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Why I Still Use Reddit

Let me give, as an example of what I mean, a description of how an intellectual match might work in New York City. Each man, at any given moment and at a minimum price, could identify himself to a computer with his address and telephone number, indicating the book, article, film or recording on which he seeks a partner for discussion. Within days he could receive by mail the list of others who recently had taken the same initiative. This list would enable him by telephone to arrange for a meeting with the persons who initially would be known exclusively by the fact that they requested a dialogue about the same subject.

Ivan Illich envisions 'learning webs' in Deschooling Society, 1970

Update

June 2023 - Between 12 and 14 June 2023, a large number of subreddits protested changes to the platform by setting their page to private or restricted; some still are. More information can be found here.

It seems a number of Reddit users now are migrating to a platform called Lemmy, overwhelming that platform. I hope to take a look at Lemmy as an alternative to Reddit when things settle. Gunther's Guides article gives a great overview of Reddit alternatives!

Now, on to the original post, written February 2023.


While I have cancelled most of my major social media platform accounts by now, I continue to use Reddit. Here's why.

A big platform

Reddit is one of the big players in the world of social media. It is a news aggregation site and a place where like-minded individuals can connect and discuss topics of shared interest.

Reddit had over 1 billion global users in 20221 and around 50 million daily active users early 20222. It was ranked the 8th most visited website worldwide in 2022.3 Reddit earns income with targetted advertising on the platform itself, as well as with internal subscription and credit options.

Pseudonymity

This week I discovered a new video game podcast titled My Perfect Console, hosted by Simon Parkin. His first guest was Josh Wardle, the creator of the word puzzle game Worlde, which became massively popular towards the end of 2021, and which he subsequently sold to The New York Times early 2022. Josh started his career at Reddit. During the interview, he describes what Reddit is:

pseudonymous people interacting with one another about their passion

This definition struck a chord with me and goes some way to explaining why I would compromise and give Reddit a 'pass', despite some of its potentially intrusive features. The fact that it is the shared topic of interest that brings people together, and not the identities of the individuals involved, is precisely what interests me.

Comparison to other platforms

Reddit has features designed to develop compulsive checking, like an up/down vote button and reward stickers. Your upvotes are pooled into your 'karma', highlighted by a red icon in the upper right hand corner, right next to where notifications appear, also in red. As with other platforms, there is a curated 'feed' which includes promoted posts - the ads. There are options to block, follow and message other users. I find most features easier to ignore than their parallels on other social media platforms, with the exception of the notifications icon.

This is because, in most cases, your real-world identity is of little significance. There are exceptions (the Ask Me Anything threads, for example), but the majority of Reddit users use pseudonyms. This tends to naturally shift the focus towards ideas, jokes and arguments. Some posts are disarmingly honest or intimate, which is possible as a result of pseudonymity. In that sense, Reddit reminds me a little of PostSecret.

If the subreddit is big enough, engagement is fast. When I was trying to build my first server, I benefited from almost 'live' help from fellow Redditors. There are toxic subreddits - unfortunately some privacy-focused ones - but on the whole engagement feels normal. In some of the crypto currency forums you may run the risk of being scammed, however. Be cautious about help offered via direct messages there.

Subreddits feel similar - in terms of user experience only! - to federated social media instances like Mastodon and Pixelfed in that anyone can start a new subreddit and moderate the discussion that follows to a custom set of rules. While not totally fool-proof, this system for moderation seems to work better than outsourced ones.

Privacy on Reddit

One thing to be aware of is that clicking on someone's username will give you a list of all that individual's engagements in reverse chronology. This is not ideal from a privacy standpoint, as a dedicated sleuth could get quite far in profiling you. Past comments can be taken out of context and reused unfairly, a favourite pastime for some.

Reddit has published this article which explains how they collect user data. Reddit uses cookies, which is explained here. Because there isn't a clear a link to your identity, your IP address must be the key identifier that Reddit uses to tie your posts, comments and interests together to for profiling and advertising.

How I use Reddit

There are a number of steps I take to create separation between my real-life person and my Reddit profiles.

Conclusions

Nostalgically, Reddit feels like a last bastion of an older Internet where ideas were the primary focus, not identities. I like how even the most high engagement threads will eventually die out when users move on the next discussion, but stay documented and searchable for newcomers with the same questions. In that way, Reddit functions like a forum or knowledge database. I find the attitude of others and helpfulness generally good, though I am aware that this is in part determined by the subreddits I choose to follow.

Using Reddit is a compromise for someone looking to improve digital privacy, but one where the benefits trump the costs, most of the time. As I have hopefully shown, there are some practical ways to control your addiction and engagement with the platform. The truth is that when I need to learn about a new privacy tool, I usually turn to Reddit for help.

Documentation

My Perfect Console video game podcast

uBlock Origin

Mullvad VPN

Reddit's full privacy policy can be read here.

I found this blog post "How Does Reddit Make Money?" informative and well-sourced.

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  1. Statista.com

  2. Statista.com

  3. soocial.com

#digitalprivacy #reddit #socialmedia