Asmongold TV - Truly A Reddit Moment. | Asmongold

Episode Date: July 13, 2025

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All right, we're back. So, Reddit. Reddit has been having a bit of a Reddit moment. It's not good. People are very unhappy with these API changes happening on Reddit. The mods have been closing down subreddits. Shit has been getting shut down. And now we're starting to see, by the way,

who called it? Who was it that called it? How does this work? CSGO subreddit has over a million subscribers, but a handful of moderators take it private because of some Reddit API thing. What if the majority of people who go to the subreddit don't care about that?

How long is this going to go on for? Now, who was it that said that this was going to happen? It was me. It was. It was me again. The real protest was to remove the naked beard mods. Yeah, I mean, who knows? You made the most predictable prediction.

Congratulations. I always do. I'm always right. What a surprise. Anyway, basketball fans are pissed. So let's go ahead and read what the guy from Reddit said. This is the main dude on Reddit. Thanks for bringing this up.

It's an important conversation. uh mods have a right to take a break from moderating or decide that you don't want to be a mod anymore but active communities are relied upon by thousands or even millions of users and we have a duty to keep those spaces open subreddits belong to the community of users who come to them for support and conversation moderators are stewards of these spaces in a position of trust redditors rely on these spaces for information support entertainment and connection So we regularly enforce our subreddit and moderator level rules. As you point out, this means that we have policies and processes in place to address inactive moderation. Mods vandalizing communities and subreddit squatters. When these rules are broken, we remove the mods in violation of the moderator code of conduct and add new active mods to these subredits. We also step in to rearrange mod teams so active mods are empowered to make decisions for their community.

The moderator code of conduct was launched in September 2022. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Leaving a community you deeply care for and have nurtured for years is a hard choice. But it is a choice some may need to take if they are no longer interested in moderating that community. If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new active moderators to keep those spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus but at least one mod who wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team. So if there is only one scab, one person who's willing to take the power back. from the neckbeards and become the new neckbeard,

Reddit will empower them. They're trying to turn them against each other. And the best thing about it is that it's working. It's working and it is working so well. Absolutely. Yeah, of course. And think about it. These people are scabbing.

Usually scabs work through a strike because they can't, they need to make money, right? Or something like that. which so it's like kind of makes sense these people are scabbing for free they're breaking the picket line to do unpaid labor and they can't get enough of them they're like guys where are wait wait no i want to i want to work for free wait wait no not me i want to work for free oh no no come on pick me make me work for free i'll do it for free i'll pay you and that's what it is those with no souls well yeah you call it whatever you want

Yeah, I mean, there it is. If you're a Reddit mod, you do this. To your people, you are a scum of the earth. But what if your people want you to do it? And that's the thing. Is it what if the people want you to reopen the subreddit? Right? Like, think about the people that are on R slash NBA. How many of the people on R slash NBA you think give a fuck about the Reddit API? I'd say 3%.

I think 3% is a very strong number. We're atronic as half of R slash Asmingle, one of the, back open. Well, this is what I told my mods, okay? They're the ones that have to deal with the subreddit a lot. I told them that I would respect their decision because I respect my mod team a lot and I let them make decisions because the truth is I can talk about how much of a great leader I am and manager I am. But the truth is, is that it's just easier for me that way and I just let things happen and, you know, whatever happens happens. So like if they want to do it that way, that's fine. If they don't want to do it, that's fine too. We'll just work. I'll work off of you, right?

And so, I manage people by not managing them. And, you know, only really coming in and solving problems if they're like, well, you guys really fuck this one up, huh? Okay, all right, let's figure this out. But that's it. So, yeah, if R-slash-pix has one of the biggest normie subredits on the website and an indication, the users want the protest to continue. Check out the subordinate now and they had a vote. So what if 70% of the users want the protests to continue? Does that mean you lock 30% of the users out of content completely? That's apparently it's democracy, majority rules. Listen, it's a difficult decision for Reddit to make.

I completely understand why the mods are unhappy, and I totally respect how they feel. That's why I let my mods make the decision for my subreddit, not me, because they actively moderate it way more than I do. unless I'm playing a new from software game. So, what does that mean? I think that this mod strike is going over, is going over very badly.

I do. I think it's going over extremely badly. And in typical redditor fashion, this contradicts standing policies. See, this person is still in Reddit mode. He's still, this guy is a Redditor. And because he's a Redditor, he thinks that contradicting existing policies matters.

Here. Here's what they have to do. They delete that part of the policy and then they add a new one in. Or hey, how about this? They just changed the rules. Surprise! Gotcha bitch! And nothing happens.

The contradiction is gone. Yep, there we go. They own the platform. They own the business. They have absolute control. They have no obligation to not contradict themselves. It doesn't matter. Because the average Reddit user is there for Big Chungas' epic wins and mainly porn.

