Latest / Mini Scroll / The Story of Reddit: Why "The Front Page of The Internet" Took 20 Years to Hit Its Stride (Maybe)

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The Story of Reddit: Why "The Front Page of The Internet" Took 20 Years to Hit Its Stride (Maybe) · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  In 2005, two senior college students, Steve Huffman and
• 0:04
  Alexis Ohanian, came up with a business idea.
• 0:07
  The two were college roommates, with Steve studying computer
• 0:10
  science and Alexis majoring in business and history.
• 0:13
  Their idea was to create an online service that would allow
• 0:15
  customers to pre-order food from restaurants called My Mobile
• 0:19
  Menu. After going to a lecture by
• 0:21
  influential entrepreneur Paul Graham, they met up with him
• 0:24
  privately and pitched him the idea.
• 0:26
  Quote, let's hear it, Paul said to Alexis and Steve after they
• 0:29
  SAT down for coffee. It turned out to be My Mobile
• 0:32
  Menu, a menu app that would let users place orders at
• 0:35
  restaurants ahead of time. Paul liked the idea and later
• 0:39
  invited the duo to come back and pitch it formally at his new
• 0:42
  program, Y Combinator. They assumed it was pretty much
• 0:45
  a done deal, their ticket to building a real company, Seth
• 0:48
  Feigerman writes for Mashable. But the two soon faced concern
• 0:51
  about their idea, with many at Y Combinator expressing
• 0:55
  reservations due to the limited accessibility of apps and
• 0:58
  smartphones. At the time, it was was 2005,
• 1:01
  after all. Nevertheless, Graham saw
• 1:03
  potential, and Steven Alexis. He suggested they pivot from
• 1:06
  mobile to browsers. In a meeting quote, they talked
• 1:09
  about frustrations with sifting through noise on websites like
• 1:12
  slash dot, a tech news site, and Delicious, a social bookmarking
• 1:16
  service. Feigerman continues for
• 1:18
  Mashable. Then they turned their attention
• 1:20
  to the popular section of Delicious, which collected the
• 1:23
  most bookmarked links. They thought there was something
• 1:25
  more to be done with that. What the Internet needed was a
• 1:28
  website that highlighted the most shared links, not just the
• 1:32
  most bookmarked links, making it easier for users to discover the
• 1:35
  content. And so the idea was born.
• 1:38
  This is the story of Reddit, the internet's greatest example of
• 1:42
  how a website can attract millions of users every single
• 1:46
  day with no idea how to turn a devoted community into a viable
• 1:51
  business model for Centennial World.
• 1:53
  I'm Lauren Meisner and this is Infinite Scroll, a podcast about
• 1:57
  Internet culture, the creator economy and how social media is
• 2:00
  shaping Jen Zed, welcome back to Infinite Scroll.
• 2:03
  Everyone, please, I'm so sorry. Forgive me that I didn't have an
• 2:07
  episode last week. It's been a crazy couple of
• 2:10
  weeks. And one day I will tell you the
• 2:12
  story of everything that happened these last couple
• 2:14
  weeks. But please know it wasn't just,
• 2:16
  you know, because I didn't want to bring you guys an episode.
• 2:18
  There was a real reason for it. But I am back.
• 2:21
  I am ready. Everything is all good now and
• 2:24
  I'm so excited to talk about Reddit with you guys today.
• 2:27
  But as always, Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.
• 2:30
  It helps me so much. It helps me grow.
• 2:32
  It helps me keep going. Please sign up to our
• 2:34
  newsletter, which is also called Infinite Scroll.
• 2:37
  On Fridays, we round up the five biggest thing pieces on the
• 2:40
  Internet that week and join our Geneva group, also called
• 2:43
  Infinite Scroll, where you can chat with other people who are
• 2:46
  obsessed with Internet culture and creator drama.
• 2:48
  NT, and you can chat with me. OK, I have two reviews that I
• 2:52
  wanted to read today. I love when I get your reviews,
• 2:55
  especially because these last couple of weeks, like I said,
• 2:58
  were so wild. So it just brought me solace to
• 3:01
  know that you guys are loving my content and that we're going to
• 3:05
  keep going. OK, so Rosetta from the US says
• 3:08
  I love the new format. This is one of the first
• 3:10
  podcasts I ever listened to. Oh my God, that is so sweet.
• 3:13
  And can I just say it's amazing for someone who is trying to
• 3:16
  stay away from social media. I love to listen to this podcast
• 3:19
  to know what's going on. Lauren is such a great host and
• 3:21
  I feel like the podcast isn't too saturated with information.
• 3:24
  I find myself wanting to listen to more each and every day.
• 3:27
  Thank you so much Rosetta. That is so sweet.
• 3:29
  And then I got this DM that I wanted to read from Emma.
• 3:33
  So she said I just gave a 5 star review on Spotify, but I'm a
• 3:36
  loser who couldn't figure out how to provide text with a
• 3:38
  review so I was sending this instead.
• 3:40
  OK, so the way that you send a Spotify review, for anyone that
• 3:42
  doesn't know, it's not like an official written review.
• 3:45
  So you can like star rate obviously, but then also under
• 3:48
  each episode it will ask a question like what did you think
• 3:50
  of this episode or something like that.
