Reddit Migration's Impact on Lemmy (2023)

Home Journal Info About the Journal Aims and Scope Abstracting & Indexing Editorial Board Subscription Information Copyright & Open Access Crossmark Policy Contact Information News & Notice Article Archive Archive Current Issue Most Read Articles Most Cited Articles Advanced Search Current Issue For Authors Author Guidelines Research and Publication Ethics Human and Animal Research Policy Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies Policy Related-Party Co-authorship Policy Editorial Workflow Special Issue Best Practice Role of Editorial Board Article Processing Charges Submission of Manuscript Checklist Copyright Transfer Agreement Free Email Alerts PDF Download PubReader Export Citation Email the Author Share Facebook Share Twitter Cited by 5 Articles Metrics (View:33,299) QR Code of this Article: E-Submission Author Guidelines Journal Archive Advanced Search Free Email Alerts Similarity Check J Multimed Inf Syst 10 ( 4 ): 333 - 350 eISSN: 2383-7632 DOI: https://doi.org/10.33851/JMIS.2023.10.4.333 Section C User Sentiments and Dynamics in the Decentralized Web: Reddit Migration’s Impact on Lemmy Thatiany Andrade Nunes 1 , * Author Information & Copyright ▼ 1 Department of Visual Contents, Dongseo University, Busan, Korea, [email protected] * Corresponding Author: Thatiany Andrade Nunes, +82-10-4239-3790, [email protected] © Copyright 2024 Korea Multimedia Society. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Received: Sep 01, 2023 ; Revised: Sep 26, 2023 ; Accepted: Sep 30, 2023 Published Online: Dec 31, 2023 Abstract Decentralized alternatives like Mastodon and Lemmy are gaining popularity in response to growing complaints about centralized social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, which frequently prioritize business interests over user experience. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to scrutinize the impact of Reddit users’ migration on Lemmy. It elucidates user growth patterns, revealing significant registration spikes and centralization trends within decentralized structures. A sentiment analysis with VADER, incorporating a dataset of 48,272 comments from before and after the migration, depicts a predominantly positive sentiment towards Lemmy and criticisms of Reddit. A comprehensive survey with 354 responses from major Lemmy communities validates and supplements the findings, shedding light on users’ motivations, adaptation experiences, and long-term intentions. Furthermore, qualitative interviews with 16 purposively sampled users offer in-depth insights into individual experiences, community dynamics, and perspectives on decentralization and engagement. This study reveals a promising future for Lemmy, highlighting its adaptability and users’ commitment, and contributes valuable insights to the discourse on the sustainability and growth of decentralized platforms in a dynamic digital landscape. Keywords: Decentralized Platforms; Lemmy; Sentiment Analysis; Quantitative Data; Qualitative Data I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, has increased exponentially, with a notable surge occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these platforms are profit-focused and are predominantly controlled by corporate entities [ 1 ]. Such social media setups are commonly referred to as centralized; they are characterized by a single organization’s control over the entire platform’s structure. These platforms adopt a “company-centric” approach over a “user-centric” approach, prioritizing monetary gains through strategies, such as personalized content delivery for user retention and advertising. Consequently, they grapple with issues ranging from the propagation of echo chambers to security and privacy concerns regarding user data [ 2 ]. Due to the challenges surrounding centralized social media, there has been growing interest in embracing the “Decentralized Web” as an alternative solution. Decentralized platforms aim to address the shortcomings and concerns associated with centralized platforms by focusing on establishing an open-source, transparent, and democratic environment [ 1 , 3 ]. Several decentralized platforms have garnered significant user bases. Among these, notable platforms include Mastodon (resembling Twitter’s microblogging), Lemmy (resembling Reddit’s forum), Diaspora (offering a macroblogging social network), and Misskey (also similar to Twitter’s microblogging). Each of these software contains independent servers called instances that are capable of interacting with one another. These software and instances collectively form the Federated Universe, or “Fediverse”, a collective of web-based platforms that are federated, which means they allow users to connect and communicate with others across platforms [ 4 ]. A recent example that highlights users’ incentives to shift from centralized social media to platforms within the Fediverse is related to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Subsequent changes, including the rebranding to “X”, left a growing cohort of users dissatisfied. Many of these users migrated to Mastodon [ 5 - 6 ]. From October to November 2022, Mastodon experienced exponential growth, with active monthly users skyrocketing from 300,000 to 2.5 million. However, this peak was followed by a subsequent decline to approximately 1.7 million users after a few months [ 7 - 8 ]. In July 2023, Twitter was renamed to “X”, and Elon Musk introduced changes like mandatory login to view tweets and read limits of posts per user. These shifts triggered another exodus from Twitter, leading to yet another surge in Mastodon’s user base [ 9 - 10 ]. Given this context, the focal point of this paper centers on Lemmy, a platform that has experienced a similar phenomenon. In June 2023, the community aggregator Reddit began to charge access to its data through its API, thereby causing third-party applications such as Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader to become unsustainable and shut down [ 11 ]. As a response, many “subreddits” (communities within Reddit) gathered in protest by organizing a temporary blackout. Lemmy then appeared as an alternative, causing it to grow suddenly in popularity like Mastodon. However, like Mastodon, after sometime the Lemmy userbase stabilized [ 12 ]. Mastodon, the largest decentralized software [ 13 ], has garnered noticeable attention in academic research [ 14 ], but Lemmy still remains relatively uncharted territory within academic discourse. This research paper contributes to