Reddit has stopped working for millions of users around the world.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/reddit-down-subreddits-protest-not-working-b2356013.html
The mass outage comes amid a major boycott from thousands of the site’s administrators, who are protessting new changes to the platform.
On 12 June, popular sub-Reddits like r/videos and r/bestof went dark in retaliation to proposed API (Application Programming Interface) charges for third-party app developers.
Among the apps impacted by the new pricing is popular iOS app Apollo, which announced last week that it was unable to afford the new costs and would be shutting down.
Apollo CEO Christian Selig claimed that Reddit would charge up to $20 million per year in order to operate, prompting the mass protest from Reddit communities.
In a Q&A session on Reddit on Friday, the site’s CEO Steve Huffman defended the new pricing.
“Some apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync have decided this pricing doesn’t work for their businesses and will close before pricing goes into effect,” said Mr Huffman, who goes by the Reddit username u/spez.
“For the other apps, we will continue talking. We acknowledge that the timeline we gave was tight; we are happy to engage with folks who want to work with us.”
In response to the latest outage, one Reddit user wrote on Twitter: “Spez, YOU broke Reddit.”
Website health monitor DownDetector registered more than 7,000 outage reports for Reddit on Monday.
Some users were greeted with the message: “Something went wrong. Just don’t panic.”
Others received an error warning that stated: “Our CDN [content delivery network] was unable to reach our servers.”
Update: Seems to be resolved for most users
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Best thing I read so far about this:
The official Reddit API goes dark in solidarity with current protests.
I wonder what is going to happen on Lemmy when we don’t have reddit stories to rant about
It’ll normalize a bit and you’ll start seeing more diverse content. Some will quit reddit cold turkey, some will do what i do and hop back and forth, some will just go back and deal. I like it here though so im sticking around at least
So far this seems the closest to what I was getting through reddit. After these fools doubled down I’m eager to find a new place to get the same basic functionality. We will see if this is it or not.
It’s gonna take a bit. Most are actually ‘grieving’ a loss right now, and just want to talk about it.
@ghostalmedia why is NEWS boosting this sort of content? It is a comment (no doubt profoundly wise) out of context and is just clogging up fediverse feeds.
I just quit Reddit cold turkey. For me, I needed to be rid of it as I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time on it. I went ahead and deleted my account. I feel much better now that I have removed it from my life.
I’m still incredibly surprised that by taking closing communities you get your servers down. Usually it should be the other way around, but god dammit they screwed that infra somehow, somewhere.
I think the servers don’t know what to do when ads outnumber content 36 to 1
They celebrate, of course
I burned down Memes of the dank and I moved here. Best thing that I did
literally blocked reddit on adguard and moved here heh
Beehaw is getting hammered with traffic and is really slow today. I wonder if there’s been a mass exodus to Lemmy…
Hello I am a reddit refugee. And I am happy to find open source alternatives to things I use. Thanks to all the devs here!!!
Hello fellow Reddit Refugee!
Here’s a list of Lemmy communities that I found which helped me to get settled: https://browse.feddit.de/
Beehaw is getting hammered with traffic and is really slow today.
They’ve really turned it around over the past few hours though. Fast as hell now.
I’m still really struggling to get posts to actually submit.
Interesting. I was getting that earlier in the day, but it’s pretty much instant for me now.
Hi, exodus person here.
I just joined lemmy today. I like it so far. A little rough around the edges, but seems to have potential.
Think of the “Lemmyverse” as the ground floor in relation to your Reddit experiences. Like a new MMO when comparing with the maturity of WoW. Some things will feel a little awkward for not having the polish, but there are other mechanics that are new and engaging. The more people who engage on Lemmy, Beehaw, et. al., and the longer the engagement, the better the experience will get. I think of it more like a diamond in the rough, instead of it being a “lesser” version of Reddit.
The difference here is that your investment (of your time) can’t be undercut by a greedy CEO. A fediverse is “self healing.” It’s like setting up a mesh - one node could go bad but the network itself will survive.
This is why I’m hoping Lemmy can resist against some of the Reddit-specific culture that I think would dampen the experience here. Animosity towards emojis, creating echo-chamber communities/subreddits, the air of smug self-righteousness, discussion as something one can ‘win’ etc.
