Reddit

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The Reddit Alien: Reddit's logo

Reddit.com is a social news site in which users, known as Redditors, can post questions, opinions, user generated content, and links relevant to the interests of the users. Redditors then can “Upvote” or “Downvote” the submission to make then it move toward the front page, the most frequented part of the site. The user who submits the post also receives one point of “Karma” for the each of the Upvotes the post receives, and a negative point of Karma for each Downvote. Karma is amassed in each user’s profile, showing “how much good the user has done for the Reddit community.” The sense of community plays a large role in allowing the actions of Redditors to act charitably and use Reddit as a place to cultivate and gain social capital.

History

Launched in 2005, the company was started by two University of Virginia grads, Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman in the Y Combinator program. Two others, Christopher Slowe and Aaron Swartz, later joined the team. Conde Nast, owner of Wired Magazine and other popular magazines/websites, acquired Reddit in October of 2006. Reddit competitors included Digg, Netscape and Newsvine. In February 2008, Reddit began experimenting with allowing users to create their own ‘subreddits,’ such as where users post creative and well-designed products, a place for odd facts that users come across in their daily readings, and a place for users to express their anger with comics. In September 2011, the company changed hands from Conde Nast to its parent company, Advanced Publications. As part of the new structure, Reddit incorporated and now reports directly to a board, including Alexis Ohanian , Bob Sauerberg (President), Joe Simon (Chief Technology Officer) from Conde Nast, and Andrew Siegel (Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development) from Advance.

A screenshot of Reddit's home page

Structure

The content of Reddit is decided solely on how users vote. An Upvote makes either the submission or comment rise closer to the top of the page, while Downvotes act in the opposite way. The front page of Reddit contains the submissions that were most Upvoted by Redditors, and is the most prominent and trafficked page on the site.

Sub-Reddits

Reddit is comprised of hundreds of sub-Reddits, each narrowly focused on a specific topic or interest. It takes a link for sub-reddit pages 30 days to appear on a users homescreen. Some large Sub-Reddits include ‘world news’, ‘pictures’, and ‘funny’, which are displayed on the front page for all new users. Local Reddits also exist for many major universities and cities around the world, allowing users to schedule and generate interest in meetups.

Karma System

The Karma system acts as a cumulative recommender system in which users receive points, or Karma, for their input to the site. One positive point of Karma is given for each Upvote received, and one negative point is given for each Downvote. A user’s Karma score is displayed in their profile page, separated into two categories, comments and submissions. An upvote is given for users with new, creative, or well-thought out posts or comments. Downvotes are given for multiple reasons as well, such as breaking rules of Redditequette, ofensive material, or irrelevant information. Downvoting due to disagreement of opinion is frowned upon, despite the occurrence happening frequently.

Controversy

Some users believe the Karma system causes problems stemming from people who post or comment in agreement with the majority opinions on the site purely for the purpose of acquiring Karma. According to a comment from a user who has since deleted his or her account, “Reddit is corrupt, karma invalidates valid opinions in lieu of popularity, in this sense Reddit is a celebration of lowest common denominator thought pieces.” Another concern with this points system is the existence of users who “re-post” material to gain Karma. Re-posting is a problem in an environment like Reddit, because it causes content to be recycled and prevents new content from reaching the front page. A small population of users believe that Reddit would have better and more original content if the Karma system were removed.

A good example of a current trend of Reddit which is believed by some to be a negative impact on the overall community is when a user posting something on the anniversary of their joining the website, known colloquially as a CakeDay due to the slice of birthday cake that appears by their username. The expected Karma gain has reached such levels of awareness that people even title their posts indicating they don't have any standard CakeDay submissions (funny pictures of pets, for example) but have adlibbed a submission in hopes of taking advantage of the anniversary such as "I don't have anything for my CakeDay, but here is a picture of my cat" and that submission has reached the front page of Reddit.