• 3:52
  It's like Q&A section and that's where people are like quote, UN
• 3:54
  quote leaving us reviews. It's on like individual
• 3:56
  episodes. Anyway, she said Hi Lauren.
• 3:58
  Just wanted to say how much I love the podcast.
• 4:01
  I've been listening for a while. I just discovered infinite
• 4:03
  scroll about a year ago and very quickly binge the whole back
• 4:05
  catalogue. No, no, you guys know that's
• 4:08
  like my worst nightmare lately. I've absolutely been adoring the
• 4:11
  new format of the show. I really look forward to the
• 4:13
  deep dives and I love mini scrolls so much.
• 4:15
  I try to save it for the start of my commute home from the
• 4:17
  office each evening, but sometimes I can't wait and have
• 4:19
  to listen before then. Oh my God, thank you.
• 4:22
  The breadth of topics, research, and analysis is so intelligent
• 4:25
  and fascinating, and while I listen to a lot of podcasts that
• 4:28
  discuss Internet culture, Infinite Scroll is by far my
• 4:31
  favorite. I so so appreciate having a
• 4:33
  space to think about all the best chronically online girly
• 4:35
  things that get overlooked elsewhere.
• 4:37
  Thank you so much and I can't wait to keep listening.
• 4:39
  Oh my God you guys, I can't. You are so sweet, thank you so
• 4:43
  much. Upon creating the idea of
• 4:50
  Reddit, Steve and Alexis were granted $12,000 to get that
• 4:54
  project off the ground and the platform was officially launched
• 4:57
  on June 23rd, 2005. Reddit was initially marketed as
• 5:01
  the front page of the Internet, designed for users to share top
• 5:04
  articles from major news outlets and websites, providing a
• 5:07
  centralized platform to access a wide range of content without
• 5:11
  the need to visit each site individually.
• 5:14
  This strategy led to a popularity based algorithm that
• 5:17
  many of us have come to a associate with Reddit through
• 5:20
  the upvote and downvote feature quote.
• 5:22
  This is a key way that Reddit differs from other social media
• 5:25
  and news aggregation sites. It instructs users not to
• 5:28
  indicate whether they like or dislike content, but whether it
• 5:31
  should be promoted or demoted in the context of a discussion,
• 5:35
  Allison Eldridge writes for the Encyclopedia Britannica.
• 5:38
  But for this type of algorithm and platform to thrive, Reddit
• 5:41
  needed users, and getting them on board was a struggle at
• 5:45
  first. In the weeks after launching,
• 5:47
  Steve and Alexis created fake accounts to post on Reddit so
• 5:50
  that the website looked active. Quote Sometime in August, Steve
• 5:54
  went nearly a day without working on Reddit, a rarity for
• 5:57
  him. Before going to bed that night,
• 5:59
  he finally thought to check the site and noticed there was new
• 6:02
  content on the front page that hadn't been posted by him or
• 6:04
  Alexis. That, he says quote, was the
• 6:07
  biggest turning point, Feigerman writes for Mashable.
• 6:10
  While Reddit was slowly building its user base, it would take a
• 6:13
  while before it would become a genuine competitor to other
• 6:16
  aggregator sites like slash, dot and Delicious.
• 6:19
  One website named Dig was perhaps Reddit's most direct
• 6:22
  competitor. Dig actually predates Reddit.
• 6:25
  Launching at the end of 2004, it shared a similar concept to
• 6:29
  Reddit, featuring a list of links that users could either
• 6:31
  Quote Dig or bury. At the time, Dig was an Internet
• 6:35
  darling, boasting some of the most impressive traffic numbers
• 6:39
  for a tech startup. At its peak Quote, Dig's
• 6:42
  traffic, according to comScore data, climbed to 29.1 million
• 6:46
  unique monthly visitors in January 2000. 2010 Rachel Metz
• 6:50
  writes for MIT Technology Review While DIG was more successful in
• 6:54
  its early years, Steve and Alexis continued working on the
• 6:57
  platform, bringing on other members of the team, including
• 7:00
  Christopher Sloe and Aaron Swartz.
• 7:02
  Both were participants in the Y Combinator program, where Swartz
• 7:05
  even agreed to merge his company, Infogamee, with Reddit.
• 7:09
  Infogamee was a platform for building websites.
• 7:12
  Swartz merged his company with Reddit to assist the founders
• 7:15
  with their site in exchange for their help with his own project.
• 7:19
  These four were the only employees of Reddit until it was
• 7:22
  acquired by Conde Nast the following year in 2006.
• 7:26
  In the same Mashable article, Feigerman notes that the desire
• 7:29
  to sell Reddit arose from fears of the platform failing and the
• 7:33
  founders potentially missing out on the rewards of their hard
• 7:36
  work, according to Feigerman. Steve said quote Dig was kicking
• 7:40
  our asses. There were a bazillion other
• 7:41
  sites doing what we were doing. Me, Alexis and Paul came to the
• 7:45
  conclusion that we should sell this thing before we're dead.
• 7:48
  Let's get some money out of this thing before it falls apart.
• 7:51
  Conde Nast ended up acquiring Reddit for $10 million in
• 7:54
  October 2006, a fraction of what Reddit is worth today.
• 7:58
  Looking back on the acquisition now, Alexis has spoken about how
• 8:02
  the deal was a mistake. Quote.
