Difference between revisions of "Reddit"

Revision as of 13:31, 18 April 2016

reddit.com

"Reddit" Site Type Social Bookmarking Open Source Project Launch Date 2005 Status Active Product Line News Website Social Bookmarking Platform Cloud Service Android Tablet Android App iOs App Website www.reddit.com

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. However, ethical issues with Reddit arises from the existence of "circle jerks," where homogeneous, hyper-polarized opinions are socially acceptable and reinforced. Moreover, the ease of user account creation allows a single user to obtain multiple identities in a single online community, leading to questions of authenticity, embodiment, and identity. ^[2] And biased moderation may present a barrier to freedom of speech.

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.^[3]

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 (and ultimately the front page, the most popular page on the site). Downvotes act in the opposite way, moving the article away from the top of the page. 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. 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.” ^[4] Therefore, users with a plethora of Upvotes gain credibility within the Reddit community. Although a user's identity is linked to the user if they wish to be an active member of the community, a registered Reddit account is not required to access most of Reddit's content. Anyone who visits the site will experience the same read–only access as anyone who is a registered account user. If a user intends to participate in upvoting and downvoting submission, submitting links, or commenting, then they must become a registered user. ^[5]

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. Anyone can create a sub-Reddit, which enhances the diversity and creates a stronger sense of community on the site. Often, a sub-Reddit name is prefixed with /r/ to signify its sub-Reddit status.

Karma System

Upvote and Downvote arrows are used to rank posts to the site^[6].

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. A user's Karma score indicates to the Reddit community that the submitter is an active user. Karma scores also indicate how well-respected a user is by the Reddit community. The higher the karma, the more they are respected and less likely to be considered a spammer. ^[7] 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. See: "Circlejerking"

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.” ^[8] 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.

Sample Cakeday posts attempting to gain Karma ^[9].

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 posts 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^[10]. An expectation of Karma began because other Redditors would see the cake symbol and Upvote the CakeDay user automatically. 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 but have adlibbed a submission in hopes of taking advantage of the anniversary. These submissions have reached the front page of Reddit and many complain that these types of posts do not add any valuable content to the site.^[11].

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^[12]. Ethical behavior comes along with this sense of community, as people feel a social responsibility to act according to the ethical norms created for 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^[13].
• Reddit began the largest Secret Santa program in existence in 2009 and the program is still in use today. Gifts are mainly exchanged twice a year, but exchanges can be set-up at any time a user desires ^[14].
• Reddit raised over $600,000 for Stephen Colbert's "Mach to Keep Fear Alive"^[15].
• 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. ^[16] 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 revealing personal information, compromising others' personal privacy, complaining about re-posts, pleading for votes, and posting 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

Over the course of the maturation process of Reddit as a community, much of the intellectualism that originally existed in what was the grassroots community has deteriorated. Reddit lost much of its credibility and with it, many of its more objective users. Today, the Reddit community is largely homogeneous, which presents specific ethical concerns.

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. ^[17] 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.

/r/ShitRedditSays

This sub-Reddit, often simply referred to as SRS, exists to point out and aggregate the most hateful and distasteful comments found on Reddit. It is one example of how users attempt to police the site's content. Users post comments they have found on various posts that have received at least a net count of +10 Upvotes. The types of comments recorded often involve instances of misogyny, sexism, racism or other slurs targeting specific groups of people or sensitive topics ^[18].

There has been a backlash against this sub-Reddit where other Redditors accuse SRS subscribers of being bigots. They consider SRS to be a counterculture to the main Reddit culture and view this sub-Reddit as restricting free speech. Bots have been created that comment on posts that have been flagged by SRS with mocking posts of their own. These posts say something similar to "Your comment has been marked as offensive by SRS's elite members - good for you!" and intend to make SRS's concerns into a joke ^[19]. A petition has been created, somewhat ironically, to remove SRS from the site with proponents citing restrictions of free speech and a "malevolent agenda" ^[20].

Haiti Earthquake

Over the years, Reddit has done a number of charitable acts such as donating $185,356.70 USD to Haiti after the earthquake in January 2010.^[21] As well as donating over $600,000 USD to Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive.^[22].

/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." ^[23] The aforementioned SRS had a large part in bringing this sub-Reddit to the attention of the general public.^[24] The creator of the subreddit, Michael Brutsch, admitted that the subreddit came about because he was addicted to Reddit, and the karma you can receive from posting on the site.^[25]

Anderson Cooper

The Reddit community criticized 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 in such high regard, since less popular opinions are lost due to downvotes.

Another trend centered around abuse of the upvote/downvote system is the abundance of similar posts across numerous comment threads across a span of time. Often, these posts are upvoted because a majority recognizes them, which often garners more attention over originality. Common occurrences include making light of nobody buying WinRar, Ron Burgundy's line from Anchorman, "Well, that escalated quickly", or any other number of often repeated phrases.

Controversial Issues

Reddit has provided the internet with a platform where "sub-Reddits" can be easily created and contributed to by all users. As it is a fairly open-ended social network, certain ethical issues concerning illegal activities in the real world can be openly expressed. For example, in most places, the possession and consumption of drugs is illegal, and yet Reddit has an entire "sub-Reddit" dedicated to marijuana products and paraphernalia. This also provides information on places where the items featured can be sourced from, which is where the controversy is introduced. Additionally, some "sub-Reddits" include pornographic material. Because Reddit is an open source project, they do not have as many employees to monitor and censor content in the same way as other large social media companies. Additionally, many Reddit users feel that the essence of Reddit is compromised through censorship of the content. Many Reddit users feel that the audience base is compromised of users who do not want content to be monitored, and users can refer to other social media platforms if they want to view censored content. The only way to 'block' this aspect of Reddit would be to censor the site entirely. Therefore, if a region was strictly against the expression of substance abuse on the internet, Reddit as a whole would have to be blocked and the freedom of expression on the internet would be infringed upon.

Authenticity in the Reddit Community

Creating a Reddit account is a relatively easy task in which no personally identify information is required, and there is no limit on the number of accounts that a single user can make. Consequently, many users "own" multiple accounts where they portray multiple online identities. A common phenomenon that has arisen out of users having multiple Reddit accounts is the creation of novelty accounts. Many users then use their novelty accounts for making puns or referencing memes. Multiple account creation questions the authenticity of the user, as they can use different accounts for different purposes; therefore, many users do no maintain a true sense of self among the Reddit community. Despite this issue of authenticity, most Reddit community members expect some level of truthfulness among other users. ^[26] In addition, this allowance of multiple accounts leads to "throwaway accounts", which serve as an way for regular members to anonymously post by using an account they never expect to post personal information from. In doing so, they attempt to keep embarrassing or overly personal information from being associated with their main Reddit account. Despite this shroud, many users still trust and upvote stories posted by throwaway accounts, even though their authenticity is in no way verifiable.

See Also

External Links

References

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