Shares of the struggling brick-and-mortar video game retailer skyrocketed 400% in the past week, closing out January with a whopping 1,625% gain. "The site lends itself to a kind of boyism that, at best, could be off-putting to women," David Weinberger, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, said during the KQED forum.GameStop mania took Wall Street by storm, thanks to a legion of retail traders glued to the WallStreetBets message board on Reddit. Reddit, which boasted about 170 million users before the turmoil in recent months, describes itself as a venue for real-time journalism and "the front page of the Internet."Ībout three quarters of those using Reddit are said to be young men. "When you commercialize it, you are putting more ads into it and you are pushing some sort of an agenda." "Reddit was founded as a site completely run by users and would not sell out," Amadea said. Reddit moderator Matthew Amadea said during a forum on KQED public radio in San Francisco that he signed the a petition demanding Pao's ouster because of ramped-up commercialization under her administration. Eccentric commented.Įfforts to now clean Reddit up and make it more attractive to advertisers are "making the users scream bloody murder," the post contended. "Basically, Reddit got the huge number of users it now wants to monetize by using 'free speech!' as an excuse to let every user run wild," a user with the screen name Mrs. Pornography and content that "offends the sense of decency" will be sectioned off in a previously-established Not Safe For Work (NSFW) zone that Reddit users will be able to opt into at their discretion, according to Huffman. "It has been fighting this harassment in the trenches." "Reddit is the Internet, and it exhibits all the good, the bad and the ugly of the Internet," Pao said in her editorial. Other content Reddit is thinking of banning includes spam, people's private information and anything that incites harm or violence, or could be considered abusive or bullying.
Reddit last month ditched five subreddit forums, including one devoted to making fun of fat people, under terms of a new anti-harassment policy. The trolls are winning."Įarly this year, Reddit banned non-consensual pornography referred to as revenge porn because it typically involves former romantic partners who have not given permission for sharing content.
"But that balancing act is getting harder.
"Balancing free expression with privacy and the protection of participants has always been a challenge for open-content platforms on the Internet," Pao said this week in an editorial published in The Washington Post. In his AMA, Huffman reached out for feedback on constrictions that Reddit is considering placing on the kinds of content that can be posted. Its forums are moderated by volunteers who tend to be passionate about the bulletin board being an online venue for saying whatever users want no matter how inane, outrageous or offensive. Reddit is a for-profit business operated as a subsidiary of Advance Publications.
"Neither Alexis nor I created Reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen," Huffman said in a message announcing his recent AMA. Reddit is grappling with a challenge faced by social networks including Facebook and Twitter when it comes to stifling nastiness while avoiding alienating users on whom its fortunes depend. "You can't behave with impunity indefinitely." "If you are going to behave badly, someone is going to eventually take away your privilege," independent Internet technology analyst Rob Enderle said of moves to clamp down at Reddit. Reddit co-founder Steve "spez" Huffman stepped back in as chief executive this week and set out to tame the wild side of the site. Yet, since its launch a decade ago in Massachusetts, users have taken the Reddit reins, straying at times into "dark" lanes littered with hateful, offensive and borderline illegal content. US President Barack Obama and billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates are among those who have taken part in Ask Me Anything (AMA) question-and-answer sessions that are an attention-getting staple at the online bulletin board. Reddit benefits from a free workforce of volunteers who moderate discussion forums known as "subreddits," on topics running a gamut from science and religion to white supremacy and woman-bashing.