• 8:03
  The deal was months in the making and I wish I'd had more
• 8:06
  advisors around the table giving me more perspective on the sale.
• 8:09
  I thought I was getting away with something because for 16
• 8:12
  months of work, I was getting more money than my parents had
• 8:15
  made their entire working lives. He shared via X in 20 20.
• 8:19
  I wish I'd had an investor tell me there were other options like
• 8:22
  raising a Series A and there would be a path to much greater
• 8:25
  things given how fast the audience was growing at the
• 8:28
  time. When our engineers had basically
• 8:30
  stopped working on the product after the acquisition, the
• 8:33
  Reddit team moved from San Francisco to Boston to continue
• 8:36
  working on the site. This did lead to some tension
• 8:39
  among the team, where Swartz was opposed to the acquisition from
• 8:42
  the get go, saying that he didn't want to work for a
• 8:45
  corporation. Swartz later departed Reddit in
• 8:47
  2007. While the acquisition was
• 8:50
  indicative of Reddit's potential for success, a Tech Crunch
• 8:53
  article from the time highlights how Reddit was simultaneously
• 8:56
  lagging behind other similar platforms.
• 8:58
  Quote Reddit is a social news site that has always played
• 9:01
  second fiddle to Dig. Although Reddit does have an
• 9:04
  active and loyal user base, users praise Reddit for having a
• 9:07
  very quick load time and no advertising like Dig.
• 9:10
  New stories on Reddit are submitted by users, and other
• 9:14
  users upvote or downvote their story.
• 9:16
  Michael Arrington writes Three years after to the acquisition,
• 9:19
  Steve and Alexis announced that they would be leaving the
• 9:22
  company. Quote the news doesn't come as a
• 9:24
  huge surprise. Jason Kincaid wrote for Tech
• 9:27
  Crunch up the time. It will still have been three
• 9:29
  years to the day that Conde Nast acquired Reddit, and the
• 9:32
  founders likely had a three-year contract as part of the deal.
• 9:35
  Reddit's post notes that while Co founder Chris Slow's contract
• 9:39
  also expired, he'll be staying on board.
• 9:41
  Slow eventually did end up leaving in 2010.
• 9:44
  It's clear that for a long time, Reddit was not anticipated to
• 9:48
  succeed, especially when compared to its competitors.
• 9:51
  But eventually, Reddit began differentiating itself, catching
• 9:55
  its competitors like Dig by surprise.
• 9:57
  This first started when Reddit started prioritizing discussion
• 10:00
  through an engaged user base. Reddit added the ability to
• 10:04
  comment on posts as early as 2005, with the platform later
• 10:07
  introducing subreddits in 2008. These topics specific threads
• 10:12
  have become a staple of today's Internet, according to
• 10:15
  Feigerman. Owen Brine, the developer who
• 10:17
  built Diggs original website, said that quote subreddits was a
• 10:21
  feature that made them beat us. On top of this, Dig's failure
• 10:25
  did partially pave the way for Reddit's success.
• 10:28
  Back in 2010, Dig released an updated version of the platform
• 10:32
  known as Dig V4. Dig had undergone several
• 10:35
  redesigns previously, with V4 primarily aimed at making the
• 10:39
  platform more quote UN quote social.
• 10:41
  Following the lead of other platforms like Twitter and
• 10:43
  Facebook, quote Digg V4 is the increased emphasis on social.
• 10:47
  When you first sign in, you'll be walked through a flow
• 10:50
  inviting you to begin following other users, both from a series
• 10:53
  of lists curated by Digg and from friends on your Facebook,
• 10:56
  Twitter and Google accounts which you can easily connect
• 10:58
  with. Jason Kincaid writes for
• 11:00
  TechCrunch. The update also allowed
• 11:02
  publishers to have their stories submitted automatically,
• 11:05
  diminishing the influence of users who previously submitted
• 11:08
  links. Additionally, the Barry option
• 11:11
  was also removed, which had given users some control over
• 11:14
  for what appeared on the homepage.
• 11:16
  While this feature was sometimes misused to suppress differing
• 11:20
  viewpoints, its removal further reduced user control over
• 11:24
  content. V4 also introduced a section on
• 11:27
  site called Quote My News that would recommend stories based on
• 11:30
  a users friends and who they followed of the My News page,
• 11:34
  Josh Lowenson writes for CNET. This page, instead of the sites
• 11:38
  top news section, became the default and one of the big
• 11:41
  reasons many longtime Dig users grew unhappy with the site and
• 11:44
  its new direction. With this update, Dig imploded.
• 11:48
  Many users migrated to competitor sites, particularly
• 11:52
  Reddit. On August 30th, 2010, Dig users
• 11:55
  staged a revolt known as Quit Dig Day, during which they voted
• 11:59
  up all links automatically submitted by Reddit through RSS.
• 12:03
  This caused Dig's front page to be dominated by links to Reddit.
• 12:08
  While many users did head over to Reddit after Dig V4 dropped,
• 12:11
  it didn't necessarily cement Reddit's place in the online in
• 12:14
  the world. As Feigerman writes for Mashable
• 12:17
  quote, Dig's demise may have shifted how the media thought
• 12:19
  about Reddit, but it didn't have much impact on the company
• 12:22
  itself. Reddit received a burst of new
• 12:24
  users for the first couple days after, but that was short lived.
