Original starbucks post by accused inactive mod a_knife
Post about what ACTUALLY happened
Proof of only active mods agreeing to go private
Proof that a_knife doesn’t even MOD the sub they made the unilateral decision to reopen
Proof of a_knife removing a mod
Funny thing is, Reddit will likely boot the 3 of them, and make a_knife top mod, which is DIRECTLY AGAINST their claims to remove any mods making unilateral decisions, because of course, it only applies if that unilateral decision is to go private. Spread the word
What would be the point of that? Reddit admins at the end of the day can just remove mods as they please they wouldn’t need to go through someone else’s account to do anything they could just install puppets or even directly open the subreddit back up.
Because nobody can actually see what’s happening behind the curtain this way, and admins don’t catch holy hell from it.
Because they know kicking mods is going to be more bad press. So they’re trying every way they can do not directly force subs to open. They’ve also started other bullshit though, like restoring deleted comments. I purged my account and had to repurge it today.
The thin veneer of deniability that it’s not Admin themselves acting unilaterally to sabotage protest actions.
Sure, they can. But they’re also trying to posture like they “wouldn’t” do that. Reddit is wanting to present themselves to users and to the press as if they’re being noble and reasonable and definitely support the right of protestors to protest, they want the optics of being a platform that supports autonomy for their communities and members in that way.
If they’re openly going around interfering and telling everyone upset to pound sand, they’re buying more terrible press.
Less bad Press.
Astroturf. Seems more “legitimate” that way. Though I doubt that’s what actually happened. They may just have told that one dude they had the support of Reddit or something.
Why would u/spez manually edit the database to change a comment by a poster? Seems ridiculous, petty, and unnecessary and yet we know it happened.
I still can’t get past why they’d allow anyone to even have this power. People responsible for moderating content should be able to delete comments and replace with a comment from the mod explaining why it was deleted, sure, that kind of stuff is fine for the specific people who need that access to do their job.
But giving the CEO (whose job presumably does not entail any individual-comment moderation duties) the ability to edit users’ individual comments to make it look like they wrote something else, without anything indicating someone at Reddit edited it, is insane. Did Condé Nast not implement any basic, common sense rules when they took over, or did it just never occur to them that anyone at the level of CEO would actually do something like this?
Can you imagine being asked to invest in a social media company that allowed its upper management to stealth edit users’ content without notice? It just sounds so unpredictable and potentially dangerous. What if u/spez gets fired and either he or one of his buddies who still works there decides to edit content in a way that undermines the reliability and credibility of major subs like r/science or r/worldnews? Can spez submit new posts or comments from any user’s account? If so, what would stop him or any other disgruntled employee from making crazy posts from verified celebrity accounts (including scientists, politicians, etc.) that have participated in IaMAs in the past or otherwise used accounts that were verified by moderators?