Reddit Just Lost All Chances Of Becoming A Relevant Ad Platform
Brit McGinnis — November 28, 2016 — November 28, 2016
A few days before Thanksgiving, the CEO of Reddit, Steve Huffman, openly admitted to editing the comments on a Donald Trump themed subreddit (specialized forum) on his website. The changes were recorded by frequent users of the website after comparing archived versions of the site to the current state. Huffman openly admitted to the deed, referring to moderating an earlier scandal within Reddit related to Hillary Clinton saying “It’s been a long week here.”
This open admission of tampering with user generated content is a first, and it leads to speculation that Huffman may have been practicing post editing for quite some time. Why shouldn’t there be this speculation? The act of editing with that level of editorial authority on Reddit means that no watermark is left behind when a change is made. Not exactly the kind of environment that encourages trust and sharing within a community.
But while the outrage circulates within Reddit users, the group that should also be joining their outrage is the companies that have paid in for Reddit advertising. The main selling point on Reddit was it’s exclusive access to extreme niche networks of hobbyists, communities centered around certain products and politically minded people keen to get out the vote for their favorite candidates. Now, every customer sentiment expressed by the Reddit community is suspect. Is it genuine, or is it altered? An advertiser can no longer trust what they see.
It’s rather sad that Reddit’s higher-ups would allow this to happen, considering all the scandal that erupted when it deleted communities it considered objectively hurtful and racist in June 2015. The nature of those subreddits aside, it raised legitimate questions about the limits of free speech on the Internet. Would the original Reddit of “anything that isn’t illegal” stay intact in 2016? These were real and critical questions among the Reddit user base. Advertisers hoping to tap into their attention watched and waited.
Under the regime of CEO Ellen Pao, a businesswoman with deep ties to Silicon Valley, Reddit saw the firing of the director of talent and communications coordinator Victoria Taylor. Taylor’s firing sparked outrage particularly among the volunteer admins of the subreddits, among whom she was popular. Rumblings began that the new administration had little interest in the preferences and desires of the communities it ran. Was Reddit doomed to be scrubbed clean in the interests of wooing ad dollars? Did the users themselves not matter to the administration as much as the money to be made from advertising to them?
For many Reddit users, this exercise of executive power by Steve Huffman may be the killing blow to their trust in Reddit as a social media site. Facebook has been ridiculed and mocked for its promotion of news stories that were false or highly exaggerated. But even Facebook isn’t foolhardy enough to alter text or other indicators of user reactions. That would aggravate not only the original posters but the advertiser looking to capitalize upon those reactions. Facebook isn’t taking a higher road. They just know not to bite the hand that feeds them.
Reddit has been riddled with controversy practically since its inception as a social media platform. But it may have just lost its place as the most honest social media network, and that is something to mourn. For years, this was considered the social media network where even the darkest aspects of humanity came out onto the internet. Reddit cleaned house in 2015 of its most controversial sections, allegedly to court ad dollars. Not many people in advertising mourned that decision. But this may be the move that alienates even those potential advertisers. If you can’t trust the reactions of potential customers to your product, there is no point in advertising to them. Huffman sealed Reddit’s fate as an unreliable source of customer sentiment to silence a few Trump supporters. One can only hope it was worth it.
Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community
(57)
