What is Reddit?
If you tend to spend maximum hours online, you probably
might have heard about Reddit. There's a high probability that online users
know about it. If you haven't heard, then this article is for you to discover
the unknown term 'Reddit' to the fullest.
So, what exactly is Reddit? Well, it is a social news
platform where users are allowed to submit posts, discuss and upvote or
downvote based on if they like it or not. If a post gets maximum upvotes then
it climbs up the Reddit ranking so that more people can access it.
Actually, Reddit is a community - determined collection of
wide topic contents including videos, photos, links and text - based posts.
When Was Reddit Launched?
Reddit, an American social news website was founded by Steve
Huffman, Alexis Ohanianand Aaron Swartz on June 23, 2005. It was acquired in
October 2006 by Condé Nast Publications. In 2011, it became an independent
subsidiary of Condé Nast's parent company, Advance Publications.
But in 2012, reddit was again formed into a re-incorporated
independent entity with its own board and control of its own finances, hired a
new CEO and brought back co-founder Alexis Ohanian to serve on the board. It
can be said that reddit is a “part-sibling-once-removed” of Condé Nast.
How Is Reddit Designed?
Reddit is sub divided into more than a million communities
known as “subreddits,” which cover a variety of topics such as politics, news,
science, movies, video games, music, books, fitness, cooking, memes, pets and
so on.
The name of each subreddit begins with /r/, which is part of
the URL that Reddit uses. For example, /r/ipl is a subreddit where people talk
about the Indian Premier league, while /r/fifa is a subreddit for people to
discuss world football. These are straightforward subreddits, but sometimes,
they can get weird, such as /r/birdswitharms, a subreddit devoted to pictures
of birds… with arms.
The homepage of reddit shows you various posts that are
currently trending on the site, pulled from a variety of subreddits. You can
sort these posts by clicking one of the icons on the ribbon menu located
underneath the Create Post text box. You can create subreddits, provided you
meet some criteria.
Firstly, you must have a reddit account, it should be
minimal 30 days old and must be relatively active, and have earned minimum
number of 'karma' points as a result of that activity. The exact required number
of karmas are not mentioned, but it is known only to reddit.
Subreddits are managed by moderators, volunteers who can
change, remake and edit the appearance of a particular subreddit, decide what
types of content are allowed, and even remove posts or content or ban users
from the subreddit.
Reddit as a whole is governed by the admins, employees of
Reddit. They have actual control of the site, including the ability to strip
moderators of their privileges and even ban entire subreddits from the site.
For example, in June 2020, it banned hundreds of subreddits including its
largest pro-Trump message board (known as a subreddit), r/The Donald, amid hate
speech crackdown.
Reddit has its own language. Redditors use abbreviations
such as OP, TIL, IAmA, and AMA. OP stands for “original poster” in a thread,
while TIL means “today I learned”. Both IAmA and AMA refer to Reddit’s most
popular feature: Ask Me Anything thread. In fact, reddit is a cloud forum where
people belonging to different regions, countries meet, share stuffs and talk to
one another.
Reddit has grown to
become a popular hub for many topics, both good, bad, and niche. And the reddit
community has also taken important steps to make the site more inclusive by
eliminating explicit content from its public homepage.
You can support reddit by purchasing Reddit premium, the site's
membership program for $6 per month.
Written by – Mickel Lepcha
Edited by – Keerthana Lakshmi
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