/r/feminisms
A safe(r) space for respectful, cooperative feminism-minded discussion, including its intersections. Content is actively curated by a pro-feminist moderation team.
This community is currently restricted as we adjust for the rapidly changing Reddit policies.
I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.
— Audre Lorde, The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action
Required reading before participation:
Rules
1. Community Goal and Principles
Everything that occurs in this community furthers our Community Goal and Principles.
2. Respect and Cooperation
Community members respect each other and cooperate in upholding the Community Goal and Principles. This results in a more productive and enjoyable community.
No personal attacks and attacks on groups of feminists. Critique positions, not persons.
3. Oppressive Attitudes and Actions
Oppressive actions and attitudes have no place here. This includes but is not limited to the axes of sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, class, pregnancy, and ability. All oppression is connected.
We allow for personal reclamation but make this clear.
4. Harmful Behaviors / Personal Information
We do not tolerate harmful behaviors. This includes bad faith, trolling, derailing, stalking, threats, and harassment.
Do not post personal information. This includes social media names.
5. Brigading / Mass Harassment
Links to other communities on Reddit are removed automatically as we are not a meta community. If you feel it is systemically notable, send a message to the mods for review.
Incoming brigades are banned with zero tolerance and are reported to admins.
Do not promote or engage in hateful communities.
6. Meta Posts
While this is the first feminist community on Reddit, it is not about Reddit. Meta posts must have prior moderator permission. If you wish to discuss such things, send a message to the mods.
Replies to a moderator rule enforcement other than immediate and understanding cooperation will be removed to prevent clutter.
Private messages and chat sent to individual moderators in their capacity as a moderator will be ignored. Send all concerns to modmail.
7. Unproductive Discourse
Do not engage with or disengage from users who do not follow these rules and report them. Consider that replying to bad faith and antagonistic users contributes to their derail and gives them the opportunity to reply.
In old school terms, no flaming.
/r/feminisms
50,135 Subscribers
menstrual product accessibility is a big deal for everyone, everywhere
16:16 UTC
r/Feminisms statement on Reddit policy changes
Inc. didn't mince words: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's Third-Party API Debacle Is Making Elon Musk Look Like a Strategic Genius Taking Huffman at his word, it remains an entirely preventable debacle. But he's following Elon Musk's lead.
Technical and intersectional issues aside, this is fundamentally a labor grievance and Reddit is effectively strikebreaking. Yes, moderators are unpaid, but what kind of boss pulls the rug out from under volunteers and show utter disdain? Marginalized people have long known Reddit doesn't care if they are harassed off the site, so Huffman attacking moderators as replaceable with clumsy analogies that continue a fantasy of becoming a king of slaves is not a surprise.
The Board and Huffman aren't providing any rationale for the unreasonably short deadline. One of Reddit's larger investors, Fidelity, cut Reddit's valuation by a third at the end of May. It makes Reddit's long-gestating IPO harder. The entire purpose of private investors is pumping to an IPO after which they can dump.
Is enshittification inevitable? We've long required accessible image descriptions, which disappointingly but unsurprisingly discouraged people from submitting memes. We value discussion and analysis, which Reddit will attempt to sell to AI companies. Users have always known they are the product. What are moderators, other than users themselves? Moderators have known their work is helping Reddit. Cultivating a relatively safer space is the reward. We didn't sign up for abuse.
On that note, we're recruiting because we are losing moderators relying on third party apps and possibly some infrastructure. Make sure you understand the Community Goal and Principles and send us a modmail.
00:14 UTC
Reddit API Changes, intersectionality, and you
You may have heard of an impending Reddit "blackout" now that it's made international news. Thousands of communities will go private in protest of upcoming changes to the Reddit API.
What is the Reddit API?
The Reddit API (application programming interface) provides the official and an efficient way for software to interact with Reddit. This includes third party apps like RIF is Fun, Reddit for Blind, Slide, and many others. This includes tools moderators rely on to ensure community function and safety where Reddit lacks native tooling. This includes user tools for data backup and deletion before deleting an account, statistics, and fun stuff like word clouds. This includes tools researchers use for research.
What are the effects of the upcoming changes?
Reddit is keeping porn to the official Reddit app. Reddit is introducing paid API access. Reddit announced this on April 18, 2023, but did not announce pricing until May 31, 2023, giving everyone one month to make adjustments. Surprisingly, the rates are much higher than expected, out of line relative to industry rates. This effectively prices out third party apps, including apps blind and visually impaired people rely on since the official app is not accessible. Many moderation tools would cross the line into the paid tier. Many moderators use third party apps to perform their duties. They would be slowed down or unable to do perform certain duties the app does not provide, less work would happen, and recruiting new moderators becomes even more difficult. Users are stripped of choice and forced to use the official app which does a lot more tracking than others.
What actions did stakeholders take?
Stakeholders took different approaches. Researchers posted an open letter and engaged in meetings with Reddit. Blind people reached out to media. Moderators started discussing a blackout action and scheduled it for June 12. As a result of these actions, Reddit announced some changes.
Non-commercial third party apps primarily for blind people would be exempted, but they were not consulted and are finding some apps have already been forced to shut down. If you need funding to provide such an app, you're out of luck. Researchers would regain access with controls and other huge issues to be decided later. Existing moderation tools working in the free tier would be exempted, but questions remain about new moderation tools and those exceeding the free tier.
Clearly, more time is necessary to work these issues out with stakeholders and for them to make adjustments.
Why so close to the blackout date?
Due to the action, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman held an AMA (Ask Me Anything), answering/dodging 14 questions. It was our hope the CEO would salvage the situation. However, it served only to exacerbate it. With Reddit clearly forging ahead, we'd like to encourage them to postpone the changes and collaborate with stakeholders on addressing the outstanding issues.
What do I have to do with this?
The community exists for you, so the question falls upon you. Do we join this blackout action?
01:58 UTC
Why don't bystanders intervene?
The study featured in this blog post suggests most bystanders are afraid of some unlikely outcomes so they ignore sexual harassment/sexual assault, or worse, they end up participating because they are afraid of what will happen if they do not participate.
11:25 UTC