Reddit is now blocking major search engines and AI bots — except the ones that pay (www.theverge.com)
from moe90@feddit.nl to technology@lemmy.ml on 25 Jul 2024 00:58
https://feddit.nl/post/18542518

#technology

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scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech on 25 Jul 2024 01:07 next collapse

The only way they get my clicks now are when I Google something and they come up.

They really keep making sure that I don’t end up there.

pupbiru@aussie.zone on 25 Jul 2024 02:45 collapse

libredirect helps with that on desktop

(browser extension that turns links to sites like reddit, youtube, etc into links to redlib, invidious)

brucethemoose@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 01:14 next collapse

Would lemmy instances do this?

I know they can’t afford to now, but hypothetically? A lot of people here don’t seem to like data scraping for AI.

mozz@mbin.grits.dev on 25 Jul 2024 01:21 next collapse

Your Lemmy posts are already being scraped for AI

The level of effort it would take to prevent would be infeasible to ask of even a non volunteer admin let alone a volunteer let alone literally all of them

brucethemoose@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 01:44 next collapse

That’s what I figured, but I am envisioning a future where lemmy is huge and the network of admins is quite sizable.

I guess that doesn’t change much?

epyon22@programming.dev on 25 Jul 2024 01:56 next collapse

  1. Run Lemmy instance
  2. Gain userbase
  3. Intercept data users are reading and posting from your instance and others
  4. Feed to AI
  5. Profit?

Lemmy is way less privacy oriented than reddit and that’s by design.

theneverfox@pawb.social on 25 Jul 2024 09:30 collapse

It’s structural - you can be open or locked down, and it’s hard to decentralize if you’re not open

You can make it easier or harder to work with that data, but ultimately it’s obsfucation - you could make it hard to parse and obscure details, but ultimately if you want decentralized federation you can’t hide too much

pennomi@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 02:33 collapse

Your Lemmy posts are already being scraped for AI

Good, hopefully it’ll make AI that is slightly less toxic than the rest of the internet.

It always baffles me that people don’t want their content represented in an AI - every word you write that gets indexed is a vote for how future AI will behave.

theshatterstone54@feddit.uk on 25 Jul 2024 16:16 collapse

Wait, do you actually want those companies to make even more money from your data, and want these environmentally disastrous “bullshit generators” to keep on going? I’m not saying stopping them is realistically possible, but if I had to choose, I’d greatly prefer a world without AI.

pennomi@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 16:42 collapse

You cannot choose a world without AI. They will get built regardless of what you want.

With that in mind, the optimal (least bad) outcome is that your world views are represented in the dataset.

cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de on 25 Jul 2024 01:41 next collapse

Some Lemmy instances disallow indexing in robots.txt, however indexers can choose to ignore that and actually blocking them takes a lot more effort.

brucethemoose@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 01:45 collapse

Some places on a “budget” like Ao3 just rate limit hard.

I don’t like that solution at all though.

Dave@lemmy.nz on 25 Jul 2024 01:51 collapse

You don’t need to scrape. If you want to get all the content on Lemmy, just set up an instance and subscribe to all the top communities, and the instances will just send you all the content.

So there isn’t really a way to monetise or block it. I guess you could only federate to a whitelist, but the biggest instances will federate by default with any new instances until they are given a reason to defederate.

mozz@mbin.grits.dev on 25 Jul 2024 01:18 next collapse

The cycle continues:

  • Hey you guys can have everything for free
  • WTF this is expensive to provide, I think I’m gonna start taking advantage of you guys which someone will pay me to do
  • WTF where’s everyone going
  • WTF I’m still losing money and always have been
  • Screw you guys, screw everybody, I didn’t want y’all anyway
  • (fades into irrelevance, gets bought by someone and stripped for parts)

Idk it’s not as pithy as Cory Doctorow’s version I guess

Anyway we’re at step 5 at this point

friend_of_satan@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 01:22 next collapse

Yeah, Reddit is Digging its own grave.

zcd@lemmy.ca on 25 Jul 2024 02:28 next collapse

<img alt="" src="https://media1.tenor.com/m/L3Zh_vAo__IAAAAd/captain-america-i-understand.gif">

sylver_dragon@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 02:34 collapse

It’s getting Fark’d

acosmichippo@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 02:24 next collapse

honestly I’m not convinced step 6 is inevitable. I think enough people are okay with whatever reddit does.

Reddfugee42@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 07:31 collapse

Enough consumers are okay with it, but the core geeks and nerds that created, curated, and moderated the content have jumped ship.

The cruise line is still sailing and there are still drinks and snacks so nobody has noticed the staff have jumped ship. There’s management, low level volunteers, and thousands of kids, moms, and dads.

