Redditors were outraged by these changes — and Mr. Wong’s replacement as CEO, Ellen Pao, was driven out by a swarm of angry users — but the company’s transition to respectability was a clear success. Reddit’s reputation has steadily improved under a co-founder, Steve Huffman, who returned in 2015 to lead the site as CEO, and Reddit was able to establish the advertising-based business model that now sustains it.
I would like to highlight three specific steps Reddit took to clean up its platform, all of which were crucial in preparing for the company’s public debut.
First, the company targeted problematic spaces, rather than problematic individuals or posts.
Reddit, unlike other social media platforms, is structured by topic; users can join “subreddits” dedicated to various interests such as gardening, anime, or dad jokes. This meant that once the company implemented new rules prohibiting hate speech, harassment, and extremism, it faced a significant question: Should the new rules be enforced on a case-by-case basis for individual users or posts, as new violations are reported, or should entire subreddits where these rules are consistently violated be shut down proactively?
To its credit, Reddit chose the less popular option. It eliminated numerous offensive and hateful subreddits, attributing responsibility not to specific posts or users but to the spaces where toxic behavior frequently occurred, on the basis that online spaces, like offline ones, often develop ingrained customs and norms that are difficult to change.
Despite its severity, the approach was effective. Years later, when researchers examined these changes, they discovered that Reddit’s bans on subreddits had resulted in a noticeable decrease in overall toxicity on the site. Users who had been active in the banned communities either migrated to other platforms or adjusted their behavior. The toxic environments did not reemerge, and compliant Redditors benefitted from a cleaner, less hateful platform.
