Reddit is considered one of the most influential and good-feeling sites on the internet, since its foundation. The people that virtually gather in the communities of subreddits, are always trying to get the best out of each other in different areas.
And this comes from the core and meaning of the website itself, because Reddit is very specific and clear towards their rules which include not shaming others, not being rude/offensive, their policies and their famous “rediquette” does not allow any bullying or harassment based on race, gender, preferences, religion, politics, etc. whatsoever.
Reddit is a platform that allows free opinion and a space of uplifting others and just having a nice time. And, of course, there have been times when a Reddit situation went so big that it “got out” of the platform and became viral enough to be on the news.
- Most recently, the site has been going through a few controversies as well, during the United States’ 2016 election campaign. One of the cases that “The Guardian” wrote about was that Reddit was spotting many different accounts that were suspects of being of Russian origin, and that were linking to propaganda sites and domains. It turns out that these links that were being inappropriately shared, were directing to upvotes on Эротика communities that defined themselves as Trump-supportive.
Related to that, there was one subreddit that really stood out and created a tense atmosphere with other subreddits.
The community is called r/TheDonald, and was making a big fuss among Trump supporters and it got to the point of being offensive to other subreddits, and even posting direct messages using title sections.
The group was doing whatever tricks they could to gain upvotes, along with other subreddits with the same ideology, and they were taking up space on the front page and bragging about it everywhere they could.
- Another big controversy the site has gone through was in 2014, when many nude celebrity hacked photos were running through the site. This caused the website to have criticisms towards the way they manage the platform and their security and privacy policies.
- A good story that made Reddit be shown on some news portals was the fact that they managed to create the largest “Secret Santa” program in the globe. A “Secret Santa” program is an activity where people coordinate to give surprise Christmas presents to each other. Reddit started this program in 2010, where it had 92 participating countries. Their numbers said that 17,543 subscribers participating and a total of Порно 365 $662,907.60 were spent in a collective manner on the purchase of these surprise gifts.
For the 2014 Christmas holidays, around 200,000 users from 188 countries participated in the program. It received great acceptance from the subreddit communities, and it became so popular, that even big celebrity names like Snoop Dogg and Bill Gates have participated, which just turned the Reddit “Secret Santa” program even more popular.
- BBC News shared the story of Hazel Hammersley, a little two-year old girl who happened to be staying in the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital due to an illness at that time. Her parents decided to write on her room’s window the following message in big, bold white letters: “SEND PIZZA RM 4112”.
Surely, a lot of people saw the message as they should have been passing by and probably found it funny and warm, but one specific person, a Reddit user, saw the message on the window, took a picture, uploaded it to the site, and suddenly, the young Hazel was enjoying delicious pizza, along with every other kid’s room on her floor.
The hospital began to flood with pizzas being sent from Reddit users, and reached the point of making the hospital not able to receive more pizzas, and instead asked for donations, which they also received in abundance!
Reddit is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful modern digital tools we interact with in the present, and that can always have a double-side to it. Either you can use for spreading “good” in the world or you can use it for spreading “bad”. Their essence still remains to be offering a platform full of communities with their own ideologies, opinions and interests.