Unplugging From Reddit

I’m writing this during the 2023 Reddit Blackout, a protest on the platform spanning thousands of subreddits and impacting billions of users. While I hope this post doesn’t come across as overly dramatic, I hope it goes to show that users still have some agency in this corporate, ad-dominated, tip of the iceberg part of the internet we find ourselves spending so much time in.

Years of Reddit

I lurked for years before this, but I created my first Reddit account in 2016. Thinking back I can recall the first time I visited the “front page of the internet”… As a middle school student in computer lab (~2007), only accessed by bypassing the school’s firewall using public HTTP proxies. That Reddit account became my primary and was used daily for (almost) everything: news, advice, memes, articles/papers, art, community… And so much more. Reddit became a homebase for me – one click connected me to all sorts of diverse and interesting people and communities.

Using RescueTime I can kind of look back at all the time I’ve spent in this particular corner of the internet, and unsurprisingly it is a lot:

By the numbers I’ve clearly enjoyed Reddit over the years, with 2022 averaging ~2h/day screentime. But like all good things: they eventually end.

Participating in the Blackout

As communities, companies, and people protest against Reddit by “going dark”, I stand with them. I didn’t visit Reddit (intentionally) on the first couple days of the blackout. It’s a small gesture, I know, but what else is a user going to do?

I wasn’t really going to do anything, until I read the leaked memo authored by Reddit’s CEO in response to the protest:

We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor. There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well.

Apparently, when the majority of the platform’s largest communities go dark, it’s merely “noise” to him.

His response got me thinking about a small personal sacrifice I’ve made for Reddit over the years. Anybody who knows me will tell you I loathe all ads, and I go to great lengths to avoid them. I’d rather bite the bullet and pay a fee than see ads everyday on a service (except you, YouTube)… Or I’ll ad-block. Even when their notoriously buggy app occassionally served a dozen ads in succession while scrolling, I let Reddit be an exception so they could make their pittance. In fact, I didn’t install a third-party Reddit client until late-2022 according to my RescueTime data.

So I decided I just won’t be providing “content” or ad-revenue for their platform anymore by removing what data I could from their site.

I deleted my posts (using browser console):

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>var $domNodeToIterateOver = $('.del-button .option .yes'),    currentTime = 0,    timeInterval = 1500; $domNodeToIterateOver.each(function() {   var _this = $(this);  currentTime = currentTime + timeInterval;   setTimeout(function() {    _this.click();  }, currentTime);});</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

I deleted a lot of comments (using browser console):

var $domNodeToIterateOver = $('.del-button .option .yes'),
    currentTime = 0,
    timeInterval = 1500;

$domNodeToIterateOver.each(function() {

  var _this = $(this);
  currentTime = currentTime + timeInterval;

  setTimeout(function() {
    _this.click();
  }, currentTime);
});

I deactivated my account, filling in the “Help improve Reddit” box with one of the following, on rotation:

• API changes,
• don’t restrict/ban unmoderated subreddits,
• don’t restrict/ban controversial subreddits, especially harm-reduction ones,

… And I repeated the above process 20 times, since I have apparently amassed 20 Reddit accounts over the years.

Finally, I deleted the app.

Fun Reddit Memories Revisited

During this process I got to relive some fun memories I had on the platform:

• One where I was a moderator of 4 (now-“restricted”) stock-trading/dicussion subreddits (mostly everyone traded memes).
• One that had a comprehensive harm-reduction post gilded (I did NOT delete the post, but I did delete the account).
• One where I asked an embarrassing health question.
• One where I asked for relationship advice that got >50 comments.
• One that got banned because I was testing Reddit on their disinformation guardrails in ~2016.

The Exception

However, there is an exception (other than my harm-reduction post) to my actions: I’m keeping: u/austin-millan, effectively reserving my go-to username.