Reddit CEO: Platform doesn't plan to ban pornography
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reddit is trying to make their platform even more palatable to investors and advertisers. I just wish they were honest about it.
> But there's another aspect that's empowering. And these are people sharing stories of themselves, pictures of themselves. And we are perfectly supportive of that."
This is such a horseshit take I know he doesn't believe it. Porn is a commodity, and he's hosting one of the largest (for him, free) repositories of pornography that he leverages to try to make money. "Empowerment." please.
I really dislike the way reddit's leadership is trending. They're becoming less and less honest about why they're doing things. Take a look at this post full of corporate doublespeak nonsense. They're removing the option to disable their clickjacking and ad tracking and claiming it's intended to "reduce user confusion." [1]
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/lhnvok/removing_...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/lqtecn/update_to...
I suppose reddit is the wrong place to go for such a thing after 2010 and I should have known better!
EDIT: Somewhat related? I've noticed a trend of many OnlyFans-linked accounts participating in random niche subreddits with enticing names like "juicyBODYPART" or whatnot. When you click on their account, you are met with a load of NSFW content and posts asking for you to check out their OnlyFans.
I'm far from a prude, but if I want to view niche content and see what other communities posters are involved in to discover more subreddits, it sucks to be met with this blatant advertising. I have NSFW content unfiltered so I can find it when I want to look for it, but dang.
Usually, their posts in the niche communities feature primarily pictures of themselves doing activities related to the community. The very stereotypical "female body in front of the object" sort of pictures.
I don't understand why you go through this effort at all. A filtered view is why r/popular exists.
There is an extreme amount of product placement on Reddit now, and people hawking their onlyfans is part of it. I’m basically down to searching very specific topics via DuckDuckGo or Google, but it’s basically ad central if you’re casually browsing.
I don't mind NSFW content at all but if I'm surfing reddit in line at the bank or something I don't want that content to pop-up with people around me.
I don't believe its reddits job to filter the content out though. They already warn you if you click on someone's profile that is an NSFW profile so you have to agree you want to see their posts.
They’re trying to make it more palatable for women, they’ve been trying for more than 6 years now. How woke can Alexis Ohanian really be if he makes one of the largest places men objectify women? I think it’s personally very important to him and it’s not an anti free speech, morality or pro advertising crusade at all.
They are struggling to overcome a perception that women are only welcome on Reddit if they’re nude, pretty or adjacent. The site is probably 90% male visitors. Clearly it has something to do with nudity especially, because while Instagram definitely is a place where women are scantily clad, the lack of nudity, the hilarious specific ban on even just women’s bare nipples, has something to do with why the app is more than 50% female users.
You're definitely looking into it a bit much on that line of thought.
I saw some actual stats on this a few years ago and IIRC it was 60% male / 40% female. There’s plenty of subreddits which are mostly women.
Twitter and Tumblr are very popular with female users, and both have had a significant amount of porn on them.
Pretty much. Especially advertisers. They essentially ruin everything by reducing the scope of what can be posted in order to appeal towards the broadest audience. We end up with lowest common denominator stuff everywhere.
That's what makes Facebook successful for the advertisers, Majority of it's users don't mind seeing/clicking 'Earn $10,000 in 10 days' ad after 'Baby gender reveal party photos' post by a family member. Where as the same ad has no place in r/programming(But it is), naturally the advertiser wouldn't find much conversion.
I think that's why Reddit is now making all the required changes to attract users & advertisers from Facebook type platform i.e. Bloated website, App, Changes to T&C, Privacy Policy etc. I bet API restrictions would be next.
But then how can a platform like Reddit in its original form make money? I guess making it a fully paid platform is the only solution, which means foregoing the scale; Which is considered a bad word in today's startup ecosystem.
Ultimately it means aligning the incentives between the platform owners and their users.
Because of scale and that software is cheap, it's relatively cheap to run a platform like Reddit. Per-user, the cost would be less than a dollar per month.
A two-tier system where basic features are free and premium features are paid (where the premium tier is used to subsidize free usage) would work. Some restrictions on commercial content (such as posting on behalf of a brand) forcing brands to pay for a more expensive, business account (that could also give them extra features like analytics) could work.
I always found it baffling that most modern social media platforms allow and encourage blatantly commercial content while it was a major no-no in forums of the old days. This seems like an obvious monetization route - the platform is free for personal entertainment & non-lucrative purposes, and if you want to use it for commercial purposes then you should pay (and have the money to pay).
Remember the Reddit 'Jailbait' and 'Creepshots' scandals? Those should have been big wake up calls for them to wise up and crack down on the rest of the site, as they're obvious avenues for under-age abuse.
0: https://redd.it/8g5ngn (not nsfw)
1: https://redd.it/b5b9lz (nsfw descriptions/vulgar)
I don't see how "posting a picture you got from google images results in them asking you to confirm that you are the one in the picture" indicates that they generally require verification before you can post a picture of yourself.
I mean, based on the name, I assume that in my case that subreddit wouldn't be interested in a picture of me, because I'm male (and, I also wouldn't want them to have it either), but still.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-...
