Jon Chester’s Post

Trust & Safety if often looked at solely as a cost center for platforms, or a 'dirty word' seen as the suppression of free speech, censorship or 'a team spoiling the fun'. Today's article in the The New York Times looks at the success story of moderation for Reddit, Inc. who are set to go public. "There are a lot of lessons in Reddit’s turnaround. But one of the clearest is that content moderation — the messy business of deciding what users are and aren’t allowed to post on social media, and enforcing those rules day to day — actually works." Moderation, when applied well and relevant to the community you're looking to protect, can massively enhance the experience for the 99% of good users who will remain. There are many examples of 'moderation gone wrong' (I won't point fingers here) but it's great to see Trust & Safety providing a key foundation for a driving value on a $6.4 billion IPO today. Let's learn from Reddit's turnaround and embrace Trust & Safety as a critical aspect of platform success. As a long time Redditor, let's also celebrate a once niche corner of the internet becoming the success it is today! #TrustAndSafety #ContentModeration #IPO

For those of you watching the Reddit/Google news and thinking it's time to start gaming Reddit before you've taken the time to understand it: the /r/hailcorporate subreddit is a good place to start. HailCorporate describes itself as a place "to document times when people act as unwitting advertisers for a product or a brand with an aim towards raising awareness of the pervasive nature of commercialism in our society and culture." Basically, it's a watchdog subreddit to watch when other parts of reddit are being manipulated through organic posts that might not be as organic as they seem. The subreddit might only have 200k followers, but it's a good place to look — as it's a good way to get an idea of what redditors are suspicious of and how most efforts to manipulate reddit can go sideways or create backlash. I have a suspicion that a lot of SEO folks and brands are going to start trying to game Reddit more (especially as there's good reason to think that reddit threads are going to start training Google's AI models), and so that's my warning: be careful. #reddit #google #sge #hailcorporate

Watching the Reddit, Inc. blackout… I enjoy using the platform. My first few million viral views about #datascience came from Reddit. That said, it has always been mis-managed. Amazing community held back by the tyrany of extremist often highly political ‘subreddit mods.’ I have a half dozen posts deleted just as they started trending for odd/arbitrary reasons with no follow up. They (the mods) believe they own the platform by virtue of the time they spent selectively deciding which posts are allowed to be seen; they don’t. Users create the data and content, mods are the problem. The mods are the unnecessary middle management of Reddit. They can and should be replaced by a smiple #artificialintelligence that mostly let’s the users decide what posts trend. The blackout is a perfect example. Reddit is not free to run, the internet is not free to run. Why would anyone feel entitled to monetize data when someone else creates the network effect that generates that data is crazy. Reddit used to be fun, now it’s not. Extremist mods should leave Reddit and try to make their own platform.

What a great article from Kevin Roose in the The New York Times about how Reddit, Inc. recent #IPO is a clear success story about #contentmoderation. I couldn't agree more with his analysis that #trustandsafety is good business (because its what most users want)! A few key takeaways from the article: 1. Reddit empowered "an army of volunteer moderators, rather than trying to do it all itself."..."It tapped those existing moderators to help enforce its new, stricter rules, and built tools to help them root out bad behavior, such as an automated tool known as Automoderator." 2. "It nuked thousands of offensive and hateful subreddits, attaching culpability not to individual posts or users but to the spaces where toxic things frequently happen"..."Users who had frequented the banned communities largely either left Reddit entirely or changed their behavior. The toxic spaces didn’t reconstitute themselves, and rule-abiding Redditors got the benefits of a cleaner, less hateful platform." 3. "[R]ather than tying itself in knots trying to maintain the appearance of political neutrality and avoid angering right-wing partisans...Reddit focused on getting rid of users who were making things worse for other users, regardless of their politics." Read the full text here: https://lnkd.in/gYe8u6F5

Reddit, Inc. is one of the biggest social media platforms with over 400 Million monthly active users. And it is facing one of its greatest challenges yet. Some of the major subreddits, like r/Music with 30 Million subscribers, have gone dark, leaving users without access. What is causing this blackout? Reddit is a goldmine of data and they have been giving it all away for free. This data is being used by large language AI models like ChatGPT for training, and other third-party apps like Apollo and Sync for add-on services. Given Reddit’s IPO plans for later this year and the plan to reach a valuation of $15 billion, they have decided to grow revenue by charging third parties for this data. These (hefty) charges, which could go as high as $20 million/year, might lead to some third-party apps shuttering down. Who is causing this blackout? Reddit has largely been scaled by users and unpaid volunteers that provided content and moderation. And a lot of these moderators use third-party apps for ease of use. Moderators feel that the extra charges do not go with the “community spirit” of Reddit and they have decided to stage protests in the form of subreddit blackouts. While Reddit has enjoyed the benefit of free labour with unpaid moderators, it has also created an unhealthy dependence on users to operate the platform. Without moderators, the platform is likely to quickly fill up with spam links and objectionable content and start losing users. Will Reddit be able to implement these changes without losing users, or will they be arm-twisted into receding? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. #reddit #technology #socialmedia #education

