• JasSmith@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    California has many of laws on the books which grandfather workers under various statutes of de facto employment. Even contracts can be voided. No contract is necessary for an employment relationship to exist.

      • kru@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        That’s a point in favor of reddit, but a small one. As my company’s labor lawyer enjoys saying, “You can’t contract around the law.” Meaning, an agreement can be nullified by a court that finds the agreement is in violation of a law.

        • GankTopPlz@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Right, but you also can’t create a work agreement where one was explicitly denied. It’s like mowing your neighbors lawn then asking them to pay you, but they told you they wouldn’t pay you if you did it before you started. It’s the same with the 3rd party app devs too. While I think reddits actions are insane and detrimental to the health of the site, they are fully in their right to deny those devs access to their API and their site as a whole.

          • kru@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            It’s a bit more complex than that. Reddit hires staff to do moderation. If moderation was done solely by users, and never by paid staff, your analogy would hold more water. However, because there is a mix of paid and unpaid labor doing the same tasks, there is enough gray area that a court could weigh in either direction (although I think it is unlikely that one would find for the mods, personally).
            A better analogy would be that reddit had a landscaping business, and hired some workers to do landscaping, and you just tagged along and did unpaid work for several years. Sure, the owner did tell you he wasn’t ever going to pay you for your work, and you agreed to that. But the owner sold and profited off the labor you provided alongside his paid laborers. He did this knowingly.
            There may be a case there.

            • GankTopPlz@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Reddit hires staff to do moderation

              and if your neighbor hires a lawn care service, you should be paid?

              • Bluskale@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                But it this case, it’s more like… you’re mowing your neighbor’s lawn at his invitation, you have to follow his guidelines or be fired, and when you mow his lawn he saves money because he doesn’t have to have the lawn care service come.

                • GankTopPlz@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  mods had unilateral control over their communities until very recently. short of doing anything illegal or breaking TOS, mods could ban whoever they wanted for any reason. what stopped this was the fact that communities would riot if mods were to ban random users they simply didn’t like. look at places like /r/latestagecapitalism, /r/blackpeopletwitter, /r/witchesvepatriarchy, or /r/conservative, they will all aggressively ban users or block users from posting if they do not go through verification or disagree with the group think. and the community loves it because they’re stuck in their echo chambers.

      • deejay4am@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It may surprise you to learn that if an EULA/TOS and an actual law conflict, then the law wins.

        Reddit can’t say “nuh-uh doesn’t count if you use our site!” anymore than someone can sign a contract saying it’s ok for you to murder them.

        So the real question is do any of these laws actually allow for the conditions set forth by Reddit to be considered employment?