• 12:28
  Traffic seemed to double on Reddit every year before Dig,
• 12:31
  and would continue to do so after Dig's redesign.
• 12:34
  There was no single defining Reddit moment, employees say.
• 12:37
  Traffic just kept growing. During this time, Reddit was
• 12:40
  still under Conde Nast. While they didn't receive as
• 12:44
  much backlash as Dig, they did have problems.
• 12:47
  Quote the people powered site struggled to fit in at Conde
• 12:50
  Nast, a magazine publishing powerhouse, Reddit often fought
• 12:53
  protracted battles to get resources needed to grow as it
• 12:56
  simultaneously sought to make more revenue from its infamously
• 12:59
  ad adverse community, Ryan Signal writes for Wired.
• 13:03
  In 2011, Reddit became operationally independent from
• 13:06
  Conde Nast as a wholly owned subsidiary called Reddit Inc,
• 13:10
  allowing the site to be more open to outside slide
• 13:13
  investment. Reddit Inc remained wholly owned
• 13:15
  by Advanced Media, the parent company of Conde Nast.
• 13:18
  With this change, Reddit had the freedom to hire ACEO, select A
• 13:22
  sales team, and chart its own course to profitability.
• 13:25
  Alexis returned to the company as a member on the board
• 13:28
  alongside Conde Nast president Bob Sauerberg and CTO Joe Simon.
• 13:33
  Yashawn Wong became CEO in 2012. He ultimately resigned in 2014,
• 13:39
  citing disagreements over relocating the company as well
• 13:42
  as quote the stress and draining nature of the role.
• 13:45
  Many people, including Alexis, credit Wong with driving the
• 13:48
  company's success, as its user base grew from 35 million to 174
• 13:54
  million during his tenure. While Reddit was on an upward
• 13:57
  trajectory during this period, the platform found itself in a
• 14:00
  number of controversies, with many boiling down to the
• 14:03
  platform's issues around anonymity and moderation.
• 14:06
  Reddit found success by allowing anonymity and pseudonyms.
• 14:10
  However, this anonymity, much like that on Tumblr and Myspace,
• 14:14
  proved to be a double edged sword.
• 14:16
  In the era where brands and platforms often collect user
• 14:19
  data, Reddit's approach offered a refreshing change for many,
• 14:22
  allowing users to limit sharing their personal information.
• 14:26
  This anonymity also gave users the confidence to engage with
• 14:29
  subreddits and share stories that they might not otherwise.
• 14:33
  One study titled The Language of LGBTQ Plus Minority Stress
• 14:37
  Experiences on Social Media, explored how LGBTQ plus
• 14:41
  individuals could have safe, candid, and semi anonymous
• 14:45
  discussions about their struggles and experiences on
• 14:48
  various subreddits. In 2018, Steve Huffman spoke
• 14:51
  about the anonymity at Reddit at the Aspen Ideas Festival,
• 14:55
  arguing that quote anonymity on Reddit actually makes using the
• 14:58
  site more like a conversation one has in real life than other
• 15:01
  sites on the Internet. When people detach from their
• 15:04
  real world identities, they can be more authentic, more true to
• 15:07
  themselves. On the flip side, however,
• 15:10
  anonymity on the platform can foster discriminatory rhetoric.
• 15:14
  Now, content is moderated on Reddit, partly by employees and
• 15:18
  partly by community specific moderators who are not Reddit
• 15:22
  employees. These mods are given the power
• 15:24
  to establish rules for what can and cannot be posted on each
• 15:28
  subreddit. In general, they will clamp down
• 15:30
  on uprisings among the general user base, delete harmful
• 15:34
  comments, inappropriate images, and manage brigades.
• 15:37
  That is mass cross subreddit invasions.
• 15:41
  Over the years, mods have frequently asked for better
• 15:43
  moderation tools and communication systems so they
• 15:46
  can better track and discipline offenders and trolls rather than
• 15:50
  essentially playing a long game of whack a mole.
• 15:53
  Having said that, it's clear that despite Reddit's moderation
• 15:56
  efforts, toxic communities continue to emerge on the
• 15:59
  platform. So let's discuss some of the
• 16:02
  most significant controversies Reddit has faced over the years.
• 16:05
  While this is not an exhaustive list, these examples highlight
• 16:09
  recurring issues that have concerned many users and social
• 16:12
  media pundits over the years as Reddit's cultural capital
• 16:15
  continues to grow. Under Wong's tenure as CEO,
• 16:18
  Reddit encountered one of its first mainstream controversies
• 16:22
  following the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15th, 2013.
• 16:26
  Internet sleuths quickly attempted to identify the
• 16:28
  culprit. Users across platforms like
• 16:31
  Reddit 4 Chan and Twitter discussed theories and
• 16:34
  scrutinized video evidence of the attack.
• 16:37
  Redditors on the R slash Find Boston Bombers subreddit
• 16:40
  eventually focused on Sunil Tripathi, a student who had been
• 16:44
  reported missing before the bombings, mistakenly identifying
• 16:48
  him as the perpetrator. Within hours, hostile commenters
• 16:52
  began bombarding Sunil's Facebook page, prompting his
• 16:54
  family to take it down, only fueling speculation on Reddit
• 16:58
  and Twitter. When the FBI identified the real
• 17:01
  suspects, it became clear that the online sleuths had wrongly
• 17:05
  accused Sunil. The moderators on the Fine
• 17:08
  Boston Bombers subreddit deleted posts implicating others, and
• 17:11
  Reddit's general manager Eric Martin issued an apology.