Reddit as a Community

Reddit has developed a sense of community that holds members responsible for his or her actions, going as far as organizing meetings in real life for reddit members to meet and socialize. Ethical behavior comes along with this sense of community, as people feel a social responsibility to according to their ethical norms adjusted to the environment. A moral framework called Reddiquette is one way that allows users to adapt to the new moral objects present on Reddit.

Charity Endeavors

• In 2010, members from the Christian subreddit and the Atheism subreddit joined arms to raise money for the World's Vision's Clean Water Fund and Doctors without Borders.
• In October 2010, reddit members were exposed to a young girl with huntington's disease who was taunted by her neighbors. Reddit users banded together to provide the girl with a shopping spree.
• Reddit began the largest Secret Santa program in existence, which is still in use today.
• Reddit raised over $600,000 for Stephen Colbert's "Mach to Keep Fear Alive".
• Recently, Hillary Adams, the special needs daughter of Arkansas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams put a link to a video of her father abusing her on Reddit and received massive response. Reddit allowed her to break her silence and show who her father really is.

Reddiquette

According to a statement on the webpage, Reddiquette is “not meant to be a list of commandments”, but more of “an informal expression of reddit’s community values” that helps shape what ethical behavior is on the site. Reddiquette is an extensive set of morals, organized in a set of what to do, which is comprised of twenty items, and a set of what not to do, made up of thirty-seven entries. Some subjects covered in the section of what not to do include personal privacy, complaints about re-posts, pleading for votes, and comments that lack content. In the “Please do” section, some topics covered are linking directly to the page of the original source of content, and moderating on the basis of quality, not opinion.

Ethics on Reddit

Reddit has created an environment in which many users act ethically, fostered by the presence of a community that works to make Reddit a better place. Users work together to suppress hateful speech, act charitably, and help fellow Redditors out with either advice or favors. Several sub-Reddits allow users to ask for favors from other users, including /r/favors, and /r/randomactsofpizza, a Reddit in which users can donate pizza to less fortunate Redditors.

Haiti Earthquake

Over the year, Reddit has done a number of charitable acts such as donating $185,356.70 USD to Haiti after the earthquake in January 2010. As well as donating over $600,000 USD to Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive..

/r/jailbait

There also exists controversial content on Reddit which has come under scrutiny for being immoral. In September 2011, Reddit garnered negative media attention for its sub-Reddit r/jailbait. R/jailbait displays photos of non-nude underage girls in sexually suggestive clothing or positions. Most of these photos were taken from friends of the girls on their Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites. Anderson Cooper featured it on his show Anderson Cooper 360, criticizing it for spreading a form of child pornography and arguing its lack of protection for the privacy of these young girls. This eventually led to the sub-Reddit being shut down with the site administrators claiming it to threaten "the structural integrity of the greater Reddit community."

Anderson Cooper

The Reddit community backlashed Anderson Cooper and the media with explanations ranging from freedom of speech and press to the photos not being illegal. Other distasteful sub-Reddits such as r/beatingwomen and r/picsofdeadbabies were also discussed being banned for the same reason as r/jailbait, but currently are still running.

"Karma Whoring" and "Circlejerking"

User submitted posts can receive positive karma for thoughtful or entertaining contributions to the community and negative karma for disruptive behavior. Due to the massive amount of content available to share on the internet, it is common for many users to "re-post" popular images, viral videos, and news stories to multiple sub-forums or "sub-Reddits", leading to a decline in quality of content on the front page of Reddit.

Users re-post material for a variety of reasons, but the community opinion on this claim is that either the user had no knowledge of the original post or that the user is simply "karma whoring" - when a user purposefully re-posts a popular link that garners lots of positive karma and attention. Although accruing lots of positive karma has no monetary value, the allure of attaining more karma ultimately can lead to a decline in original content.

Reddit users are also known to "circlejerk", where likeminded users posting in a thread keep commenting positive complements towards each other and continually "upvote" their posts, so as to increase the amount of karma. Circlejerking, as it were, also leads to a decline in original and thoughtful content that Reddit holds itself in such high regard.

References

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