Redditors in general aren’t bad, but a lot of vocal users had it in their heads that they were somehow better than people who used other platforms, and staked lines to maintain that cultural divide. Some of them concluded they were better than other redditors; turning communities into Us vs Them tribalism, until they would fracture into r/subreddit and r/truesubreddit.
Lemmy is not Reddit. It had a culture and it had users before the API shuffle; it’s an opportunity to start fresh. It’s not appropriate to expect Lemmy turn into Reddit, with all the unpleasantness that entails, and at the expense of the lemmings that were already here.
I’m quite honest about it; I spent years on Reddit too. I’m a redditor. But being here on Lemmy has been such a wonderful breath of fresh air, the ‘I disagree but I’ll respectfully explain why’ that Reddit was missing for years. I can feel how miserable modern Reddit is in comparison and I really hope we don’t recreate it.
The thing you’re describing about smugness is kind of an overarching problem with tech literate people in general. Reddit began with a large portion of the users being those tech folks. They were also libertarians. This narrated the early culture, which led to the latter devolution. Keep in mind even today on reddit there were folks fondly remembering subs like jailbait, which was a top sub for years. They got downvotes but they were still there because they used to have a home there.
The federated system got its first big migration during Elon’s initial takeover of Twitter. That drove a certain left-wing element here early on, which hopefully will help establish a different culture going forward.
The other thing is that it’s inevitable with any community that a critical mass of shit happens. The bots, the cyber soldiers, the propaganda, the spam and the sex workers show up at a certain threshold. Whether the fediverse can effectively manage that remains to be seen.
I’m curious about it, yes. I think it’s easy for older users to claim their version was somehow ‘superior’ but all humans have their own perspective; it’s when we cease sharing those perspectives as respectful equals that I think we lose something.
To clarify I don’t equate being smug with being knowledgeable. I know people can struggle with feeling self-conscious in that respect and feel that they are somehow being judged if somebody talks about information as though they ‘should’ know it, and that’s not what I’m talking about.
No, I’m talking about when the discussion of ideas stops being about shared perspectives, and starts being about winning. When you don’t share knowledge because you love learning and want to share what you’ve learned, but because knowledge gives you status over the person you’re ‘teaching’.
So many questions that aren’t asked for fear we’d ‘look dumb’, so many ideas resistant to new evidence for fear we’d seem foolish, discussions not had because ‘they’ll assume I think they’re stupid’.
Learning is so wonderful! There’s so much to learn, a human is not capable of learning everything. There should never be shame in somebody knowing something you don’t know, and therefore there should never be superiority in sharing something you do know!
I celebrate a system that includes specialised people sharing their specialisations. My interest is in sociology and psychology; but I know very little about gardening or machinery for example, I would enjoy a person in those fields to share what they know about them.
There’s so much to learn, a human is not capable of learning everything. There should never be shame in somebody knowing something you don’t know, and therefore there should never be superiority in sharing something you do know!
This in particular has become a pretty important idea to me recently. To add on, I think that the more you learn the more you realize how much there is to know, and the more comfortable you get with the idea that knowing it all is just impossible. I think that late high school / early undergrad I was a bit of a smug ass about some things, really thought I knew everything (even though I would have told you I didn’t). I’m a year out from finishing a PhD now and never have I been more aware of how limited my perspective is.
Relatedly, I think, I used to avoid asking questions in classes because I didn’t want to look foolish if I asked an “obvious” question. Now I’m happy to risk looking a little silly by asking something basic, because I know how absolutely full of gaps my knowledge is anyway. I’ve definitely asked some silly questions recently, including one where I’m pretty sure my PI would have been within her rights to respond with something like, “You should really know this by now,” but hey! Now I do know!
I’ve been trying to use emojis regularly on here, mainly because I found the animosity weirdly exclusionary over on Reddit. My philosophy is to let others have their joy in small things. 😁
until they would fracture into r/subreddit and r/truesubreddit.
You know, as a person who has never been in a “true” subreddit or a cj sub or a meme sub, I really do not mind those who wish to be so. They are doing their own thing. They have their own norms and expectations and that is where they go to be comfortable. So what?
And do you really think100% of those people literally only went to those subs and never contributed anywhere else? Nah, they were on the needlework sub posting their stitches or posting pictures of clouds or whatever.