• 17:15
  Tragically, it was later revealed that Sunil had
• 17:18
  committed suicide before the bombings even happened.
• 17:21
  Since then, we have seen this happen time and time again.
• 17:25
  We only need to cast our minds back to the devastating murder
• 17:29
  of Gabby Petito to recognize how fictionalizing true crime can
• 17:33
  compromise ongoing investigations and hurt the
• 17:35
  victims families. But the fact that it was on
• 17:38
  Reddit, a platform that is wrought with moderation issues,
• 17:42
  only added to the mob mentality that shaped the response to the
• 17:45
  Boston bombing. The following year.
• 17:48
  In August 2014, Reddit users began posting naked pictures
• 17:52
  stolen from Apple iCloud accounts.
• 17:54
  It was even believed that some of the pictures may have
• 17:57
  constituted child pornography. Although these pictures
• 18:00
  originally appeared on 4 Chan, a subreddit called R slash The
• 18:04
  Fappening became the primary hub for sharing these images.
• 18:08
  As Timothy Lee explains for Vox Quote, Reddit itself doesn't
• 18:11
  host images, but users would upload the photos to 3rd party
• 18:14
  sites and then post links to them in R slash the Fattening.
• 18:17
  The subreddit has since been banned from the platform, but
• 18:20
  not without criticism from free speech purists.
• 18:25
  Wong's response to the situation drew significant criticism in a
• 18:28
  blog post. He shared that users quote, have
• 18:31
  the right to choose between right and wrong, good and evil,
• 18:33
  and that it is your responsibility to do so.
• 18:36
  Many users believed Wong was more concerned about copyright
• 18:39
  issues than the victims in the photos.
• 18:42
  He ultimately resigned in November 2014, and Alan Pao, who
• 18:46
  has been consulting with the company on partnerships and
• 18:48
  strategy, was installed as interim CEO.
• 18:51
  The R slash The Fappening is just one of many examples of
• 18:55
  misogynistic content and violence towards women on
• 18:57
  Reddit. For instance, deep fake porn
• 19:00
  rose to viral fame in the R slash deep fake subreddit back
• 19:03
  in 2017. Although Reddit has since banned
• 19:06
  R slash deep fakes and other related subreddits, this has not
• 19:10
  stopped other online communities from sharing and creating fake
• 19:13
  celebrity porn. Regardless, it's clear that the
• 19:16
  manosphere has long found a home on the platform, largely due to
• 19:20
  its staunch commitment to free speech.
• 19:23
  It's bad enough that Reddit has the spread of not safer work
• 19:26
  content, but it has also allowed for the spread of misogynistic
• 19:30
  ideologies. In our recent episode on Looks,
• 19:33
  Maxing and its incel Origins, we discussed how Reddit previously
• 19:37
  served as a primary host for incel content.
• 19:40
  The subreddit R/IN cells experienced significant growth
• 19:43
  over the years, expanding from 11 members in 2014 to over
• 19:48
  42,000. However, it was shut down in
• 19:51
  November 2017 for inappropriate content.
• 19:54
  Its replacement, R slash Brain Cells, quickly amassed over
• 19:58
  50,000 members before being banned in September 2019.
• 20:02
  The next major scandal that Reddit faced was the Ask Me
• 20:05
  Anything get in in 2015. The AMA Get In marked a period.
• 20:10
  When hundreds of subreddits were pulled from public view in
• 20:13
  protest against the firing of one of the platform's most
• 20:16
  prominent moderators and the company's director of talent,
• 20:19
  the term AMA get in is a play on the word Armageddon, replacing
• 20:23
  the first part with AMA, which stands for Ask Me Anything.
• 20:27
  Over the years, Reddit has hosted numerous celebrities and
• 20:30
  public figures who engaged directly with users through the
• 20:33
  AMA format. In 2012, President Barack Obama
• 20:37
  even hosted an AMA on the platform as part of his
• 20:40
  presidential campaign strategy. Victoria Taylor was instrumental
• 20:43
  in managing many of these Amas. She arranged the interviews,
• 20:47
  verified the identities of the interviewees, facilitated the
• 20:50
  Q&A sessions, and helped newcomers navigate the Reddit
• 20:53
  platform. When news broke that she had
• 20:55
  been terminated, Reddit moderators responded with vigor.
• 20:58
  According to coverage from Wired Quote.
• 21:01
  Within hours of the moderators of R/I AMA took the subreddit
• 21:05
  private, effectively shutting it down.
• 21:07
  That started a cascade of moderators shuttering dozens of
• 21:10
  subreddits, R slash ask Reddit R slash today I learned, and R
• 21:15
  slash picks among them. That is still growing, crippling
• 21:18
  a site with some 160 million users.
• 21:21
  Many more subreddits, including R slash Science, have expressed
• 21:25
  solidarity with Taylor but remained open.
• 21:27
  While most of these subreddits were reopened in a day or two,
• 21:30
  many moderators remained upset with Reddit's management.
