![]() ![]() ![]() And Reddit did remove some moderators who had tagged their subreddit NSFW.Įmployees and workers have rights, but they also have responsibilities which the employer might find easier to enforce than against volunteers. When subreddits remained dark, he started informing mods that Reddit might remove them if a moderator team decide unanimously to stop moderating. In response, the CEO stated his commitment to stand firm and threatened to change its moderator removal policy to allow users to vote moderators off. The blackout caused Reddit some issues: many popular communities were not available, Google search results worsened, it received negative press coverage and advertising revenue was affected. And as Reddit found, organisations sometimes want to exert control. How much control an employer exerts over its workforce is one of the key components of the test for employment in both the UK and the US. ![]() Reddit mods do not make an application or have any particular time commitment. The AOL community leaders had to apply for their position, commit to minimum hours, fill out timesheets and sign a non-disclosure agreement. There were some significant differences between the AOL moderator community and Reddit volunteers. The lawsuit dragged on for 12 years before settling, never resolving the issue of whether the AOL moderators were actually employees. AOL responded that they were volunteers, and thus had no entitlement to employee protections. Many years ago, a group of volunteer chatroom moderators filed a Labor Standard lawsuit against AOL in the New York Southern District Court for unpaid wages, arguing that they were working on a commercial website and therefore entitled to the minimum wage. It is probably unlikely that moderators can claim to be employees or workers and entitled to relevant protections, but not impossible. The use of volunteers provides opportunities for business but also comes with risk, as the Reddit strike shows. Reddit aren’t the only model of this kind, Wikipedia also does something similar. Some of them probably also like the status being a moderator in a popular forum brings. Moderators are prepared to give their time and effort for free because of the value the site provides in terms of bringing together like-minded individuals, building communities, permitting knowledge-sharing and facilitating discussion. Reddit relies on thousands of volunteer moderators to ensure the smooth-running of its operations. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are providing a “product” which is generated by their users, not by employees or suppliers. Most well-known are platforms such as Deliveroo and Uber, which have facilitated new working arrangements, with workers offering services at times that suit them, sometimes “multi-apping” to offer their services to several businesses at once. New technologies have opened up various new opportunities for and ways of working and generating financial value. Some subreddits continued the blackout for several weeks and there were other forms of protest too, such as only allowing users to post pictures of comedian John Oliver or labelling the thread “NSFW” (not safe for work) which affects advertising revenue. On June 12, thousands of mods closed their subreddits (by taking them private) to protest what they saw as “exorbitant” pricing for third-party app access. This made some apps which were popular with the Reddit community unprofitable, and they warned they would have to shut down. As this does not generate enough to make it profitable, Reddit decided to increase revenue by charging third-party app developers more money to use its programming interface. Reddit’s income comes principally from advertising and by users purchasing “Reddit coins” to use on the site or the ad-free “Reddit Premium” service. Volunteer work is not new, but what is new is that Reddit volunteers are key generators of value, which Reddit is seeking to monetise as a profit making enterprise. As well as the volunteer mods, Reddit has employee administrators (“admins”) who keep the platform running and enforce Reddit’s rules and content policy, including banning subreddits. The moderators can take down posts and ban users from that subreddit. There are more than a million “subreddit” communities, each covering a different topic, which are managed by volunteer moderators (or “mods”). It’s a (very large) collection of forums on which people share news and content and can comment on one another’s posts. Reddit describes itself as “home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection”. ![]()
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