hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout today, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! Thanks!

  • skepticalifornia@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    The blackout is definitely having an impact on Reddit traffic, especially the level of commenting on posts. Look at https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/ and the posts and comments per minute. The comments are usually up to the top or above the number of posts and they are way down. Posts overall are way down as well.

    • dirac_field@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Hmmm the effect is not as dramatic as I was anticipating. Am I reading this right? Say the daily average in comments/minute is around 5k: seems the average today is around 4k. A 20% dip only. Not much compared to 50+% of the subreddits going dark :(

      • skepticalifornia@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Yes, but most of the traffic is from people going to the front page and seeing /all (this is what I read yesterday, I am assuming it is correct). My guess is most visitors who use Reddit’s apps or go in through the browser are not participating in the blackout, or maybe don’t care, so there will still be a large number of posts. The people supporting the blackout likely make up a large percentage of users who comment on new posts, and that is way down. I’m seeing a lot of posts, but far fewer comments on those posts.

        • Wahots@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          Not to mention the sudden impact of reddit cutting off all 3rd party access on the 30th/1st.

      • Pete Hahnloser@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        It’s unclear how useful aggregate post and comment totals are in terms of measuring the effect of the blackout on content.

        I feel comfortable saying that 80% of Reddit content on my subscribed subreddits has no impact on my day or understanding of life. Thus, the question becomes what 20% has been lost.

        • skepticalifornia@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Yes, good point. I really feel something like this is more of a building surge, rather than a tsunami. A lot of us leaving is not going to sink them in the near term, but they will slowly see an erosion of quality posts and more importantly quality comments. I’ve heard they really want to monetize access to all the conversations for data harvesting, and if the overall quality of that drops, the whole thing is worth a lot less.

            • skepticalifornia@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              I agree. Let’s see if the mods have the stomach to keep the subreddit’s dark indefinitely. I also wonder if Reddit will just take over the larger subs and install new mods?

      • spoonful@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        One thing to note that noticable amount of Reddit traffic is actually bots and they’re not taking time off. Be it legit bots or bots farming karma to peddle corporate ads later.

      • The_Hunted_One@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Also remember that the 50% figure (and all figures on that page) are only taking into account the top 1000 SFW and 500 NSFW subreddits. So while it may appear that 50% of them are dark, a lot of the more medium subs may be staying open

    • Solemn@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      This website seems to be down for me right now, dunno where else we can see comments and posts numbers. All the other blackout trackers seem to just be tracking #subreddits