{"id":258815,"date":"2014-09-08T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T18:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=258815"},"modified":"2024-01-26T13:17:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:17:31","slug":"reddit-at-a-crossroads-the-inevitable-clash-between-free-speech-and-a-desire-for-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2014\/09\/08\/reddit-at-a-crossroads-the-inevitable-clash-between-free-speech-and-a-desire-for-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Reddit at a crossroads: The inevitable clash between free speech and a desire for funding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It\u2019s more a cruel coincidence than outright irony, but Reddit finds itself this week at the confluence of two streams, and both of them sum up the site in different ways \u2014 one pointing towards the past, and one towards the future. At the same time that the site has come under fire for<\/a> its role in distributing stolen nude photos of celebrities, it is also rumored to be working on a venture financing round that could value the company at<\/a> more than half a billion dollars. Will Reddit\u2019s desire for funding trump its legendary commitment to free speech?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reddit wasn\u2019t actively involved in the hacking of iCloud accounts that led to the publication of hundreds of nude photos of celebrities such as actress Jennifer Lawrence and model Kate Upton, but the site quickly created a forum or sub-Reddit devoted to the pictures \u2014 or rather, users of the site did, since one of the unique things about Reddit is that users can create any kind of forum they wish and appoint themselves moderators of it without the company\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reddit is a microcosm of the wider Internet. All the good and horrible stuff that happens there happens elsewhere too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Alex Fitzpatrick (@AlexJamesFitz) September 8, 2014<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Open government or failed state?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The site \u2014 which is majority owned by Advance Publications, the parent company of Conde Nast, who bought it in 2006 and spun it off in 2012 \u2014 has since removed the sub-Reddit known as The Fappening, and CEO Yishan Wong made a public statement about the move, in which he tried to make it clear what Reddit would do in similar cases. Unfortunately, his comments (both in a public blog post<\/a> and in a subsequent posting<\/a> on Reddit itself) seemed to make the situation worse, or at least more confusing. In his blog post, Wong said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[blockquote person=\u201d\u201d attribution=\u201d\u201d]We understand the harm that misusing our site does to the victims of this theft, and we deeply sympathize. Having said that, we are unlikely to make changes to our existing site content policies in response to this specific event. The reason is because we consider ourselves not just a company running a website where one can post links and discuss them, but the government of a new type of community. [\/blockquote]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many interpreted this as meaning Reddit would let any kind of content appear on the site, including violent pornography and other deviant or repulsive behavior, unless that content<\/a> involved a copyright issue or had to do with celebrities who might launch a lawsuit. The Verge said that if Wong\u2019s analogy to a government was to be taken at face value, then the site would have to be considered<\/a> \u201ca failed state,\u201d since it allowed its residents to be subjected to all manner of violent imagery and abuse without taking action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free speech is a double-edged sword<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no question that Reddit is an anarchic environment, in much the same way that its predecessor 4chan is. The Awl published a list<\/a> of sub-Reddits that few people would be prepared to discuss in normal social circles, including one devoted to bestiality, another dedicated to<\/a> photos of attractive-looking female corpses, and so on. And yet, it is also responsible for a number of positive things as well (Redditors recently found someone\u2019s missing father<\/a>), and is seen by many as a force for good rather than evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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empathy is hard. reddit is a rare place online where there are people actively thinking about how to express it and give more of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 joanne mcneil (@jomc) September 8, 2014<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Reddit has been down<\/a> this particular road a number of times already, including a public outcry involving a moderator known as Violentacrez, who ran a sub-Reddit devoted to pictures of women taken without their permission. After he was outed by Gawker<\/a> \u2014 or \u201cdoxxed,\u201d as a number of online communities call it when someone\u2019s identity is revealed without their permission \u2014 the site removed him as moderator and banned the sub-Reddit. But others continue to be hosted that are just as bad, if not worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, the site\u2019s commitment to freedom of speech lies deep in its DNA, as co-founder Alexis Ohanian pointed out<\/a> in a post earlier this year about his investment in Secret \u2014 an anonymous app that has also been criticized<\/a> for the kind of abusive behavior it allegedly encourages in users, and for what some critics say is a lack of safeguards or protection for those who are targeted by abusers. At the time, Ohanian said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[blockquote person=\u201d\u201d attribution=\u201d\u201d]Like all tools, this new publishing technology comes down to how we as individuals use it, but I\u2019m heartened by every post I see that allows someone to share something about themselves that they\u2019d never have been able to with their name attached\u2026 anonymity enables us to be truly honest, creative, and open.[\/blockquote]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Reddit bridge the gap?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The challenge for Reddit now is: How does it retain its commitment<\/a> to such free-speech principles while it is trying to raise money from a group of what could be nervous or conservative venture funds? Twitter has also wrestled with its early commitment to being the \u201cfree-speech wing of the free-speech party,\u201d and its desire to grow and generate revenue for its public shareholders has led to a form of quasi-censorship<\/a> in which certain tweets and accounts are banned or hidden from users at the request of governments. But Twitter\u2019s challenges are like a day at the beach compared with Reddit\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remaining committed to free speech is hard enough when the speech you are trying to protect is violent or homophobic or repulsive in a number of other ways, but it becomes exponentially more difficult when you have investors with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line breathing down your neck. Will Reddit start to water down its commitment, in the hope that it can bridge those two divides without losing its soul? Or will it be forced to mimic Facebook, which routinely removes photos<\/a> of women breast-feeding and never says why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4chan founder Chris \u201cMoot\u201d Poole has talked about his commitment to free speech and the value of anonymous behavior<\/a>, and also about how he never really seriously considered raising outside funding because he assumed the content of the site would make that impossible. Reddit is about to try and thread that particular needle, and what the site will ultimately look like after that process is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s more a cruel coincidence than outright irony, but Reddit finds itself this week at the confluence of two streams, and both of them sum up the site in different ways \u2014 one pointing towards the past, and one towards the future. At the same time that the site has come under fire for its role in … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Reddit at a crossroads: The inevitable clash between free speech and a desire for funding”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":true,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gigaom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258817,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258815\/revisions\/258817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}