We do not all have to be in one big group… I do not understand this fantasy. It is really OK to have different venues for different ideas and ways of being; that is one of the magics of online life in fact. It is possible to have little weird niches, even of smugness. One of the joys in life, which is dripping from the above comment and countless others I have been reading here. :D
Let me share with you what I’m thinking of when I talk about ‘true’ subs, as I understand it’s a broad statement. I can offer a perspective that is more nuanced, if longer to read. I’ll bold the key statements.
I understand that when subs get large enough, groupthink emerges; people voting up/down not based on whether a comment contributes meaningfully, but whether or not they agree or feel good about it. Thus even constructive minority voices are drowned out.
The reason the splintered subs could be a problem is that it often left the disruptive people to represent entire ideas, for better or for worse. It fractures movements that should otherwise have common goals into smaller and smaller slices that are unwilling to co-operate towards otherwise shared goals.
The one that comes to mind for me is r/childfree. It started out as a resource for those who’d chosen a child-free life to find support, collate a list of recommended doctors that recognised body autonomy (its often very difficult to get sterilised, especially if you’re younger and/or don’t already have several children), how the workforce treated them differently for being child-free (such as expecting them to cancel their plans and sacrifice their time off for parents on short notice), impact on their social lives, etc.’
However, over time it stopped being pro childfree lifestyle choices, and support for a group that is often seen as ‘selfish’; and started becoming anti child lifestyle choices. The frontpage became mostly rants, filled with terms like ‘crotchfruit’, ‘breeder’, etc. What was once a community of a minority lifestyle trying to find support and legitimacy gave way to anger and tribalism.
Eventually enough of the users that consider choosing to have children to be an equally valid lifestyle choice - merely one they’d chosen not to live - slowly started lurking, unsubbing, or otherwise becoming invisible. Anti-child/‘breeder’ rhetoric became more and more prevalent. Eventually, r/truechildfree was founded to do what r/childfree used to - collate resources and support for those who have chosen a child-free life in a world where children are considered ‘opt out’. Thus childfree users split into pro-child and anti-child tribes.
Which is lovely for r/truechildfree and its users (I am child-free, but I like children; I just recognise I am not equipped to raise them). But it meant that the largest and most visible sub, r/childfree, became almost only child-haters, and an already maligned community often considered ‘selfish’ is now represented by absolutists that are no longer willing to respect people who disagree.
I understand that it is the nature of humanity, once pushed, to push back. I understand why those who see mistreatment in the workplace or socially for their choice to be child free would be upset, same as anything we hold close to our hearts. That pain is why the r/childfree support group came to exist in the first place.
But it is diversity of opinion that makes discussion so interesting, that allows us opportunity for growth, that has us looking at the ways we are similar instead of fighting over the ways we are different.
I think the anger of those in the new r/childfree is real, valid, legitimate.
I think the users of r/truechildfree’s discomfort with how that anger was displayed is also real, valid, legitimate.I wish we’d looked for a better way to handle it than for letting communities devolve into absolutism, though. Whatever your reasons for not choosing to have children, you still deal with the same stigma; it’s a shame to have people who are struggling against the same chains to schism over the metal they’re made of.
What you’re describing is polarization within a community transforming it into an echo chamber, driving out much of the community. Sure, truechildfree formed out of people who still wanted a community based around that aspect of themselves, but they’re not the reason for the split - they’re a symptom. For every user that made the journey to truechildfree, there’s probably 3-10 that just unsubbed, and another 5 that just stopped participating
My personal example is AITA. It started off as a group judgement based on the morality of the situation, but in the last few years people have become obsessed with “rights”. I actually got tempbanned for a situation where a douche told a woman that by joining trivia night in a small town bar she was ruining guys night. I responded to someone saying “IDK why your bf wasn’t happy about how you handled it”, and I basically said “yeah, he’s the asshole, but clearly this is extremely important to him, and saying screw you I have every right to be here while he storms out didn’t just ruin his night, it soured the evening for his friends who tried to stop him. That’s not going to make you any friends in your new town, and a little compassion could’ve diffused the situation”. It’s hard to put into words (and that’s just the most salient example, I probably got more negative karma there than everywhere else put together), but the community moved from what’s the right thing to do into what’s your legal rights
As far as I know, there’s no trueAITA - the community just morphed into something I find toxic. The nuance was gone, and it became something very different to the sub I loved participating in. I almost unsubbed, but instead I mostly just would start writing a comment before deleting it and moving on.
I think fractured, smaller communities help with this more than anything. Humans generally adjust their morality based on their peers - and the bigger the community, the more the loudest voices begin to feel like they’re expressing the opinion of the majority.
