It is quite crazy. People will have time until Sept. 12 to spend their coins on awards ... and then Reddit will delete all gilded awards from every post. WTF? Why even use them at all from now on?
This thing reeks of control. Reddit is trying to prohibit people from giving undesired opinions more visibility. In the past sometimes comments received awards that were not in line with advertisers. Now by removing this feature, these comments can only receive an up- or downvote but do not stand out by gilded awards anymore. And the up- and downvote is something that can easily be twiddled with behind the scenes to the desired outcome. It was much harder to remove awards from a comment, as the person who gave them out, would recognize it immediately. But who can proof that their up/downvote was not counted correctly... it is the perfect manipulation.
See also: Guided democracy
In a guided democracy, the government controls elections such that the people can exercise democratic rights without truly changing public policy. While they follow basic democratic principles, there can be major deviations towards authoritarianism. Under managed democracy, the state's continuous use of propaganda techniques prevents the electorate from having a significant impact on policy.[3] It is today widely employed in Russia, where it was introduced into common practice by Kremlin theorists, in particular Gleb Pavlovsky.
Yes, it's definitely a tool of control. They can now basically choose what opinion they want to have visible on their site.
Also with the history of u/spez changing users comments, I wouldn't be surprised if the upvotes can't be trusted.
Give it a couple of month and this site will be run by 80% bots and advertisers.
It makes me wonder how long (not even “if”) they have been artificially manipulating post/comment scores of submissions they have a vested interest in.
I mean you're assuming this isn't happening more in reverse to platform disinformation: take a look at any trans related thread in a UK sub and you'll see the most useless leap of faith transphobe comments receive 5 gold while the more scientific pro trans comments are buried far, far down the chain.
Also, equating gilding with democracy is odd - we live in a world where economic inequality is growing. Who can afford the most gold? It's not the poor/disabled/other minorities who have important views that need to be heard - they can't afford to give 5 gold to random reddit comments they agree with because they're statistically earning less.
Buying gold is not democratic. There's a reason you can't just (directly) buy votes in elections. This is still a shitty move on Reddit's part, but for a different reason than hurting democracy.
I do not argue with that. And I do not say gilding gold is a democratic tool. I just said, that when taking away the gold, all is left is a voting system. And if this voting system is not transparent but only in the control of a platform, the platform will use it in their desire. Here I linked to the wikipedia article, as after removing the community voice by gilding comments, all is left will be a voting system that is not transparent.
You are absolute right, that the gilded posts were and will be used for and against a certain goal and a gilded comment does say anything about its value of a comment (good or bad). The only thing I said was that a gilded comment is standing out. And that is something reddit would like to keep in control. I think you try putting words in my mouth.
I mean you're assuming this isn't happening more in reverse to platform disinformation
Well reddit allowed quite a lot of disinformation, far-right hate groups and such to flourish. So while this is a nice though, I doubt it's so benevolent. Especially with how the US courts are trying to prevent the US government from limiting disinformation on social media, there seems little incentive to do this at all.
Eh, theres a lot of people who don't into the T, even in western countries. TERFs are a thing. Id argue its more home grown than yall realize.
This could be in preparation for compliance with anti-misinformation laws that are being discussed in the EU and in Australia. The fines being discussed are per offence and they’re going to be substantial
I’ll save you the Reddit click:
Existing awards will be removed from posts and comments; this will happen after Coins/Awards are sunset on Sept 12.
The changes we are announcing today will not have an impact on award-related trophies on user profiles, except that once awards are no longer available, those trophies will stop being delivered.
These changes also won’t have an impact on users who have already accumulated Premium via gifted awards.
For those who actually paid for gold and awards, chargeback time.
Like many places this will probably get your account banned. Which at this point, good?
Except that many large companies share large payment processors, and too many chargebacks (keep in mind "too many" is not a set number, it's a changing variable depending on many factors) can get you banned from the using the entire payment processor and any companies that use them.
We'll quickly see if reddit does what every other company does with chargebacks and bans accounts that do it.
This is going to make reddit even more filled with spambots and ads, and I'm fine with that
I had some coins leftover from being awarded myself, and I applied them to the most harmful drop-shipping bots I could find in rising posts on my way out
Thank you for your service
So, not just removing awards, but deleting most of the history of their use. Did spez buy a collection of foot shotguns he wanted to test out?
The best part is they told them they have X amount of time to spend the coins, but whatever they buy disappears anyway!
None of this makes any sense. They're already reworking awards and coins, fine. But why go so far as to remove the ones that already exist?
EDIT: Looks like the code base the awards use is being changed, but... can't they figure out a way to grandfather in the ones that already exist? This is really awful. It really shows how little the team cares for its userbase
May the new reddit die a painful death
Wouldn't it be ironic if this shit would be an even greater downfall for them than erasing third party apps? This whole giving-awards thing was pretty stupid to begin with and didn't happen as much in the smaller subs I was subscribed to than in the big ones. It was mainly a way for Reddit to trick the hive mind into giving them money for someone pointing out stuff most people agreed on. Also: anyone remember Reddit selling their shitty nfts?
It was also a fantastic, albeit kind of useless as you're giving THEM money, way to bring visibility to posts that needed it... And now I see why they might be doing this. It's like when Youtube removed dislikes. They want the corporate fee-fees to not be hurt so they remove the methods that allow us to express our dislike for something.