• 21:34
  Alexis, in his position as executive chairman, took quote
• 21:37
  full responsibility for the revolt and admitted the
• 21:40
  situation was handled poorly. Nevertheless, Payo soon resigned
• 21:44
  from her position as interim CEO.
• 21:46
  She was later replaced by Steve Huffman, one of the platform's
• 21:49
  original founders. While AMA Geddon might have been
• 21:52
  the straw that broke the camel's back, Pao had received criticism
• 21:56
  for her previous decisions, most notably when Reddit announced
• 21:59
  the banning of five hostile subreddits, including one called
• 22:03
  R slash Fat people Hate. Many Reddit users claimed this
• 22:07
  decision limited freedom of speech and was a form of
• 22:10
  censorship. Of course, Reddit has D
• 22:12
  platformed other harmful communities since Pao faced
• 22:14
  criticism for it in 2015. Many of these have been alt
• 22:18
  right groups like R slash Physical removal.
• 22:21
  A community of 41,000 people, many who identify as in cells,
• 22:25
  was banned in August 2017 for inciting violence.
• 22:29
  R slash The Donald, which was intended for supporters of U.S.
• 22:32
  President Donald Trump, was banned in 2020 for frequent rule
• 22:36
  breaking, antagonizing the company and other communities.
• 22:39
  But they haven't been all right wing groups.
• 22:43
  Another example is Trisha Paytas's snark subreddit, R
• 22:46
  slash Trishyland. We've done a whole episode on
• 22:50
  snark Reddits, but for those who missed it, snark communities are
• 22:53
  essentially subreddits where users criticize and discuss
• 22:56
  celebrities and influencers. The intended purpose, in theory,
• 23:00
  is to critique and generate discussions about these public
• 23:03
  figures and their platforms, rather than to insult and incite
• 23:06
  abuse. Unfortunately, snark Reddits
• 23:09
  often cross into harmful territory.
• 23:11
  Snark communities often seem to go too far, as in bullying,
• 23:14
  harassment, and doc saying more when the community is dedicated
• 23:17
  to a single creator rather than a genre of creator.
• 23:21
  Take Trishyland for example, R slash Trishyland was established
• 23:26
  in October 2021 after Trisha's falling out with fellow creator
• 23:29
  Ethan Klein. Trisha and Ethan Co hosted the
• 23:32
  Frenemies podcast together before Trisha left the show in
• 23:35
  mid 2021 / a wage dispute. Allegedly, Trishyland engaged in
• 23:40
  vicious attacks against the influencer, which only got worse
• 23:43
  after she got married and welcomed her first baby.
• 23:46
  On November 5th, 2022, Trisha posted a YouTube video titled
• 23:50
  It's Finally Over Brackets Now I Can Talk About It, where she
• 23:53
  just discussed this ban. Trisha said the community posted
• 23:56
  incredibly personal information about herself and her husband,
• 24:00
  Moses Hackman, including which hospital she was planning to
• 24:03
  give birth at, her doctor's information, details about her
• 24:06
  family members and payment records on her property taxes.
• 24:10
  Tricia said she repeatedly reported the community on Reddit
• 24:13
  for bullying and harassment, but nothing was ever done.
• 24:16
  I'm thankful that Reddit did take something seriously if it's
• 24:19
  the copyright because you know what?
• 24:21
  I do put a lot of work in my videos.
• 24:22
  She said of the platform banning the community only after several
• 24:26
  copyright claims. Now, one of the more recent
• 24:29
  scandals at Reddit faced was related to the GameStop stock
• 24:33
  price back at the beginning of 2021.
• 24:35
  The subreddit R slash Wall Street Bets, a community for
• 24:39
  amateur investors who share investing ideas and thoughts,
• 24:42
  started buying the GameStop stock, aiming to push up the
• 24:45
  price. For context, GameStop is an
• 24:48
  American video game, consumer electronic and gaming
• 24:51
  merchandise retailer. Quote GameStop was in dire
• 24:54
  straits even before the pandemic struck.
• 24:57
  Its thousands of store locations couldn't compete with the
• 25:00
  digital marketplace offered by the game consoles and PC Titans
• 25:04
  Steam and Epic Games, writes Wired.
• 25:06
  The person largely considered responsible for the GameStop
• 25:09
  controversy was one member of the R slash Wall Street's BET
• 25:13
  subreddit named Keith Gill. In 2019, he surprised users
• 25:17
  after posting that he had invested 53 K on GameStop
• 25:21
  shares. At the time, members of the
• 25:23
  subreddit were confused, questioning why he would invest
• 25:26
  so much money. Nevertheless, Keith would
• 25:28
  continue to periodically post about the GameStop stock.
• 25:32
  At the same time, financial analysts suggested short selling
• 25:36
  the stock to profit off of it since the price was going down.
• 25:39
  For those of us who aren't familiar with short selling,
• 25:42
  Josh Gross reports on X. That shorting, for those who
• 25:45
  don't know, is when you borrow a stock from someone and sell it
• 25:48
  on the market expecting the price to go down, you eventually
• 25:51
  buy back the stock at a lower price, return the borrowed
• 25:54
  shares and pocket the difference.