If 10% of a large community upvotes a certain viewpoint, it takes all of the top slots. It’s a weakness of the popularity-based ranking system - a relatively small voting block easily dominates the discussion. The moderates just ignore it, because they disagree but not enough to actually fight it out
But force people together in a smaller, more diverse group, and they moderate each other. The trick is, you can’t do it through polarization - you can’t fragment a community based on beliefs or you get echo chambers.
You just have to throw people together and make them talk it out. Opinions naturally balance towards the mean when the groups are smaller, and the most cohesive voices dominate when the group becomes large
Thanks for sharing your perspective with me, I really enjoyed reading it!
You raised an interesting point, the polarising of r/AITA, and its something I’ve noticed a few times… I now have a theory:
Personal experiences are far more likely to move towards emotional extremes.
Emotionally-invested people reach points of ‘black and white morality’ as they get larger, labelled as moral or immoral based on each viewer’s personal perspective.
I’m not saying our emotions are bad - if anything, many people are martyrs from their own emotional neglect - rather that many of us have not learned how to feel emotion authentically without treating them as objective judgements that justify action. (eg: this happened, I feel angry, therefore you wronged me, therefore I can defend myself, etc)
Humans are empathetic, which is truly wonderful. But we have two types of empathy:
- affective empathy is our brain’s mirror neurons, feeling emotion in response to others’ visible feelings. I see you feel sad, so I feel sad for you. It’s innate.
- cognitive empathy is a social skill, one facet of emotional maturity. I recognise that if this were to happen, then somebody in your situation may feel sad, and I understand why. It’s learned, primarily in childhood as modelled by our parents.
So, back to your example of r/AITA - the NAH and ESH ratings are likely only being used by those engaging with cognitive empathy, (hopefully) recognising possible biases and advocating for communication that will satisfy both, as if they are a third party observing.
But for those who engage with their affective empathy, they project themselves into the story - if the story is evocative, they’ll readily side with OP. If the other’s experience angers them, they’ll readily call them out. They’re not here to offer perspective - only judgement.
So what does that mean for communities that want to prevent polarisation?
Haha, fuck if I know, I mostly just find the topic interesting and enjoy having a space to explore it. But I have a couple ideas, and would be curious to hear yours?
On Reddit, we see this black/white emotional judgement in upvotes/downvotes - though they are intended for whether a comment contributes something, they’re often used to define whether a comment is moral according to the voter’s values. Without downvotes, a comment that is bigoted can still be blocked/reported; but with them, a comment that says I think Witcher 3 is boring because- can be buried.
r/AITA also encourages a degree of absolutism by boiling down rulings to three letters, and groupthink by drawing an ultimate conclusion based on which one is most popular rather than presenting a table graph. Users can feel just and righteous - standing up for victim OP, or standing up for their victim.
So I don’t know if the problem is preventable, it’s a humanities issue; but I would consider some of the following:
- no downvoting system. It’s rarely used in good faith; comments that don’t contribute that be reported instead. Comments that are engaging will still rise over comments that are not.
- active diverse moderation. Hopefully with a diverse enough mod team it will slow homogenisation. eg: a mod that likes children will push for rules that discourage/ban anti-child language; a mod that doesn’t like children will push for a platform that encourages/allows those struggling to vent. Together they may find guidelines that emotionally validates struggle without perpetuating hate.
- smaller communities, like you said. Subs like r/childfree are trying to be resource communities (the list of doctors, advice, etc) and have good reason for being large, but social communities are probably better off kept smaller. eg: if they made a r/childfreesupport for venting and emotional validation.
Also, for those of you who read to the end, I really appreciate it. I know I ramble about stuff I find interesting, and despite editing out a bunch of waffle I know this is still really long. Would enjoy reading your equally long responses lol
Having mega-sites and mega-communities creates not a sense of community but a sense of knowledge.
There’s just SO much content that the good stuff just rises to the top eventually.