I've noticed a number of sites require a login for content some people might find objectionable rather than just a click-through warning. I can think of a few reasons why that might be the case, but I'd be interested in a definitive answer about why that is from someone who has been involved with that kind of decision.
And I'm not talking about just nudes. Take the "Karen" meme where people just grab their phone and start filming any public outrage moment for the posse to jump on and ridicule.
Or even stuff like "Saw this guy on the train, lol" where obviously said guy was not aware, and didn't want to end up on the internet.
I still don't understand how this is legal, I would hope in the future there is some countermeasure against this.
In the US, I believe it is legal to film and broadcast anything happening in public spaces. Whether this is good or not is another discussion, and has nothing to do with Reddit itself.
In the US, courts have generally found that photographing someone where they do not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy", i.e. anywhere open to the public is protected under the first amendment.
How do apple & google app stores allow Reddit & Twitter, if you upload apps with pornographic content links in it they ban out instantly?
Is there some other guidelines to be followed or I am missing something?
I would guess they only want to allow apps that don't explicitly condone porn, but that ‘platform’-type apps which happen to contain some pornographic material are ok.
Many subreddits do not allow NFSW content and moderators will ban your contributions if they violate their community rules.
NFSW stuff is pretty much an opt-in experience at this point, and that's fine.
However, the management has shown a ridiculous lack of transparency, and they've just kept making the user experience worse and worse. It makes me sad. Reddit is an amazing resource, and the people who run it are basically shitting on a goldmine. It's like they're hell bent on destroying their asset. Is it because they fundamentally misunderstand what they have? Because they don't care? Because they're greedy, or just plain incompetent?
Within that scope it’s awesome but it’s also so easy that it is just another cesspool.
But the central problem remains - how do people who currently use reddit migrate but not nose their communities built up over the years?
There are plenty of still good communities on Reddit, so I don’t expect a Digg-like exodus, which was due to a terrible redesign - you couldn’t even the use the site, so there was almost no choice but to leave.
But also there are lots of ways for communities to setup their own decentralized server like Discourse (and some have). You only need a couple of motivated community members.
Ultimately Reddit may just devolve into USEnet... flamewars and pornography. But that could take years, and the management will actively try to keep it humming.
> Is it because they fundamentally misunderstand what they have? Because they don't care? Because they're greedy, or just plain incompetent?
Another possibility: because it doesn't make (enough) money. I say (enough) because simply turning a profit isn't good enough when you have investors expecting large returns.
Based on that understanding of the platform, adding features like following users, or having profile pictures, don't make a lot of sense in terms of Reddit's USPs.
But I can imagine how a shift like this might happen. Reddit has a board of directors, and they might look at KPI's like revenue per user, and notice that Reddit is underperforming by a wide margin compared to other players in the space like Facebook, Instagram and twitter. Then managers get tasked with improving this KPI, and through a lack of creativity, they end up copying features from more well monetized social networks.
I think this type of thinking - that all businesses can essentially be treated as black boxes and optimized in the same way - is essentially what led to Dig's emulation of Facebook and eventual downfall.
Ironically it's often a business opportunity to do the opposite of this, i.e. incumbents are implementing user-hostile features that increase some KPI but that users actually hate, so if you do the opposite then you get the users.
Attracting and retaining users is the most important thing, because without that you're out of business. It's far more profitable to make a dollar each from a billion people than a thousand dollars each from a hundred.
While this is true, it's also a hard to make this argument in product discussions, especially when similar products like Facebook and Instagram also have much larger user-bases.
I can imagine the logic would probably be:
- Reddit has X users who produce Y revenue per user
- Facebook has 100*X users who produce 21*Y revenue per user
-> therefore Reddit can potentially increase revenue by a factor of 21 with its current user base!
It's very hard to quantify how much something you are not doing is contributing to user acquisition and retention. It might come out of qualitative research, but users doing an interview or a survey might not even be aware how the lack of a certain feature is contributing to their enjoyment of the site.
Probably you would also be measuring user-acquisition and retention as KPI's, and if a single feature caused a dip, the organization would certainly take notice, but if the introduction of new features gradually slows the growth rate from 8% to 6.5% over the course of months, this is much harder to attribute to a specific strategic decision.
But this is exactly the point. You're smaller than them, so they can get away with more than you because of the network effect. If you want to grow, or even stay where you are, you have to be better than them. If you're just the same, who wants the platform which is no better and has fewer users?
You never unseat the incumbent by cloning them.
Millennials give zero fucks. We grew up on the Internet.
It is one of the many things that have been solved and don't need to be "reinvented", I just buy the cheapest one when I need one.
Show me an ad for a hoverboard (one that actually hovers) and I am interested, naked women or not.
Is this the porn we're talking about when discussing Reddit's porn ban?
I'd argue that the majority of "porn" affected by a site-wide porn ban would be incidental porn/NSFW content whose interesting point isn't simply the fact that it's porn (and thus isn't consumed for the purpose of "relieving themselves").
Porn websites and subreddits dedicated to pornography are a separate thing and I'd agree with you about those.
