Reddit suffers a major outage after thousands of subreddits temporarily shut down - The company blamed the protest for causing issues across its website and mobile apps.

submitted by neolib from engadget.com

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[–]The-Real-Mario 22 insightful - 6 fun22 insightful - 5 fun23 insightful - 6 fun -  (33 children)

Hahaha, how the fuck do they blame the outage on the strike ?? Like "so few people used our website that the website couldn't handle it" wtf?!?!

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (28 children)

To be fair, in the article they said something about instability caused by many subs going private. I won't pretend to know what that looks like server side so IDK. Lots of people are still logging in and posting though, they're just forced to populate other subs that may not have gotten as much traffic before today.

[–]magnora7 11 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 4 fun -  (25 children)

As someone who does know what this looks like server-side, I can't understand why they would have an outage due to low traffic either. Unless they have some system that depends on bot activity that they're suddenly not getting or something like that, but it seems highly unlikely. My guess is they're probably panicking trying to compartmentalize and contain the damage from the strike, and making technical mistakes in the process, and blaming it on users

[–]ExplodingToasterOven 15 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

You've got hundreds of thousands of bots pinging subreddits they can't access, effectively a DDOS.

[–]magnora7 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting point, makes a lot of sense, especially if they all keep attempting to access repeatedly after the first failed attempt

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (14 children)

For some reason, I think the protest is just a fart in a windstorm.

[–]magnora7 16 insightful - 3 fun16 insightful - 2 fun17 insightful - 3 fun -  (13 children)

I think it's important but I also kind of agree. To me, it was obvious reddit was wrecked 5+ years ago, which is why I made saidit. It's kind of been blowing my mind how slowly reddit has collapsed, especially compared to digg which basically imploded overnight. Reddit did a good job containing the damage of public revolts compared to digg, despite all their other failures

[–]bananahammock 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (10 children)

I doubt there will be much of a dent in their 430 million active monthly user base, most of whom may not know much about the purpose of the strike. But this is a very interesting time for Reddit that - ideally - should cost them users and - ideally - get them to think much more about how they've fucked up with the layoffs, other restrictions and incredibly greedy API pricing ("Imgur charges him $166 for 50 million calls compared to Reddit's now-$12,000"). Traffic disruption was likely bot-related, for reasons noted below, where there are much better explanations of why the strike has been necesary:

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api

[–]magnora7 16 insightful - 2 fun16 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

Minus the bots and shills, I really wonder how many human beings are active on that website every month. I bet it's 1/10th of their stated number, they're trying to drive up valuations and metrics with bot activity, and reddit has done this from day 1 when they made tons of fake accounts to make reddit look popular, until it actually was. Saidit never did that. So reddit has a long long history of fluffing itself up to make it look like more than it is.

But overall I agree with the strike. I just think that a strike shouldn't have a fixed ending date, or they'll just wait it out and go back to normal. Also this should've happened years ago, there was just never enough of a unifying event until this API fiasco.

[–]LordBeetusRises 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Totally agree on the ending date thing. If anything, it should be a monthly strike, which includes deliberately supporting reddit alternatives. This would be devastating to Reddit. With long term consequences.

[–]magnora7 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Monthly is a good idea too. Also a strike should have a goal and if the goal is accomplished the strike should end. I assume the goal is "end the API request fees" but several 3rd party services have already been killed off, so I'm not sure what a win looks like at this point.

I think the only real win is migrating off of reddit, because reddit is obviously culturally broken at the root, and it's not like the CEO is magically going to start behaving properly because of this strike. We know where reddit stands, and it has been this way for a long time, so we should be acting on it by migrating to other platforms.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]magnora7 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Agreed, although I'm not even sure what a decent compromise would honestly look like in practice. Just a complete walkback of everything they stated in the last few months? Even then, the problem still persists that made them try it in the first place, the motivations and people that caused it are not changed at all. Leaving reddit and planting roots on other forums is the only true way forward, imo. The huge power reddit has over the information flow of the current internet is insane, and that is the actual root problem underneath all the other problems. It's too centralized, and the power is being abused. Instead there needs to be many more forums that are all frequently used. Putting all our eggs in one basket was never a good idea.