• 25:56
  As for why people started short selling, Gross continued by
• 25:59
  noting that quote the shorts, which are hedge funds like
• 26:02
  Melvin. We're expecting GameStop to go
• 26:04
  bankrupt and they never have to return their shares.
• 26:07
  As members of the R slash Wall Street subreddit realized that
• 26:11
  the stock was being shorted, something that Keith presumably
• 26:14
  realized when he invested, they knew if they worked together
• 26:18
  they could quote, screw the shorts over and make a profit
• 26:21
  doing it, according to Emily Stewart for Vox.
• 26:24
  So members of the subreddit all started purchasing the share,
• 26:27
  pushing the price right up from Business Insider quote the
• 26:31
  retailer's share price grew from just above $4.00 in January to a
• 26:34
  closing high of $347.51. This rising of the meme stock,
• 26:41
  in turn, became a problem for the companies who were short
• 26:44
  selling the stock. Quote.
• 26:46
  If your shortage shares increase in price, then short sellers
• 26:49
  have to scramble to buy the shares back in order to be able
• 26:52
  to return the shares to their original owner.
• 26:54
  This can lead to increased demand for the stock, lower
• 26:57
  supply and its price to soar, adds Velvet Winter for ABC.
• 27:01
  Ultimately, this saga became a way for Redditors to quote teach
• 27:05
  hedge fund traders a lesson. But this didn't come without
• 27:09
  backlash. The subreddit briefly went
• 27:11
  private, and Discord shut down the server on its app for a
• 27:15
  period of time. Keith also took a step back from
• 27:17
  social media, where his YouTube X and Reddit accounts went
• 27:20
  dormant for three years. He also declined different media
• 27:24
  opportunities. Nevertheless, he started posting
• 27:27
  again earlier this year, triggering a surge in the
• 27:30
  GameStop stock, showing just how much power communities on Reddit
• 27:35
  actually do hold. There is no denying that Reddit
• 27:38
  has had its fair share of controversy, but the culture on
• 27:41
  the platform and the rich lore that exists within it has made
• 27:45
  for an extremely loyal user base.
• 27:47
  That being said, Reddit seems poised for a promising future,
• 27:51
  especially when we consider that there are no mainstream
• 27:54
  platforms quite like it. Reddit has also stayed true to
• 27:57
  its original style of content, which is more than we can say
• 28:01
  for most social media platforms these days.
• 28:03
  That's not to say that Reddit is not rife with discriminatory and
• 28:06
  harmful content, but it seems, from a corporate level at least,
• 28:10
  that the the company is trying to ensure inclusivity and
• 28:12
  diversity moving forward. In 2020, for instance, Co
• 28:16
  founder Alexis Ohanian stepped down from the Reddit board
• 28:19
  requesting that his seat go to a person of color.
• 28:21
  Of course, this was at the height of the Black Lives Matter
• 28:24
  movement and protests following the murder of George Floyd in
• 28:27
  May of that year. Quote.
• 28:29
  I've resigned as a member of the Reddit board.
• 28:31
  I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate and
• 28:34
  I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black
• 28:36
  community, chiefly to curb racial hate.
• 28:39
  And I'm starting with a pledge of $1 million to Know Your
• 28:42
  Rights Camp. Alexis shared on Twitter.
• 28:45
  Reddit honored Alexis's request, naming Y Combinator CEO Michael
• 28:49
  Seibel as his replacement on the board of directors.
• 28:52
  This decision was well received by Reddit users, although many
• 28:56
  do feel like the platform could definitely do more to curb white
• 28:59
  nationalism and racism on the platform.
• 29:01
  But subsequent business decisions have not been met with
• 29:04
  the same acclaim. Take last year's API
• 29:07
  controversy, for example. Mid 2020, a three marked a big
• 29:11
  shift in Reddit's commercial structure, which had greatly
• 29:14
  impacted user experience, and not necessarily for the better.
• 29:18
  Considered one of the biggest coordinated online protests in
• 29:21
  social media's history, users were protesting changes to
• 29:24
  Reddit's API, the tool that software developers use to
• 29:27
  access data and create compatible applications with the
• 29:30
  platform Quote. With companies such as Open AI
• 29:33
  and Google Plus scraping the Internet to train large language
• 29:36
  models, Reddit wants them to pay for its data.
• 29:38
  Huffman announced in April that Reddit would start charging for
• 29:41
  its access to API, the gateway through which companies can
• 29:45
  download all of Reddits user generated content, writes Katie
• 29:48
  Brigham for CNBC. But it's not just tech giants
• 29:51
  who use Reddits API. Many popular third party mobile
• 29:54
  apps and moderator tools also rely on API access, which was
• 29:59
  previously three. These third party apps are
• 30:02
  largely just alternatives to Reddit's official mobile app,
• 30:05
  which didn't even exist until 2016.