Let's be honest. Why do mods think they own the platform? I'm so confused. Mods provide an invaluable service to the platform. And I think that it's important to acknowledge that. Spez is ready to go nuclear. Spez is the guy. He's the Reddit guy.

Are still dark. The message boards known as subredits are a sort of gathering place with thousands, sometimes millions of people, and they're led by an army of unpaid volunteer moderators, similar to Wikipedia. Earlier this week, those moderators organized a blackout, effectively collapsing the website in protest of its new plan to charge third-party platforms. You see, for years, Reddit has been one of the most popular sites on the internet,

but it has failed to make the kind of money. I love how they phrase it. Reddit CEO wants to end Blackout by allowing overthrow of moderators. The office success that platforms like Instagram or YouTube have. So now leaders at Reddit seem to want to change how things work. But has the platform become so reliant on its community that it has somehow lost all control? Well, NBC's Dave Ingram joins us now. Dave, you and I sit together all day every day.

It's fantastic to have you here together. person. So you had an exclusive interview with Steve Huffman, the CEO. Congratulations. That's the guy. How does he explain this dramatic shift in how Reddit is going to work and why it is that, you know, this new policy? How does he explain it? Mr. Crabbs money gift has created such an incredible kerfuffle over there. Yeah, so he's a he's a co-founder of Reddit. So he's been doing this for 18 years off and on. He left for a while and now he's back. And he's looking and emphasizes, Reddit as a business, that it's not profitable, it's losing money. He wants to be able to at least make a little money for the company for potentially its investors. They're looking at an IPO

where they could sell stock to the public at some point, just like better or Google it has in the past. And this is a sort of a watershed moment where you've got this standoff between the CEO who wants to implement these changes to get more revenue. And these users, some of them have been on Reddit from... Somebody in chat says this. It's extremely rich that the nobility class is calling Modg Gentry when he takes more power for himself. I've got a really, really good video for you for that,

and it's something that's worked for a long time. Here's what they do. Is they get half of the poor people to kill the other half of the poor people. You turn them against each other, and then you make all the money. You're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you guys are going crazy. All right, let's go ahead and just let that go on.

And it works every time, by the way. Like, people, it's crazy. It's crazy the fact that it always, it's like, it hasn't, like, you know, the French Revolution. It's like it's one, like, weird thing, right? But other than that, it works a lot. More than a decade, they don't want to see big changes. I mean, that's the crazy thing about this, right? when we think about Reddit, right, the thing that made it so popular and so effective,

I mean, the whole business model really is built on these unpaid moderators who for 18 years have been the backbone of the... It's not really built on the moderators, but yeah, sure. I mean, for a cable publication, I will accept this explanation. Well, point of being there, right? They have these little sort of intellectual kingdoms that they kind of run. You go to that very specific subreddit for information about that thing and get involved with the community and the rest of it, right?

Now suddenly he's referring to these folks as landed gentry. What is, you know, what's, what's his plan here? I mean, his whole business was built on them. I love how they do that. I think this is the Reddit thing is so amazing. It's great because he's basically calling the unpaid moderators of these subredits, these like fucking, like, you know, feudal lords. You know, like electoral kingdoms.

Like, yeah, this is some kind of fucking bullshit. Like, ah, yeah, he was here first, right? It's crazy. Seems to be making them very, very angry. How does he go forward for this? That's a really, it's a really charged term. And what he's saying is that these moderators, they're sort of running these feasts where they're not accountable to anyone.

So landage entry, people who hand down their property for one generation to their next dukes and duchesses, they're not accountable. And he's saying that their sort of moderators are handing off, control of these communities from one person to the next. I think it's sort of, it's kind of, it's rich, right, to hear the founder of a major platform described his unpaid moderators as Dukes and Duchesses, but okay, you know, thinking now sort of at the bigger picture, I mean, do you think? And the best thing about it is like, this guy is totally right.

And it is absolutely ridiculous that he's referring to them that way, even though, like, the point that he's making is, like, kind of, like, relevant and accurate. But the best part is, like, that it's working. That's the best fucking part. Because like at the end of the day, and this is the same thing I've said before. I love it whenever the stupidest strategy works. It's like you guys ever played a fighting game and like, you know, your big brother or your friend was beating you and you finally just pick like one character and you just spam A and kill them and they just get furious about it because like they had their whole combo planned out and they're just like

it's just not going to work. That's what Trump did. Remember that? Lion Ted. It doesn't matter what you say, bro. Lion Ted. Uh-huh. Lion Ted. What can you do against that?