But sooner or later people are gonna get tired of snacks and flip their shit when management tells them the people who know how to make the steaks have just all fuckin ✨ inexplicably disappeared✨

cRazi_man@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 12:07 next collapse

That’s a fantasy we all hold here because we don’t like Reddit. Reddit doesn’t care that nerds have gone and normies are left behind. People keep using the site and throwing money at “super upvotes”. They’ve floated on the stock market and are doing well. The site is nowhere near dying like Digg. Deep, cerebral, meaningful content might have suffered; but hardly anyone cares as long as they get to see recycled memes, making judgemental comments on other people’s relationships, porn and politics. Their main content is lowest common denominator shit, and it always has been. Facebook is far more shitty and is still going strong. I’m sure Reddit will be fine without us and with their ongoing enshitification, no matter how much we fantasise about their demise.

imgur.com/a/aLhmJSE.jpg

pop@lemmy.ml on 25 Jul 2024 13:29 collapse

People don’t realize how much of reddit content is made by bot farms and advertising agencies, propaganda outlets with bots to spare. Which is what’s keeping the normies entertained, not the nerds, not the niche community of a few thousand people.

People like the one you’re replying to always are so sure their echo chamber is right when reality is like complete opposite. Most people on reddit are lurkers and not terminally online people. They just want to scroll and fucking waste time. Community, subs and their mods or rules be damned.

They don’t care if the cat videos are on a banana sub. they’ll happily upvote and scroll away while the terminally online will start complaining why the post is not fit, a repost, or against the rules for 100s of time. And as always, once they leave, they think it is dead.

mozz@mbin.grits.dev on 25 Jul 2024 21:14 collapse

They don't care if the cat videos are on a banana sub.

I don't know why but I can't stop laughing at this

Ferk@lemmy.ml on 25 Jul 2024 14:52 next collapse

Content curated by “the core geeks and nerds” might appeal to “geeks and nerds”, not to those consumers.

They want “consumer” content. And if one day they get tired of it then I doubt any amount of “steak” would have stopped them leaving anyway, since that was never what they were looking for. It’s not like reddit has to be the only place they visit in the internet, nor is the internet their only source of consumption. Just because you go to a snack bar does not mean that’s the only place you go for meals.

acosmichippo@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 15:16 collapse

it’s been over a year since the main exodus. if they haven’t noticed the “core geeks” are gone by now, they never will. pure arrogance imo.

xavier666@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 07:27 next collapse

The key capitalistic trick is to time your step 2 just when you have a critical mass on your platform. Upper management has understood that our shitty paywall will remove x% of our users from our platform. But if (100-x)% of our users can pay $y annually, we can sustain our business model and make $z of profit each year. PR will take care of all the backlash but it’s all calculated.

someacnt_@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 20:58 collapse

I freaking wish…

moe90@feddit.nl on 25 Jul 2024 01:42 next collapse

just begin with site:reddit.com test for ddg and it still works

KevonLooney@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 01:48 next collapse

Are they new posts or old ones? They are blocking new ones, not old ones.

moe90@feddit.nl on 25 Jul 2024 02:21 next collapse

I tested and it got lots of reddit queries from even 2 years ago afaik.

KevonLooney@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 02:24 collapse

They are blocking new ones, not old ones.

moe90@feddit.nl on 25 Jul 2024 02:26 collapse

I even have diverse reddit queries from last week and even 2 years ago. this workaround is still ok tbh

ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org on 25 Jul 2024 05:17 collapse

New means from yesterday, not from last week

pupbiru@aussie.zone on 25 Jul 2024 02:51 collapse

new posts do not work

this post in /r/selfhosted is from 8hr ago: SWEKIT v0.1 - an open source library to build software engineering agents (DEVIN) in a agentic framework agnostic manner!

reddit/redlib: …kylrth.com/…/swekit_v01_an_open_source_library_t…

doesn’t appear in DDG results: duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Areddit.com+SWEKIT+v0.1+-…

acosmichippo@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 02:31 next collapse

Based on my testing if you filter results by the last week or last day you get nothing. Past month works.

Mereo@lemmy.ca on 25 Jul 2024 03:47 collapse

For old posts. I can’t find new posts on DDG. I find them on Google but not on DDG.

moe90@feddit.nl on 25 Jul 2024 03:49 collapse

I tried brave search begin with site:reddit.com test and it still works

Gullible@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 03:27 next collapse

Tangentially related- I fucking hate discord

PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 05:36 next collapse

Discord is fine for chatting, voice, and iterating quickly on projects. I have no idea why people want to think it’s a forum. That’s ridiculous.

delirious_owl@discuss.online on 25 Jul 2024 06:42 next collapse

Its pretty awful for all those things if you care about privacy or can’t signup for an account

PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 11:35 next collapse

Obviously you would need an account to use it.

umbrella@lemmy.ml on 25 Jul 2024 15:53 next collapse

also not searchable at all. its an information blackhole.

Omniraptor@lemm.ee on 28 Jul 2024 04:30 collapse

Iirc strictly speaking you don’t need an account to use it, but most servers disable that option for anti spam reasons. But if you’re setting up a server for friends they can chat from a browser without having to sign up first

delirious_owl@discuss.online on 28 Jul 2024 04:48 collapse

Discord is self-hosted?