    I have to say the current strike method has succeeded in generating quite a bit of conversation though, which is good.

    [–]divingrightintowork 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

    It's really good for like niche subjects that once upon a time may have had their own message boards, like "Culinary mold," "old sierra game lovers."

    [–]TaseAFeminist4Jesus 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Yeah, and now we don't get to have those niche boards anymore. We just have Reddit, and everything there is a certain way. Terrible IMO.

    [–]ExplodingToasterOven 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    The bots and shills have nothing to mine except for the fringe subreddits. And who the fuck wants to spam someones shoe fetish bullshit for karma?

    [–]ExplodingToasterOven 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    Honestly, I'm mostly just there for the porn these days. Being able to do any kind of real discourse or debate, nah, doesn't work. It ends up being one big echo chamber where they shut out anyone who doesn't think like everyone else.

    [–]TitsAndWhiskey 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Yeah same. The format here has real promise. And it’s probably time for me to cut back on the titties anyway.

    [–]MaiqTheTrue 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

    Because of third party apps overriding the actual interface. The average user doesn’t see the overuse of ads, the avatars, the chat, etc. Digg never had a bunch of third party apps to fix his code for them so the changes stuck out more.

    [–]magnora7 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    That's a good point. I thought reddit screwed this up when they moved to the redesign, but their smart move was keeping old.reddit.com. If they got rid of that during the redesign several years ago, we probably would've seen a digg situation. Smart move on reddit's part to keep the legacy design accessible.

    [–]LordBeetusRises 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

    If I had to guess, I'd say they tried to ramp up their bot activity to compensate for the lack of organic activity (to undermine the strike) and the extra resources on their end (because bots cost them more resources than accepting real people's comment submissions) which overwhelmed their servers. Literally a guess. You'd probably know more, since the extent of my IT background is just selling IT services.

    [–]TitsAndWhiskey 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

    I’ve been following the ChatGPT subreddit for years. Once you get in the habit of recognizing it, it’s scary how many reddit comments have all the markings of AI.

    [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    It’s about to get worse! They’re purging more of their humans in favor of Chatgpt - fits in pretty nicely with gvt-private agenda and ai development.

    [–]LordBeetusRises 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    I've lost track of the number of times I've caught bots in different platforms. It starts with a really, really bad argument. Like the kind that not even a complete moron would make. Then I ask them some question anyone knows like "hey what's the number of p3nises a person has plus the n$mber of fingers in one hand" and won't get a reply or a reply that's even sort of coherent. Hundreds of times so far. Especially on Reddit and Twitter.

    [–]TitsAndWhiskey 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Yup. My general rule is that the comments don’t really follow the thread of conversation, nor do they really engage in debate. They use the “yes and…” method. Agree in a generic sense, then proceed to espouse some leftist talking point that’s usually, at best, tangentially related.

    Unfortunately, many lefties use the same tactic, but in the end it’s just a question of “bot or meat puppet?” And frankly, does it matter which?

    I like your tactic. ChatGPT would likely be able to answer that, though.

    [–]LordBeetusRises 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Fuuuuuck. You were right. Just tested it. Crazy how much AI has improved from just a few years ago. Not that I'll ever go back to Reddit, but I gotta figure out another detection method for TikTok and alt-tech sites like this one.

    [–]TitsAndWhiskey 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Gonna have to get dogs like in terminator soon

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    What are you a moron? Or just an insider? Tell the truth! This system outage is planned to integrate with AI and chatgpt systems in a better way. Reddit has always been purging its user-base, well they mirror gvt protocols for nat-sec.

    Remember when digg sold out and said it too became a cyber-fortress due to a “political situation”? Users can spot an insider and an agenda pretty quick, your job is to at-least put out the truth behind some of this stuff that you know of. Reddit will go public as expected but they don’t want messy humans making comments like these, expect even more bots and controlled opinions on their shell of a company.

    [–]agent_pecan 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    Less traffic, better stability.

    Reddit is hoping people are too stupid to know they are lying

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    I'm not stoopit, I just don't know shit about fuck.

    [–]IMissPorn 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    If this is true, their code is shit, and we can probably expect it to implode even worse when they cut the API off.