Because if you explain it, then you're lying. And if you agree with it, then you're lying. So no matter what you do, you're fucking lying. I think that this pressure that Huffman seems to feel and the changes we've seen at places like Twitter means sort of the end of the free, open, gathering place. gathering place that was the internet. That's what a bunch of fucking bullshit. It's not, hasn't been an, a free, open gathering place since like 2014.

Get the fuck out of here. There are fewer and fewer of these old school internet places where it just seems like it's everything's open. You're not inundated with ads all the time. We have Wikipedia. Craigslist is still around. Some of these older communities. What about Fortune?

Reddit has been around since 2005. it predates a lot of other social media right around the time of YouTube and Facebook is when it was founded. And, you know, if it changes significantly, if it even goes away or it gets diminished, I think a lot of people are going to be yearning and searching for something like that that doesn't feel so commercial. David Ingram, until it becomes commercial. Fantastic reporting. Great to have you with us. Everybody, give him a follow. It is really, really important to do so. I don't agree with his analysis. I find that to be inaccurate. I don't think that's, what's going to happen because the difference is that there aren't really a lot of

like active competitors with Reddit that people can easily migrate over to right now. Like for example, if Twitch did everything else that they were doing now, but there was no kick and no rumble, everybody would be complaining about Twitch, but nobody would be leaving. So the truth is that Reddit has effectively a monopoly on online conversational spaces to a degree that any change that they make unless it's like an astronomically bad change will not cause people to move to another platform. So I don't think it's going to happen. Yeah, Reddit's biggest competitor is grass.

And unfortunately, Reddit usually beats it. So, yeah, that's basically what the guys from Reddit are saying. And they're just going to effectively break this strike. They're going to just allow the users to break the strike. And that's it. And these people are getting very upset about it. And this is jumping off the deep ends. It needs to be put in front and center of every single average.

on Reddit. I love how the people on this moderator subreddit, like, I'm not trying to be mean. But what do you think the advertisers think about, hey, Reddit is removing the ability for people to use third party API to remove your ads? So if you said, hey, people have been removing your ads with these third-party things, that's pretty bad, right? Oh, I'm sure they're going to hate it. Uh-huh. Hey, Toyota, this is how Reddit treats its customers. The advertisers are the customers.

You are the product. That's just the way it is. Need to drop this kind of message on Twitter. Ooh, that's going to do it. The audacity of Spesda call volunteer moderators landed gentry. While he is a multimillionaire is pretty crazy, but it's working. People are going to lose their fucking mind. Isn't he the guy that talked about owning slaves in the apocalypse?

He never hit his superiority complex. It doesn't seem like it's a complex whenever he just forcefully opens the subredits. See, these people, they're still in the mindset of, We are... They think this is like an argument or like a negotiation. Bitch, this is a shakedown. And it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong.

Because they're the ones with all the power and yank got shit. That's it. You have no power here. Yeah, there it is. Don't know while the Mard's arguing. Yep, it's just that sample. They have no power. They don't own the site. God, I love it. The effect was so obvious. I don't know why red it. gender's even tried. Now they're all going to look like the bad guys and the so-called scabs

look like the heroes. Absolutely. And all Reddit had to do was nothing. All they had to do was wait. Is because if people can choose between ethics and cat pictures, I mean, come on. The cats are pretty cute, right? Looks like it's going to create a ton of animosity towards those subs, rendering them much shittier places. Fracture the user base, making them less appealing to advertisers. Oh, I'm sure advertisers are going to care about that. Oh, 100%. They wouldn't consider this unless the blackout was working.

I think it is working. I actually think so. In the same way that Slash Spit worked whenever we were protesting stormouts. And you know what, Blizzard did? We just took the emo out of the game. Just to make it to what? They can't do it anymore. Yeah, so it's done.

All right. And then like, wasn't it like a day after that? They announced another storm out. Who have ads on the right? Yeah, exactly. Look at all these ads. Oh, no, no.

These aren't ads. I have, yeah, I have ad block on. But yeah, yeah, absolutely it's working. Wait till the advertisers start pushing back. I love how these people think that the advertisers care. First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Here, let me rephrase that. first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they unmod you, then they win.

I mean, it is what it is, right? If these people are unhappy about it, they've got to make their own Reddit. They cannot negotiate with these people. Is Reddit a publicly traded company? I genuinely do not know. I haven't kept up with this that much. Is it a publicly traded company? No, it's not.

Okay, so they have literally no power. Yeah, they have no power. They can't do anything. they want it to be? Yeah, I can see that. So, yeah, this is where the Reddit struggle stands. I think it's very obvious what's going to happen. These moderators will go from heroes to being Holdfast very soon. It's already happening.

They will earn a resentment of their communities, and the communities will welcome back their tyrants, profiting immensely from API of the Reddit admins with open arms and thunderous applause. And tyranny will continue once again, much to everybody's best interest.