I also think the abundance of content is a part of the issue, but with no clear solution. People are bombarded with a thousand stories about a thousand different things going on in their country, the world, their city, etc… But we know that Humans can only reasonably maintain around 150-200 close personal relationships max that you would be able to converse with and empathize with and what not, Dunbars number. I think this is part of the problem why people see everything in black and white imo, there’s an abundance of information out there and our society currently is in a state where everyone has to have an opinion on every conceivable subject but that’s just not feasible. And when there’s so much information to parse through humans tend to group things together as we love our patterns. So if you believe an idea from this group of people, you must believe the 100 other possible interpretations of correlated subjects and what not, or at least that’s how people tend to view others expressing certain viewpoints. I struggle with this and people who espouse hateful ideas and disinformation against Trans people, a lot of people may not know any better or believe that there’s this widespread push to transition people as young as possible which just isn’t the case. It’s something I find hard to extend grace on, it feels morally wrong to prevent people from making informed decisions between themselves and their healthcare specialist and besides that it is such a tiny portion of the population to be focusing on when there are much bigger widespread issues that affect us all. But its also something I feel is fueled a bit by this same issue we are discussing, I’m honestly not sure how you would work against this besides smaller and more tight-knit communities but then you have echo chambers, not that it wasn’t a problem in some subreddits as well. Very interesting thing to think about! Love hearing everyones thoughts!
I’m with you mate. The whole of Lemmy feels like being on one of those super small, niche subreddits where everyone was kind and thoughtful.
The bigger Lemmy gets, the less we’ll all like it.
I can’t freaking stand emojis. But it’s kind of like being pissed at corruption, overpopulation, or the weather. Not much I can do about it. I just run a
replaceadd-on in firefox to replace emojis with the words, or just delete the ones I’ve never found any info at all in their use.That seems like a good idea for users in your situation. What do you choose to replace them with? Are they simply removed, text-descriptions…? Do you know why you dislike emojis (I’m curious!), or is it simply something to you know to be true of yourself?
I personally like them as tone indicators, because so little of communication is technically the words we say (~4%). I know my writing looks quite formal and so it’s easy for people to think I’m ‘cold’ or unapproachable; I don’t know how to make it read more casually while still being accurate. But I can put little emojis next to some of the sentences if it helps 👍
It’s 100% my issue. I’m just a grumpy old fuck. And yes, I just replace them with text or just delete them.
But I would never think of bitching to someone about using them. I’m the one with the problem. Seems like people these days really want to control how others think/feel, and I learned a long, long time ago to separate me problems from real problems. Or to consciously attempt to do so, at least.
How do you draw the line on those problems?
I find it hard to know when something is irrationally bothering me vs an actual problem.
Emoji seems clear cut, but interpersonal issues fall into a huge grey area. My tendency is to cut people out, which isn’t going so well.
That’s interesting, I think that’s why I started using them occasionally, especially at work. I can definitely come across as very serious, and remote work only made that worse. A little emoji goes a long way 🤣
I generally dislike them, but do you really see them enough to bother? My dad texts them to me sometimes, but in general I rarely see them (outside of tongue in cheek usages, like mojo using 🔥 as a file extension)
…I rarely see them (outside of tongue in cheek usages, like mojo using :fire: as a file extension)
This is what I see from your post. They (emojis) bugged me, so I don’t see them anymore. I know it’s stupid, but that’s me.
I’ll admit, I’m part of that exodus.
It feels a little bit like the old reddit, right? Very few in many communities. You see a lot of sttuff, you want to comment. It’s a weird feeling.
With fewer comments you feel like you might actually be heard instead of lost in the mix.
And usually the only subreddits small enough to have that going on are suuuuper niche. So felt like you better have something relevant to contribute to the niche.
I’ve tried 10ish alts today… Lemmy so far has my vote for best alt, others probably feel the same
It’s such a shame - I used Reddit for many years and found so many helpful people that helped me with many things - fixing my motorbike, improving my 3D prints or saving my plants. I hope we can establish similar kind of community in the Fediverse.
I guess that’s what we get for trusting too much in a company - decentralised open source software is way to go. Even if somebody in this particular instance will go fucking insane and will decide to raise it to the ground, whatever, the project lives on and you can just go somewhere else.
Same. Projects like Lemmy are pretty slick, I just hope that the perceived barrier to entry due to the decentralized nature of the Fediverse won’t keep people from joining. There needs to be a “critical mass” of users to make a platform successful and engaging. Hopefully that happens to Lemmy due to the Reddit API fiasco.
I think that’s already happened, for mainstream topics anyway.
Now, we’re on the small side of a balance between small and large; as the Fediverse grows, it can support increasingly niche communities but, on the flip side, the less cohesive the userbase (and thus the harder to maintain culture) and the more attractive the platform becomes for spammers, trolls, and other malicious parties.