    [–]LordBeetusRises 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    It's going to be a fucking disaster when they cut the API. Especially if some of those app devs strike deals with Reddit alternatives in the meantime. They'll convert a large percentage of their users over to alt platforms like this one.

    [–]orangered 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    -creator of tildes(ex reddit admin) said (Source)

    (I used to work as a backend developer at Reddit - I left 6 years ago but I doubt the way things work has changed much)

    I think it's extremely unlikely that this is deliberate. The way that Reddit builds "mixed" subreddit listings (where you see posts from multiple subreddits, like users' front pages) is inefficient and strange, and relies heavily on multiple layers of caches. Having so many subreddits private with their posts inaccessible has never happened before, and is probably causing a bunch of issues with this process.

    [–]ChristiDelendaEst 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    I know.

    [–]GoblinJ 14 insightful - 9 fun14 insightful - 8 fun15 insightful - 9 fun -  (7 children)

    Lmao fuck reddit. Fuck the pedo admins and tranny mods.

    [–]TitsAndWhiskey 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

    Lol yeah. I got banned literally for saying that calling people autistic just based on how they look or act is exactly the same as the way we used to call people retarded.

    Pretty sure that was just an excuse. I pissed off some trans mod by questioning the narrative.

    [–]GoblinJ 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    That's the real problem with reddit. The mods are mentally ill and will ban you if they're so much as having a bad day and didn't like the tone of your message in that moment. Then they'll mute you when you call them out on their bullshit. There is no greater piece of shit on the planet than the reddit mod.

    [–]TitsAndWhiskey 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

    Oh I got a site wide ban. They warned me once after I asked if I was allowed to talk about working on my car. Fixing the tranny and retarding the timing and such.

    [–]TheMaharishi 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

    The trannyfags are so sensitive. That the mere mentioning of a fact. Is enough to send them spiraling into the abyss. The big issue is that now that so many reddits are closed in protest. They can focus their efforts on grooming kids...

    [–]TitsAndWhiskey 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Reddit has been aging out already anyway. Kids don’t reddit. The IPO is the final nail in the coffin.

    Happy to see that shitstain get flushed down the bowl.

    [–]ExplodingToasterOven 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Yeah, the trannies have expended an insane amount of effort to spin the narrative by controlling reddit. People stop going there, they've wasted years and years of effort insinuating themselves there.

    [–]RamblingOtter 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    While usually I would write off what you just said as pedantic and juvenile, that is actually what stops me going there and giving that site traffic. The amount of trans people that moderate subs, especially women's' subs and the fact that the main person in charge was all about the posting of young kids in the jailbait forum, that really is enough for me.

    I was suspicious when everything was so highly policed and any dissention of the ranks criticising the trans movement was cut off at the head but doing just a little searching about it, what a disgusting and nepotistic rabble it is.

    [–]Blackhalo 10 insightful - 6 fun10 insightful - 5 fun11 insightful - 6 fun -  (0 children)

    It probably broke their algo that shadow bans some subs and elevates others.

    [–]TaseAFeminist4Jesus 6 insightful - 6 fun6 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

    Ah, the impotent rage of the neckbeard... Free Monica!

    [–]MaiqTheTrue 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I’m 90% sure Spez is causing the outages and blaming the strike. These losers all deserve each other.

    [–]neolib[S] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Reddit Failing to Load

    Monitoring - We're observing improvements across the site and expect issue to recover for most users. We will continue to closely monitor the situation.

    Jun 12, 2023 - 08:47 PDT

    Identified - We're aware of problems loading content and are working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible.

    Jun 12, 2023 - 07:58 PDT

    https://www.redditstatus.com/

    [–]KyleIsThisTall 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

    lying kikes

    [–]ChristiDelendaEst 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    What a bunch of losers. All that money they get paid to maintain the site and it breaks just like it was still 1997.

    [–]Gravi 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

    Oh about time, I couldn't notice, I am in Europe and was thinking all day, when's the damn outage? Damn timezones be Confucius.

    [–]Godknight 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Get rekt

    [–]Brewdabier 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Reddit is changing again and the poor snowflakes are pissing there panties.