The Luddite
theluddite.org
An anticapitalist tech blog. Embrace the technology that liberates us. Smash that which does not.
  • Lvxferre
    27•7 months ago

    A few highlights that I’d like to make about this tool and its usage. Note: on a prescriptive level I’m focusing on moral matters, not legal ones.

    This tool allows you to edit your content. You might have allowed other people and Reddit Inc. to use it, but it’s still yours. And you should be free to do whatever you want with your content, even if it inconveniences others. And people expecting you to give up your moral rights for the sake of their own benefit, frankly, are simply entitled.

    Another user here compared this with vandalism; I don’t think that the comparison is good, given that vandalism targets someone else’s property.

    I also think that people in general are focusing too much on the short-term consequences of the usage of this tool, and too little on the long-term. Here comes some bullet points hell:

    • SEO “improvements” already caught up with the “add «reddit» to search queries!” trick. It’s becoming less effective over time.
    • Reddit is accumulating huge amounts of noise, due to increased bot activity and decreased moderation. It’ll likely get worse over time.
    • Reddit is walling itself off more and more over time. Eventually this info will become unavailable for anyone who didn’t sell their soul to Greedy Pigboy isn’t feeding that cesspool.
    • Every piece of content that you leave in that site is yet another piece of content “inviting” other users to register and stay there, dumping their content into that increasingly walled garden, where it won’t be available publicly. And while they’re free to do so if they so desire (it’s their content), you’re also free to not invite them.
    • There are alternatives to that enshittified platform, competing directly with it. (We’re in one, by the way.) We should encourage people to use those alternatives, not Reddit.

    Are you all getting the picture? You might be tempted to leave your content in Reddit for the sake of other people; even then, the pros of doing so are rather small, and there are cons not often mentioned.

    Regarding LLMs, frankly? I think that it’s mostly a neutral point. Sure, data hoarding bots will get your content from Reddit… but they’ll do it if you post here in the Fediverse, in your blog, or elsewhere. The only alternative to not feeding those bots is to not speak “in the open”.

    • @nucleativeEnglish
      4•7 months ago

      Has anyone recently checked the Reddit ToS?

      It’s possible that by clicking that submit button, a perpetual worldwide license was granted that included any purpose Reddit deemed worthy.

      That could actually include every single version of every comment. Your first post, your ninja edit to correct your spellings, your edit update, and finally your plugin’s update that wipes out your comment. All of this could be data Reddit can provide to LLM researchers.

    • @[email protected]
      1•7 months ago

      I think the most important point is that its competent ineffective for thwarting LLMS. They will be trained using the original data.

      Also, if any significant portion of users nuked their comment history it would be trivial for reddit to block the user and undo the edits.

      • Lvxferre
        2•7 months ago

        Also, if any significant portion of users nuked their comment history it would be trivial for reddit to block the user and undo the edits.

        It would be trivial from a procedure standpoint, but not from a social one. It would be really bad reputation for Reddit - “this site doesn’t allow you to remove your content from it”. Problematic specially in Europe.

          • Lvxferre
            2•7 months ago

            No one cares about their reputation.

            This is blatantly false, as advertisers pulling off from Twitter show. Something similar happened in Reddit a few years ago.

            They do care about brand reputation. Don’t lie (or worse, assume) that they don’t.

            • @[email protected]
              1•7 months ago

              Nonsense. What happened with the 3rd party apps thing? Mods were staging strikes, resigning, protesting. Pretty much worst possible case for brand rep.

              They just held their ground, users continued, advertisers didn’t/ don’t care.

              Don’t labour under the illusion that some kind of people power exists.

              For every 1 user that cares about this there are 100s of thousands that just plain don’t care.