2. For the cities, people over 35 don't do cancel culture. Cancel culture is a hack by young people to get experienced executives to do things they don't want to do. But under 35's also believe it and they are the ones stopping the ads.
I can't think of any analytical evidence either way.
Kraft and Unilevel have run ads on Pornhub. Unilevel backed down a little - "Unilever has insisted that Dollar Shave Club had operational independence and that its head office in London was unaware of the campaign at the time.". Diesel did.
Independent products that target under 35's should be running ads if your theory works.
Giving them the silent treatment will make the problem go away very quickly as the "troll" will not be fed and will move on to more fruitful trolling opportunities.
Just because people practise basic hygiene doesn't mean quarantine measures should just go out the window.
It's America that is deeply hypocritical: Hollywood sexual exploitation while many of the people are mostly prudish/sex-negative/ashamed.
Kids playacting sex is cause for child protective services and a trip to prison for some relative.
I.e., Hollywood is just catering to an infantile audience.
Looking back now at the videos I saw as a child, I’m quite surprised how much violence is in them. Compare Mickey Mouse from now with the originals for example. On the other hand it wasn’t until my child watched Ninjago that they started replicating the violent moves. When seeing a video of kids playing cop/bandit they also chided the cop for not being nice for something I did really notice.
Bottom line: I’m not sure violence in kids is normal.
So I’m wondering why we should condone this kind of play acting? I’m worried it will lead to a normalisation of violence.
There are actually two separate problems here. One is prudishness and that's stupid and deserving of ridicule.
The other is that somebody on the hunt for teh b00bz is not a in a state of mind that makes them inclined to purchase your aluminum siding.
There are obvious exceptions to this, e.g. ads for dating sites or adult products, but in general not many people go in looking for sex and come out buying a new car insurance policy. Advertisers don't want to advertise there because it's less effective, not because they're offended by sexuality. The relationship the advertising industry has with scantily clad women is not one of disdain.
The interesting thing about this how preposterous it makes the responses like a blanket prohibitions on all nudity.
There are obvious cases where you want to violate that stupid rule for non-pornographic reasons, e.g. a forum for medicine or holding intellectual discussions of sexuality.
And there are a lot of mixed use cases, like a forum for both sharing and discussing the creation of adult drawings or renderings. It's going to be full of "adult content" but it's also a good place to find people to whom you can market art supplies and computer hardware for rendering and web hosting services for their content and so on.
And that's why prohibiting content is the wrong choice. Because this is no different than it being ineffective to market aluminum siding to a forum for renters. What you need is a way to match up the ads with the context, but we already have a whole industry that does that.
Another comment rightfully asked how is this different from any other type of advertising?
Someone on the hunt for gaming videos isn't in a state of mind inclined to purchase web hosting. Someone opening Facebook to catch up on friends/family pictures isn't in a state of mind to purchase some dropshipped crap from China.
I predict they will "ban" pornography within a few months after such a statement.
The Reddit community seethes with pornography.
And there's nothing wrong with this.
Killing it would put a huge damper on the userbase.
Sincere question: how do we determine that there is nothing wrong with facilitating access to pornography? Shouldn’t we study things of this nature before we sanction them?
I guess very specific/niche topics?
One of my jobs had me maintaining a real time feed of reddit. Making a SFW version to demo was half the job.
C'est la vie. I am happy that the first decentralized forum is finally taking off and working well with a simple click and install interface: https://getaether.net/
A mom loses her husband to covid at 40. Hasn't worked in 20 years, she's decent looking, a little risky, so she decides to give OnlyFans a shot as a way to empower herself to feed her family.
Would it be better she go apply at strip clubs that are a bit more seedier and less anonymous and give her less control over her paycheck/livelihood?
How is this different than a youtube star sharing their content? Should we just not allow any original content at all?
> later reddit will ban porn unless it's verified
Many of the top subs (all the gonewild, realgirls, teen but legal type subs) do require verification processes to ensure legal and unique original content.
I can't say if there's much victimization or exploitative ops on there, haven't really looked and don't care to because I'm afraid of what exists on Reddit I don't already know about that's bad enough: like https://www.reddit.com/r/eyeblech <-- not porn, still not safe for sanity or life in general...
I'd hope anything with cp or the likes would get caught and shut down, and anything with rape (real OR fake), and revenge porn, etc...
But there's some reddits where people post (often) anonymously to boost their self-image too like /r/NormalNudes which describes itself as:
"Normal Nudes is an effort to have users submit their own pictures in order to build a library of what normal, every day human bodies look like. We should strive to love our bodies for what they are, and understand there are MANY healthy body types that are beautiful that don't necessarily conform to the standards we might see in magazines or on television."
I don't think there's ever going to be a perfect way for society to embrace the seedier side of things, and also police everything bad and still retain a "free" censorship-free (as much as can be expected and safe) ... but honestly I think Reddit does better than Tumblr or Twitter which are less structured on how they moderate things being less "topical" and less about multiple communities.
I think the best bet is probably have a board of porn overseers that basically are defacto mods in all porn subs and can override any other mod-and act swiftly when an issue comes to their attention. That would probably be the best they could possibly do.