You need Google to search Reddit, and you need Reddit to search Google. As a Redditor stated 8 years ago, “𝙄 𝙖𝙙𝙙 ‘𝙍𝙚𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙩’ 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙄 𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝 𝙤𝙣 𝙂𝙤𝙤𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙄 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙨.” But.. What would happen if that stopped being the case? What if Reddit forced users to log in to see content? This question was answered last year, when Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman, saw the value of Reddit's API. He stopped third-party access to the API and subsequent protests. “𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙋𝙄 𝙪𝙨𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙖 𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙪𝙨.” This makes sense since Reddit's valuation is at $10 billion in 2021 To boost its valuation, Reddit made a $60 million deal with Google, which will: 👉 Use its user-generated content to train its search's generative AI model and 👉 Sell online ads against it What do you think Redditors’ opinions were to the news? 🤔 And what is your take on this? Comment👇 I like challenging discussions and opinions

5 levels of acquiring traffic from Reddit From simplest to most complex. Some users write that in trying to attract traffic from Reddit, I am spamming. I don't agree with this. Spam is a matter of irrelevance. If you write interesting content and leave links to your products in threads where people ask about such products, aren’t you helping these people? P.S. In the next post, I'll share 3 facts I learned about Reddit over the last 6 months of work with it.

Reddit, Inc.'s management seems to think that Reddit is too big to fail They're wrong The fundamental Reddit question: "Is Reddit its community or its executives?" Running a community or a multi-million member subreddit like Funny, is a ton of work Spitting in the faces of the volunteers that make Reddit work is just asking for trouble There is nothing special about Reddit except its community and the content the community created This is not at all dissimilar to mass fashion's current situation We're seeing customers abandon brands because mass fashion is alienating their customers with one size fits none generic product and content, poor quality, high prices, and no way to participate In the past, businesses could get away with treating their users as commodities and putting profits ahead of everything else Reddit and now the entire short-form video internet is built on user-generated content The company needs to put users first and focus on creating a platform that is welcoming and engaging and where users can monetize the communities they've built If Reddit continues to treat its users as commodities, it will eventually be replaced by a competitor that does The success of any business or brand is ultimately dependent on the people who use it - if the people who use it are not happy, then the platform or brand will eventually fail In the past, consumers were limited to a few major brands for most products and services and consumers had little power to voice their complaints about products or services Social media gives consumers a platform to share their experiences with the world - it makes it much easier for consumers to organize and hold businesses accountable As these trends accelerate, the command and control, profit above all else business model will become increasingly obsolete Businesses that want to survive in the long term need to put customers first and focus on creating products and services that people love You have to be deeply aware of their constantly changing needs and execute in real time because the success of digital brands is ultimately dependent on the people who talk about them online If the people who use it are not happy because you start from a place of designing products, content, and experiences from a place of bias rather than their specific shared interests, then the platform or brand will eventually fail The answer is (fashion) brand is community, not a bunch of suits who don't know anything about Gen Z girls #genz #creatoreconomy #contentistheproduct #tiktokisthestore #tiktokmademebuyit https://lnkd.in/ejd-pSUx

During a recent interview, Reddit, Inc. CEO, Steve Huffman, showed his feisty side as he shared a fascinating take on social media's authenticity. Even as one of the largest websites globally, Reddit continues to view itself as an underdog when compared to other social media giants like TikTok. Huffman's candid demeanor and spirited approach helped pull Reddit back from the brink of an existential crisis back in 2015. Since then, Reddit has made significant strides, boasting a more user-friendly interface and enhanced moderation tools. His straightforward strategy for monetization revolves around ads, and he remains confident about Reddit's future and its potential for business expansion. As Reddit marketers and avid Redditors, we're convinced that the platform offers an unparalleled opportunity for businesses to engage with a highly active and diverse audience. With subreddits catering to virtually every topic under the sun, companies can pinpoint their niche and forge connections with their target market. So, what's your take on Reddit as a marketing channel? Have you dipped your toes in the Reddit pool? #reddit #redditmarketing #tiktok #socialmedia

Reddit's IPO blasted off on Thursday, and it's no surprise why. Those who study analytics know the power of Reddit, Inc. to sniff out BS better than Google. Want to track your product's success without SEO and marketing strategies? Check out Reddit forums. See how you rank in Top of Mind and Willing to Recommend by looking at who advocates for your brand among their peers in subreddits. Honesty is valuable, and Reddit's pre-monetized social platform offers just that. Its brutal and blunt approach provides machine learning tools with direct links to feelings, allowing for a deeper understanding of user behavior. If Reddit can maintain its neutrality, it will continue to mine this gold of true behaviorism.