I think the technological barriers may be a good thing as it forces a minimum level of effort to get started. Just like private trackers are almost universally “safer” than public trackers since it takes some actual effort to get in.
That’s the thing this last week has made me realize: it’s so unjust that the ‘owners’ of Reddit are completely unable to see that the only value they have is what the community provides. Their sense of entitlement, when it is us who are responsible for their $X hundred-million valuation is startling.
No they see it, and I can see how they have to make money to support their operations. Lemmy will have similar problems and we will have to pitch in. Bu that’s fine, let’s talk and let’s figure something out. You don’t just shut the door and command people to pay up.
That’s the point I’m making. I would have been 100% behind justified pricing changes to maintain the site. But like you said, that’s never what that was.
I’m curious about why the most popular subreddits going private would stress out their servers. Wouldn’t that reduce load?
They might be getting DDoSed.
Another possibility is that many of the closed subreddits link to a single thread in Save3rdpartyapps for an explanation. That page was returning gateway timeouts over the last few days. Since it has tens of thousands of comments, the sorting algorithm might be timing out from people visiting that particular page.
Down detector doesn’t actually “detect” if a site is down right? It just shows how many people are reporting that a site is down. If an unaware user logs on and every subreddit they visit says “this subreddit does not exist,” they might think there’s something wrong with reddit’s servers and report it.
Edit: just read the article, I see that its more than that
I wonder if this is coincidental, or if some people are taking it upon themselves to DDoS them or something. I hope it is the former as that would be absolutely hilarious, and can’t be used as further justification for their continuing BS.
Perhaps they didn’t account for some weird recursive issues on the backend. I remember reading about when Twitter took down Trump’s account, they had to ensure that all of the millions of dead links of people’s likes, retweets, quotes, etc. didn’t crash the system.
deleted by creator
A lot of people are also going through and using tools like Reddact and Power Delete Suite to clear out their post and comment history. I cleared mine specifically because I had a bunch of rather obscure tech support posts/comments. Occasionally I would get a message of thanks on years old posts. Sucks to delete it, but Reddit shouldn’t continue to benefit from my posts if they’re going to be greedy assholes like this.
Reddit shouldn’t continue to benefit from my posts if they’re going to be greedy assholes like this.
Sad to say but my guess would be your old content is already feeding synthesized answers via ChatGPT. Just as any art work online is apparently fair game (so far) for midjourney et al.
Oh I have no doubt about that, or that they probably have backups of everything so they can sell that too. But I’m just doing what I can going forward.
So. One thing I’ve noticed is that privated subs on mobile return an error (403 forbidden). I can’t help but wonder if they have a crush of mobile users hammering the API over and trying to refresh their favorite sub because they can’t see the message explaining that it’s been privated.
If that’s what it is, that’s hilarious.
One former Reddit employee elsewhere surmised it was more likely because of how they cache posts in order for the “multireddit” feature. When a bunch of posts suddenly vanished it threw that whole system into disarray.
Makes me wonder if it’s on purpose to hide the blackout…
That or rushing through untested changes to minimise its visibility, leading to site breakage.
Wait… Which sub was it?
r/dankmemes - showing on reddit’s homepage - but the post time is 17 hours ago…
I was referring to the sub he was alleged to have moderated but thank you.
I heard it was r/jailbait, but I’m not sure if that’s true, just what some users have said.
That’s the sub they’re referring to but it isn’t true. Spez is a shit but that’s deliberate misinformation.
Reddit history time - back then you could make someone a mod of a subreddit and it would accept that “request” automatically. So you could make Barack Obama a moderator of your sub and it would list him. This was a very popular and silly thing done all over without any malicious intent.
Well the guy who ran jailbait, violentacrez, did this to spez with the jailbait sub. He then shared that spez was a mod there and many users “confirmed” it, until the mounting pressure got brought to his attention and he removed himself. Shortly after you had to accept moderator positions when they were offered, it was no longer automatic, and I’m pretty sure around the same time is when the sub finally got banned.
The folks in dankmemes are old edgelords who probably frequented jailbait, they’re bringing up an old joke they pulled on spez since he’s in the hot seat. Don’t repeat their tripe, instead point out how Huffman once implied he expects he will be able to buy slaves in the near future and looks forward to such a day with anxious anticipation.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