Omniraptor@lemm.ee on 28 Jul 2024 05:19 collapse

No, but discord chats are usually called “servers”

BleatingZombie@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 08:44 next collapse

Unpopular opinion: I never liked discord for chatting either. I found it strangely confusing trying to keep track of logins for each group

Edit: I am indeed thinking of slack

PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 11:38 next collapse

? Discord has one log in.

dev_null@lemmy.ml on 25 Jul 2024 14:00 collapse

You may be thinking of Slack

Lennnny@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 13:51 collapse

We use it for our friend group, as we have pub nights, group meals, vacations etc. we also all do each other’s cat care when we’re out of town, so we have a channel devoted to pet photos etc. works well enough for us.

PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 23:01 collapse

Exactly. That’s a great use for it.

MalReynolds@slrpnk.net on 25 Jul 2024 05:40 collapse

I fucking hate discord

It’s Cancer, have an upvote.

Unchanged3656@infosec.pub on 25 Jul 2024 04:08 next collapse

Brave search got an option for that.

<img alt="" src="https://infosec.pub/pictrs/image/dbf63291-121c-49aa-a8e1-701331274c61.png">

<img alt="" src="https://infosec.pub/pictrs/image/16d98007-0805-472e-9c6e-537bd23a16f3.png">

moe90@feddit.nl on 25 Jul 2024 04:27 next collapse

begin with site:reddit.com test is much more accurate to get reddit search on brave search tbh

ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org on 25 Jul 2024 05:15 next collapse

We need that for DDG. Opt-in, of course, but with a banner that makes it clear why is that really needed

2001zhaozhao@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 21:39 collapse

Someone should make this feature but for ALL public web content you browse. Just download an extension to share the content of pages you browse to everyone (with cross-checking for accuracy), and you can view a fair share of what others have shared based on how much you contributed to the platform yourself. Basically crowd-sourced, unblockable web scraping.

ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 06:23 next collapse

thanks to them for making my deredditification that much easier!

GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml on 25 Jul 2024 14:59 next collapse

There are numerous occasions where someone has a lingering question on Reddit that I see and know the answer to. It’s too bad it’s on Reddit because I no longer contribute to that website, and refuse to.

Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz on 25 Jul 2024 23:15 collapse

All the decent answers I find are from 5+ years ago. I check the user’s activity and they normally quit the place. Warms the heart.

badbytes@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 15:05 next collapse

Good, their answers are generally crap, and I wish they wouldn’t show in searches anyway.

lud@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 19:57 collapse

I mostly feel the opposite.

Reddit is one of the only search results that actually has content made by humans.

GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 21:20 collapse

I mean, you’re right if by humans you mean kids.

Depending on the subject, I encounter more and more threads with <deleted by user> content. And billions and billions and billions of results that are either spam or written by unprofessionals.

The smart crowd is not there anymore. The smart crowd that once was there, has removed the content that Reddit was worth visiting for. Let the Googzz have them and sell ads to each other.

lud@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 21:59 collapse

I have honestly not noticed any large differences before or after the api changes protests. I have also not noticed any large difference in quality But maybe we visit different communities.

To me it feels about the same as Lemmy except that Lemmy feels even more unprofessional and childish when people are so incredibly narrow minded. Like doing childish things like intentionally spelling Google or Microsoft wrong.

Unfortunately Lemmy is also absolutely useless when it comes to anything I would ever search for, since I never search for about opinions about: Microsoft, Linux, Communism, City planning, Twitter, Rich people and when to eat them, and a couple other topics.

GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 03:44 collapse

Reddit was already invaded by bots before the API. I’d say it was most obvious right before the time Trump was elected.

Sounds like you’re too smart to be on Lemmy. Sorry I offended you by spelling the name of your favorite ad company wrong.

lud@lemm.ee on 26 Jul 2024 05:25 collapse

Yeah I’m well aware of the bot issue. I don’t spend as much time on Reddit any more but it feels like it has gotten better.

Sounds like you’re too smart to be on Lemmy. Sorry I offended you by spelling the name of your favorite ad company wrong.

Nah, you didn’t offend me in any way. Don’t you worry. You just acted childish. Nothing wrong with that.

kworpy@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 15:31 next collapse

Your fault for using a major search engine honestly

tabular@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 18:43 next collapse

The users who wrote the content are going to get a share of the money, right Reddit? Riiight? /s

fsxylo@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 19:58 next collapse

LMAO searching “____ reddit” is the only time I visit their site.

They just really have no clue.

blackris@discuss.tchncs.de on 25 Jul 2024 21:11 next collapse

Too bad. Hey, crazy idea: let’s create an open alternative for reddit with good content! Maybe something in the fediverse or so.

_g_be@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 21:30 next collapse

I think you’re onto something

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de on 26 Jul 2024 12:11 collapse

that would never work

Happywop@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 23:18 next collapse

So glad I found this alternative. reddit, mods are psychos and the average user not much better

hlmeless@lemy.lol on 26 Jul 2024 03:35 collapse

They definitely got crazy egos

DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com on 27 Jul 2024 00:12 collapse

lol - fine by me. My private searx-ng instance already filters out Reddit from the results, and my Pi-holes block all known Reddit domains.