• 30:08
  The new terms upped the price of Reddit's API access from May,
• 30:12
  and these policy changes adversely affected the ecosystem
• 30:16
  of third party apps that offered users alternative interfaces to
• 30:20
  access the platform. According to Christian Selig, at
• 30:23
  the time the creator of the widely used third party app
• 30:26
  Apollo, Reddit's new API pricing plan would cost approximately
• 30:30
  nearly $20 million per year, a financially unsustainable price
• 30:35
  for the company. Many subreddits on the platform
• 30:38
  decided to go private for 48 hours starting on Monday, June
• 30:42
  12th, claiming that these third party apps improve the user
• 30:45
  experience. In light of the looming protest,
• 30:47
  Reddit CEO Steve Huffman acknowledged user concerns on
• 30:51
  June 10th, but remained steadfast on the policy changes,
• 30:54
  emphasizing that quote. Reddit needs to be a
• 30:57
  self-sustaining business, and to do that we can no longer
• 31:00
  subsidized commercial entities that require large scale data
• 31:04
  use. This resulted in many of
• 31:06
  Reddit's most subscribed to communities going dark, leading
• 31:09
  to widespread outages across the platform.
• 31:12
  Despite this protest, many of these third party apps closed
• 31:15
  down, including beloved Apollo, after nine years in business.
• 31:20
  Another notable business decision from Reddit was the
• 31:23
  platform's decision to go public earlier this year.
• 31:26
  In May 2024, Reddit officially made its debut on the Stock
• 31:29
  Exchange. After nearly 20 years in
• 31:32
  existence. Reddit first launched its IPO
• 31:35
  plans in 2021. An IPO is essentially when a
• 31:38
  private company becomes public by selling its shares on the
• 31:42
  Stock Exchange. Quote.
• 31:43
  The unprofitable company was valued at $10 billion at a
• 31:46
  fundraising round in August 2021, but valuations have swung
• 31:50
  since then, writes the Wall Street Journal.
• 31:52
  After the first attempt fizzled, 2024 marked the year that Reddit
• 31:56
  officially went public. With this, Reddit offered the
• 31:59
  chance for some of its most active users to become
• 32:02
  shareholders in the company, where quote 75,000 of the
• 32:06
  platforms. Redditors will be able to buy
• 32:08
  shares at Reddits IPO price before the stock starts trading,
• 32:12
  an opportunity generally reserved for money managers,
• 32:15
  Hope King reports for Axios. The shares debuted at $34 and
• 32:20
  closed at $59.80, where existing investors raised roughly $750
• 32:26
  million combined in the offering.
• 32:28
  Over the course of its existence, Reddit has never been
• 32:31
  profitable, largely because of the pushback to invasive
• 32:35
  advertising, selling user data and the reluctance of moderators
• 32:39
  to quote. Turn subreddits into side
• 32:41
  hustles rights Business Insider. The decision to go public came
• 32:45
  as Reddit seeks to expand, highlighted by a significant
• 32:48
  deal with Open AI. This agreement provides Open AI
• 32:51
  with real time access to Reddit's data, facilitating the
• 32:54
  training of ChatGPT and other products.
• 32:57
  This arrangement reportedly mirrors a previous $60 million
• 33:01
  deal with Google, which permitted Google to use Reddit
• 33:03
  Post for training its AI models and improving existing searches
• 33:07
  such as Google Search. That being said, with the rise
• 33:10
  of generative AI, there is speculation that this technology
• 33:14
  could address Reddit's long term challenge of being unprofitable.
• 33:17
  There's also something to be sad about how Google search has
• 33:20
  changed in recent months. Since the AI boom, Internet
• 33:24
  users have complained that the search function is getting less
• 33:27
  and less accurate. As a result, many Gen.
• 33:29
  Z users are turning to Reddit for advice and information.
• 33:33
  With the wealth of information available on the platform, it's
• 33:36
  clear that Reddit is more than just a community building tool.
• 33:39
  That being said, Reddit's longevity might just be driven
• 33:43
  by the amount of information available on the platform.
• 33:46
  Apart from TikTok, Reddit is one of the few social media
• 33:49
  platforms where content creators actively share content from this
• 33:53
  platform to others. A prime example of this is the
• 33:56
  R/MI The Asshole subreddit. Launched in 2013, this thread
• 34:00
  has grown to 18,000,000 members and is one of the most popular
• 34:04
  subreddits. Users post about various
• 34:06
  situations and ethical dilemmas, seeking advice and judgement
• 34:09
  from other users. Tik Tokers like At Love Under
• 34:12
  Score Lola have made this subreddit their brand, gaining
• 34:16
  popularity by filming themselves reading Am I the Asshole posts.
• 34:20
  Similarly, other creators have produced podcast episodes and
• 34:23
  entire podcast series centered around reading and judging these
• 34:27
  posts. When we consider just how
• 34:29
  pervasive this content is, it's clear that Reddit is filling an
• 34:33
  important gap in the digital world.
• 34:36
  That brings us to the end of Reddit's story.
• 34:38
  For now, the platform, for all its problems, is still a huge
• 34:42
  success in the online space. Of all the other platforms that
• 34:46
  launched in the mid 2000s, Reddit is among a very small
• 34:50
  handful of those left standing. And though the platform has
• 34:53
  faced its fair share of struggles, it seems Reddit is
• 34:56
  more relevant than ever as the digital landscape moves towards
• 35:00
  the future with AI. Infinite Scroll is a podcast
• 35:04
  written, produced and presented by me, Lauren Meisner for
• 35:07
  Centennial World. Additional research and reports
• 35:09
  is by Annabelle Ben David editing is by Danny Fennick.
• 35:13
  Thank you so much for listening to Infinite Scroll.
• 35:15
  I love you guys so much and I will talk to you next week.
• 35:18
  Bye.