#SocialMedia#ContentModeration#Reddit: "How do you put out a dumpster fire? Don’t call in professional firefighters; let volunteers show up with buckets and get to work.
This is, in essence, how Reddit, the 19-year-old social media site, turned itself from one of the darkest corners of the web into something of a model for how content moderation should be done. The San Francisco company rode that transformation, which relied on an army of volunteer monitors, all the way to Wall Street this month, when it pulled off one of the most anticipated tech offerings in years.
Its shares rocketed to $74 in its first days on the Nasdaq exchange after debuting at $34. The stock gave up some ground to just under $50 at Thursday’s pre-Easter close, valuing the company at $8 billion (£6.5 billion).
Reddit’s arrival on the public market marked a remarkable coming of age for a company that once revelled in its status as a free-for-all chock full of internet trolls and “not safe for work” posts. The latter included the infamous episode a decade ago when unauthorised nude photos were shared of celebrities including Rihanna and Jennifer Lawrence. The response of Reddit’s then chief executive was to leave up the offending material. In a post entitled “Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul”, he explained that the firm was not so much a website as a “government of a new type of community” — a community that happened to have a rabid belief in free expression." https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7d352b65-464e-4dc7-906d-62c014b88679?shareToken=00aeb577b8820278fd9a02e8761f70ca
