The transfer is in regards to the website’s evolution, but additionally that of the broader social-media atmosphere.
That is an version of The Atlantic Every day, a publication that guides you thru the largest tales of the day, helps you uncover new concepts, and recommends the perfect in tradition. Join it right here.
A few days in the past, the account u/whitehouse posted on Reddit for the primary time. Because it kicked issues off with a photograph of President Joe Biden main a briefing on Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene, the account has appeared on varied pages associated to the storms. “Yep, it’s actually us!” one remark from the account reassured any (understandably) skeptical customers.
This has been fairly per week for disinformation throughout the web: A few of the lies being unfold as storms batter the Southeast come from accounts that belong to on a regular basis customers posting sensational photos with the assistance of AI, however some have come straight from elected officers, similar to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump, who’re utilizing the storm to gasoline a political agenda. Debuting on Reddit this week was a means for the White Home to push again in opposition to misinformation, Christian L. Tom, the White Home director of digital technique, informed me earlier at the moment. “We view Reddit as a very good instance of a service that permits folks to align round shared pursuits,” together with particular subjects and areas, Tom mentioned.
The White Home remains to be posting on different main social platforms; Tom famous that utilizing Reddit was among the many White Home’s varied digital methods, which embody working with content material creators, and he emphasised that having a presence on the platform doesn’t come on the expense of coping with misinformation on platforms similar to X. (Reddit itself is, in fact, not resistant to misinformation.)
That Reddit is now an interesting dwelling for such content material is a little bit of a swerve: The positioning was as soon as notorious for internet hosting unwieldy dialog threads and even hate speech. However because the mid-2010s, the platform has put main effort into moderating its content material. Its person base has additionally grown dramatically lately. As Reddit’s opponents, particularly Elon Musk’s X, have grow to be vectors of inaccuracy and lies, Reddit is standing out as an surprising place for real-time, correct data to achieve an engaged public.
The Reddit cleanup started after a number of high-profile crises—together with a workers revolt in opposition to its former CEO Ellen Pao and swells of violent speech on the platform on the time of the 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. The corporate quickly up to date the language of its content-moderation insurance policies and banned accounts it discovered to be in violation. Because the Reddit co-founder and now-CEO Steve Huffman informed The New Yorker on the time: “We let the story get away from us. And now we’re attempting to get our shit collectively.” For Reddit, a part of the hassle to tamp down on dangerous actors was clearly about income development, and on that rating, the corporate’s efforts appear largely to have labored; it went public this previous March, debuting on the inventory market at a $6.4 billion valuation.
My colleague Kaitlyn Tiffany, who has coated the world of Reddit, informed me that the platform has at all times been a product of its time—together with 20 years in the past, when the online had completely different norms. The positioning at the moment is not any utopia, she cautioned. However its uncommon system of volunteer moderators has allowed Reddit to evolve. The positioning has shifted “pretty organically due to a content-moderation system that empowers customers to maintain their very own siloed areas clear,” she mentioned. Reddit could be understood as a group of “fiefdoms,” often known as subreddits, Kaitlyn defined, ruled by guidelines laid down by the moderators of that house—and topic to the positioning’s broader insurance policies. The system of permitting customers to upvote and downvote posts “works as a built-in verify in opposition to dangerous data spiraling uncontrolled,” she added (although dangerous actors may at all times overtake a web page and attempt to manipulate it).
Reddit’s position on this second additionally speaks to the truth that different platforms have let lies proliferate unchecked: X, as soon as rigorously moderated and admired for its utility in fast-changing information moments, is now overrun with disinformation—a few of it personally boosted by its proprietor, Elon Musk. The positioning previously employed a strong group of belief and security officers; Musk fired lots of them in 2022, and has mocked the concept of content material moderation. In the meantime, Google is clogged with AI instruments and nonsensical, not-always-accurate summaries. Into this panorama comes Reddit: 100 folks per second are appending “Reddit” to their Google searches in an effort to get the outcomes they’re in search of, a Reddit spokesperson informed me; the positioning’s customers had been at an all-time excessive final quarter, she mentioned, including that subreddits for varied Florida communities affected by the storms noticed boosts in site visitors over the previous two weeks.
As my colleague Elaine Godfrey wrote yesterday, right-wing efforts to politicize the hurricanes “supply a foretaste of the grievance-fueled disinformation mayhem that we’ll see on and after Election Day.” In a second when America’s elected leaders are fanning the flames of disinformation, and social-media lords are working in opposition to the unfold of correct content material (in Musk’s case, actually leaping into an alliance with a politician doing the identical), folks sharing real-time info are searching for someplace to go. In our topsy-turvy media ecosystem, the reply could also be—of all locations—Reddit.
Associated:
Listed here are three new tales from The Atlantic:
Right this moment’s Information
- Not less than 5 individuals are useless and greater than 3 million folks have misplaced energy after Hurricane Milton battered Florida in a single day.
- The Division of Justice introduced that TD Financial institution will pay a $3 billion advantageous for fees together with violating the Financial institution Secrecy Act and failing to watch cash laundering.
- Ethel Kennedy, widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and matriarch of the Kennedy household, died at age 96.
Dispatches
Discover all of our newsletters right here.
Night Learn
Get Off the Household Plan
By Arthur C. Brooks
Folks continuously ask me what they need to assist their grownup children pay for, in the event that they themselves have been fortunate sufficient to do nicely in life. The dilemma they’ve is that they’re pleased with having earned their means and really feel that their self-reliance, not a handout, is the reward they wish to move on; but additionally they really feel that it’s stingy to carry out on their nearest and dearest, fairly than share their success.
Right here’s a rule of thumb to assist resolve that dilemma: In case you can afford to assist your grownup children, pay for funding, not consumption.
Extra From The Atlantic
Tradition Break
Try. These are the profitable photos from the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months competitors.
Learn. John Steinbeck beat Sanora Babb to the good American Mud Bowl novel—utilizing her discipline notes, Mark Athitakis writes. What will we owe her at the moment?
Play our day by day crossword.
Stephanie Bai contributed to this article.
If you purchase a guide utilizing a hyperlink on this publication, we obtain a fee. Thanks for supporting The Atlantic.