Difference between revisions of "Reddit"

Revision as of 04:10, 10 April 2017

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. The two wanted to create a site where users could access the most shared links on the Internet, essentially a "front page" of the Internet. With an investment from Y Combinator, Huffman and Ohanian started working on Reddit in Medford, Massachusetts. ^[3] 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. 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.^[4] Also, in May of 2016 Reddit ahiggz, a Reddit product manager, posted about how they would be shutting down Alien Blue, which was a mobile client for Reddit. However, they would be releasing a mobile version of Reddit, and they told users to comment their favorite features from Alien Blue^[5].

A screenshot of Reddit's home page

Structure

The content of Reddit is decided based 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 Reddit users. Reddit is comprised of hundreds of sub-Reddits, each forum narrowly focused on a specific, shared interest. Some popular sub-Reddits include ‘world news’, ‘pictures’, and ‘funny’, which are displayed on the front page for all new users. Anyone can create a sub-Reddit, which enhances the diversity and creates a stronger sense of community on the site.

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 how active a user is as well as how relatively 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]

Reddit as a Community

Reddit has developed a sense of community that holds members responsible for their actions, going as far as organizing meetings in real life for Reddit members to meet and socialize^[8]. 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. Reddiquette is “an informal expression of Reddit's community values” that helps shape what ethical behavior is on the site. ^[9] 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 reposts, 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 many of its more objective users. Today, the Reddit community is largely homogeneous, which presents specific ethical concerns. On the other hand, Reddit has created an environment in which many users act ethically, fostered social pressures encouraging that works to make Reddit a better place. Certain sub-communities work together to suppress hateful speech, act charitably, and help fellow Redditors out with either advice or favors. ^[10] Due to the fact that Reddit is one of the most popular social news sites, many users will copy content that was original from Reddit and post it on other social news applications. Often you will see that content from Reddit is passed around but it is never the same person who is distributing the content. Because of this the original poster of the content does not always necessarily get the credit or recognition.

The Daily Me & Group think

Many of the regular users on popular subreddits are individuals that share in the liking of the same type of content and the same type of content discussion. When groups of homogeneous individuals curate the types of news and content one another like, the likelihood and risk of the hyper-polarization of radical ideals increases. Cass Sunstein (2001) calls for more randomly curated news and content distribution platforms, where users are confronted with content they wouldn't have otherwise sought for. ^[11]

"Karma Whoring"

User submitted posts can receive positive karma for thoughtful or entertaining contributions to the community and negative karma for disruptive behavior. It is common for many users to "re-post" popular images, viral videos, and news stories with the hope of farming upvotes from users to whom the reported content is new. This practice is referred to as "karma whoring"

"Circle Jerking"

A "Circle Jerk" is referring to the dynamics within an infosphere where the commentary of likeminded users leads to chains of responses and upvotes to one another's posts regardless of the quality of the comment. "Circlejerking" leads to a decline in original and thoughtful content.

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. Using Reddit on multiple accounts allows regular Reddit community members to post with increased anonymity, which allows them to keep embarrassing or overly personal information from being associated with their main Reddit account.The ability to create multiple accounts raises questions about authenticity. Users counter this through the maintenance of groups norms like trust, respect, rules and consequences to the violation of those rules. ^{[12] [13]}

Ethical/Unethical Sub-reddit Examples

/r/fakeid

/r/fakeid connects vendors of to buyers interested in a fake ID. This seems not only ethically convoluted, but illegal. /r/fakeid has rules to protect all participants' identity. Personal information is prohibited, information about specific orders is kept confidential, and buyers enjoy affordances like access to a choice between a fake id from various states. Some vendors go so far as to communicate to buyers through encrypted emails and accept payment only in bitcoin. While this community has existed for 6 years, as of April 2016, it has not been removed, despite having over 10,000 subreddit subscribers.^[14]

/r/ShitRedditSays

/r/shitredditsays is a subreddit where users aggregate hateful and distasteful comments posted on Reddit. An attempt to include users in the policing of the site, users post the types of comments portraying instances of misogyny, sexism, racism or other slurs targeting specific groups of people or sensitive topics ^[15].

/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, arguing about its borderline child pornographic aesthetic and its lack of privacy protection for young girls. /r/jailbait was shut down by site administrators who claimed it threatened "the structural integrity of the greater Reddit community." ^[16] 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.

Conclusion

Reddit has provided the internet with a platform where E-communities can congregate around both popular and obscure topics. As a fairly open-ended social network, even ethically convoluted interests can result in a forum, discussion-based sub-Reddit. While employing several moderators to monitor the content, these mods are seen as bias-laden, imperfect, and at odds with certain values of the Reddit community, such as freedom of speech. No E-community is perfect or free from ethical challenges, and Reddit is no exception. However, at its core, Reddit is trying to enable geographically disparate users to engage is the community, civic discussion, and intellectualism, which is a fairly noble undertaking in and of itself.

See Also

External Links

References

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