Reddit is a news aggregator and bulletin board, co-founded by Steve "Spez" Huffman and Alexis Ohanian on June 23, 2005.¹⁾ It was then acquired by Condé Nast for $10 million from 2006²⁾³⁾ to 2011,⁴⁾ before it returned to independence, then the company went public in 2024.⁵⁾

For some reason,⁶⁾⁷⁾ the megaforum became a powerhouse in the 2010s, and gradually became a way to manipulate public opinion. It's also worth noting that Google and Reddit had struck a deal,⁸⁾ thus why Google tries to force Reddit^9)10)11) and has indexing exclusivity.¹²⁾

On the surface, it's a basic website with numerous 'subreddits' (user-created boards) where users will submit content, discuss, and vote with an overbearing 'karma' (reputation) system. It doesn't really offer much else. There is the 'Reddit Premium' subscription service,¹³⁾ and it used to have 'Reddit Coins' for 'gilding' (awarding) posts¹⁴⁾¹⁵⁾ before it was replaced with some monetization-oriented 'contributor' program.¹⁶⁾

Most of Reddit's success came at the expense of Digg's downfall¹⁷⁾ and several niche internet forums. All technicalities aside, it tends to be a miserable place for debate nerds,¹⁸⁾ cynics, and killjoys as it fosters an insufferable, pretentious, and unwelcoming atmosphere, especially when users are snarky, easily upset,¹⁹⁾ and prone to giving non-answers just to comment.

Toggle chart.

The user activity on Reddit may come off as 'non-genuine' since there's a lot of active manipulation, given the website's beginnings of using bots to give off the illusion of activity,²³⁾ but the unusually high activities at the Eglin Air Force Base²⁴⁾ hinted that intelligence agencies were starting to look into how to weaponize Reddit to manufacture consent, eventually allowing an Atlanticist to be their Director of Policy.²⁵⁾²⁶⁾

During their attempts to undermine the Belt and Road Initiative, there was a disastrous /r/IAmA for a 'Uyghur activist'²⁷⁾ who hadn't been in China since the late 1980s, had been working for the United States intelligence, and curiously visited Guantanamo Bay.²⁸⁾²⁹⁾ In 2025, the federal mass layoffs would reveal that federal employees had a subreddit at /r/fednews.^30)31)32)

Anyways, if you've ever stopped to observe locality subreddits with the 'perfect' name, you may discover that the moderators either have a political bias³³⁾ or do not have the locality's best interests in mind. Some may attempt to create alternatives, but the alternatives will usually be overshadowed as they don't have the 'perfect' name and the subscriber count never goes down.³⁴⁾ A few examples are in the dropdown.

See alternative subreddits?

“And instead of using our app, they use that app. Is that not competitive?”
– Steve “Spez” Huffman³⁵⁾

In the past, Reddit had the paid 'iReddit' app,³⁶⁾³⁷⁾ later abandoned 'iReddit' to acquire the popular third-party alternative Alien Blue,³⁸⁾³⁹⁾ then made a new 'Reddit' app⁴⁰⁾⁴¹⁾ which continued to be overshadowed by other popular third-party alternatives.⁴²⁾ This evidently struck a chord with Huffman,⁴³⁾ so Reddit copied Musk's example⁴⁴⁾ and announced API changes on April 18, 2023⁴⁵⁾ with paid tiers.^46)47)48)49)

The userbase was not pleased,⁵⁰⁾ so a 'protest' began on June 12, 2023,^51)52)53)54) but Reddit would counter said protests by threatening the moderators⁵⁵⁾⁵⁶⁾ and Huffman tried shifting the blame⁵⁷⁾⁵⁸⁾ before shutting up.⁵⁹⁾ During this, some users migrated to alternatives on the Fediverse, such as Lemmy or Kbin,⁶⁰⁾⁶¹⁾ then we saw /r/place open as damage control, with a very clear “Fuck Spez” message written on it.⁶²⁾⁶³⁾

• You used to be able to make a throwaway account at old.reddit.com, but they've recently changed this, forcing you to sign up with an email address, a phone number, or a Google account.
• Reddit will automatically suggest usernames with two words and 2-4 numbers. Be on the lookout for this pattern and take note of what these accounts push (unless English isn't their first language).⁶⁴⁾
• In the past, you had to use two forward slashes if you wanted to link a subreddit. This was eventually changed around 2015, supporting usage of one (r/) or two (/r/) forward slashes.
• The /r/shitredditsays (SRS) subreddit was infamous in the early 2010s as it called out instances of racism and sexism on the platform, occasionally escalating to brigading, dogpiling, and doxing.⁶⁵⁾ It'd be phased out by the late 2010s for the aptly-named /r/againsthatesubreddits (AHS) subreddit.
  • However, these types of communities did, in fact, point out that white supremacist trolls began to target and invade Reddit by pushing far-right content as early as 2011.⁶⁶⁾⁶⁷⁾
  • In 2013, 4chan would reference /r/shitredditsays by setting up a “Shit 4chan Says” ([s4s]) board for their April Fools prank,⁶⁸⁾ though the joke was mostly lost as it became a nonsensical board.
• At one point, it was noted that Reddit has “power moderators”⁶⁹⁾ in 92 of their Top 500 subreddits.⁷⁰⁾
• The Neoliberal Project, which allegedly began on /r/neoliberal, had recently joined the Progressive Policy Institute (Third Way Foundation), an American think tank for Clinton Democrats⁷¹⁾ which has taken funds from the American Gas Association⁷²⁾ and the fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil.⁷³⁾
• The /r/legaladvice (and /r/bestoflegaladvice) subreddit is known to be moderated by police officers, so users are advised to DM the original poster if the moderators are trying to get them killed.

• Reddit (Old Reddit) - The front page of Reddit.
  • @reddit and @redditstatus on Twitter - The two official Reddit accounts on Twitter.
• Unddit - The current way of viewing deleted Reddit posts.