To be fair, this isn't literal fraud.
https://dictionary.law.com/default.aspx?selected=785
It's scummy and may arise other issues, but it isn't literal fraud.
It's maybe another one of the many nails in Reddit's coffin.
It'd be nice if this type of ragebait didn't happen. We shouldn't resort to lying simply because we don't like something.
Why is this fraud?
They lured people into spending money on getting awards. Now they are not only removing the award system, but going back and retroactively removing awards that have already been given out, effectively taking peoples money and not providing the service that the money paid for.
I see what you mean.
People spending money on something worthless and that’s what they got.
The terms were clear that these worthless awards were temporary by nature to begin with. There’s no argument for fraud, and I’m sure Reddit has a competent legal department.
(Civil) Legality aside. The remorse these buyers feel is healthy, imo.
Anyhow, fuck Reddit.
Permanently Deleted
This is a link to the coin/gold discontinuation post. Copy of the post text below:
Hi all,
I’m u/venkman01 from the Reddit product team, and I’m here to give everyone an early look at the future of how redditors award (and reward) each other.
TL;DR: We are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. As part of this, we made a decision to sunset coins (including Community coins for moderators) and awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards), which also impacts some existing Reddit Premium perks. Starting today, you will no longer be able to purchase new coins, but all awards and existing coins will continue to be available until September 12, 2023.
Many eons ago, Reddit introduced something called Reddit Gold. Gold then evolved, and we introduced new awards including Reddit Silver, Platinum, Ternium, and Argentium. And the evolution continued from there. While we saw many of the awards used as a fun way to recognize contributions from your fellow redditors, looking back at those eons, we also saw consistent feedback on awards as a whole. First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient.
It’s become clear that awards and coins as they exist today need to be re-thought, and the existing system sunsetted. Rewarding content and contribution (as well as something golden) will still be a core part of Reddit. We’ll share more in the coming months as to what this new future looks like.
On a personal note: in my several years at Reddit, I’ve been focused on how to help redditors be able to express themselves in fun ways and feel joy when their content is celebrated. I led the product launch on awards – if you happen to recognize the username – so this is a particularly tough moment for me as we wind these products down. At the same time, I’m excited for us to evolve our thinking on rewarding contributions to make it more valuable to the community.
Why are we making these changes?
We mentioned early this year that we want to both make Reddit simpler and a place where the community empowers the community more directly.
With simplification in mind, we’re moving away from the 50+ awards available today. Though the breadth of awards have had mixed reception, we’ve also seen them - be it a local subreddit meme or the “Press F” award - be embraced. And we know that many redditors want to be able to recognize high quality content.
Which is why rewarding good content will still be part of Reddit. Though we’d love to reveal more to you all now, we’re in the process of early testing and feedback, so aren’t ready to share official details just yet. Stay tuned for future posts on this!
What’s changing exactly?
- Awards - Awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards) will no longer be available after September 12.
- Reddit Coins - Coins will be deprecated, since Awards will be going away. Starting today, you’ll no longer be able to purchase coins, but you can use your remaining coins to gift awards by September 12.
- Reddit Premium - Reddit Premium is not going away. However, after September 12, we will discontinue the monthly coin drip and Premium Awards. Other current Premium perks will still exist, including the ad-free experience*.*
- Note: As indicated in our User Agreement past purchases are non-refundable. If you’re a Premium user and would like to cancel your subscription before these changes go into effect, you can find instructions here.
What comes next?
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about a new direction for awarding that allows redditors to empower one another and create more meaningful ways to reward high-quality contributions on Reddit.
I’ll be around for a while to answer any questions you may have and hear any feedback!
I was just contemplating deleting my account (vs. letting it rot) after I got the email this morning.
Better to let it rot so you still have control over in in the future, should it be needed. Deleting it does absolutely nothing besides removing your username and taking away your ability to do anything if they choose to restore your comments.
I feel like I could show the term changes to my bank and win a really old chargeback...
What a fail boat.
This topic has already been discussed multiple times. And why is this fraud? The definition of fraud is: "Fraud is an intentionally deceptive action designed to provide the perpetrator with an unlawful gain or to deny a right to a victim. "
In this case, Reddit is capitalist platform and it's trying to change its model so that its shareholders are happy.
Because they are unilaterally removing benefits that people have already paid for, and are explicitly stating that they will provide no refunds.
If you paid for a year of premium, a good chunk of the benefit has been the coins to buy awards.
After they get rid of both coins and awards, well, you have still paid for premium in advance, but it is now worth a fair bit less to some people.
Also bad, but more arguably in regards to the law, they are choosing to remove all past awards on posts and comments.
Which means that people who have bought coins (or premium to get coins) are having all of that undone, again, without any possibility of refund.
Arguably, this is much more problematic for people who had purchased coins, but who had not used them all before the announcement. Because that's taking the money, and then simply choosing not to provide the service that was paid for, while simultaneously stating that there will be no refunds.
You could try to argue that, well, they can use those coins up until they turn buying awards off... Except, well, one of the nice things about awards is that they last as long as the post or comment does.
This is... Problematic.
Extremely problematic.
So where do I collect my refund?
