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Everyone works for Reddit

Chess Move

The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy

Originally known as “The Front Page of the Internet, Reddit has evolved over the years to host digital communities for just about anything. Whether it’s:

•  r/aww for a cuteness overload

• r/Dota2 to nerd out on a legendary video game, or

• r/coachella to speculate that THIS is finally the year Rihanna, Daft Punk & Taylor Swift will grace the stage

Reddit has something for everyone. It’s become a place where anyone, interested in anything, can find a community of like-minded individuals to share in those interests.

But it’s far from straightforward to moderate the activity of 73 million DAU. In the early days of Reddit, communities were policed by a small number of administrators that worked for Reddit’s corporate team. As was often the case in the early 2010’s, it was difficult to know what types of content should and shouldn’t be moderated. Most companies didn’t have community guidelines, and the ones that did were highly subjective.

Over time, many communities, especially sensitive ones, naturally developed moderators to ensure their beloved online neighbourhoods wouldn’t get barred by the Reddit admins. These volunteers would assess content for safety, ban users that violated rules of the subreddit, and even occasionally communicate with Reddit employees.

This is how Reddit built their massive online digital volunteer workforce.

Breakdown

The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways

1.  Translate passion into business value

Who better to manage subreddits than the people who love them?

Reddit realised this early on and decided to capitalise on that passion. 10 years ago, in r/TheoryOfReddit, a good moderator was characterised as somebody who demonstrates:

• Empathy

• Thick skin

• A deep understanding of how Reddit and moderation work

• A genuine interest in moderating

• Knowledge in that domain

• The ability to make mature, unbiased judgement

While much has changed in the way the internet is governed since that time, those values still ring true today.

The average moderator is one that believes in both free speech, but also wants to ensure their favourite sub-communities thrive.

While this strategy has its tradeoffs (time to scale, decentralisation of control), many other community platforms like Quora, Discord and Twitch have since architected similar models for content moderation.

2. Gain economies of scale

The decision to leverage community moderators was a financial one just as much as an emotional one.

Reddit is home to more than 100,000 active subreddits and 430,000,000 posts annually. That’s a LOT of content to moderate.

Doing some back-of-the-napkin maths, Reddit’s annual savings from their community mod operation comes to life:

There are no ramp periods. No training seminars. Complete plug-and-play workforce.

While the number may pale in comparison to the $5 billion Meta spends on content moderation each year, the savings are invaluable for a company still in search of their first annual profit.

3. Play the long game

Reddit’s community moderator strategy is also one of their keys to longevity.

They’ve sat atop the cultural zeitgeist for almost two decades. They’re two generations older than other social information companies like Discord or TikTok. And they outlasted their contemporaries MySpace and Yahoo Answers.

Reddit leans on the intrinsic motivation of their moderators to self-govern and ensure communities stay safe. As described in their S-1:

“Our approach is akin to a democratic city, wherein everyone has the ability to vote and self-organize, follow a set of common rules, and establish community-specific norms. This approach gives Redditors a voice and agency in the process and also means that any content that gains traction on Reddit has been reviewed in context by humans.”

And:

“We backstop this bottoms-up organic moderation engine with our site-wide Content Policy, a set of overarching rules and policies that govern all content on Reddit. Our Content Policy is intended to be protective, not intrusive. It helps protect against harassment, bullying, and violence – especially hate based on identity or vulnerability.”

Great content moderation is also a catalyst for growth, according to Professors Yildirim and Zhang from the Wharton School. In their 2022 paper, they discovered that:

“A platform under advertising is more likely to moderate its content than one under subscription, but it moderates less aggressively than the latter when it does.”

Reddit reiterates that finding in their S-1:

“We rely on an approach to content moderation that depends on Redditors who volunteer to be moderators of their communities. If we fail to retain a sufficient number of moderators who are willing to work in good faith within our policies or if we fail to properly manage our relationship with moderators, or if a sizable number of moderators choose to take actions that disrupt our services, our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects could be adversely affected.”

Reddit’s community mods aren’t just a clever business ruse.

They’re the backbone of the long-term success of the platform.

Rabbit Hole

The where: 3x high-signal resources to learn more

Why become a moderator?

[24 minute watch]

Precisely how Reddit was able to recruit so many community moderators over the last decade remains a mysterious trade-secret.

With no pay, the mod community was simply built atop a vision.

Point explores this phenomenon with one of Reddit’s most famous mods from the last decade.

Retracting the evolution of Reddit through post data

[19 minute read]

Ever wonder how Reddit evolved from a dark-web platform to the “front page of the internet? Dr. Randy Olson tracks the early days of Reddit and uncovers:

• The most popular subs between 2005 - 2012

• Which topics became more and less popular

• The impacts Reddit’s moderation had on usership

Reddit co-founder and CEO chats with Jason Calacanis

[1 hour listen]

Reddit remains steadfast in their commitment to communities.

As a matter of fact, the co-founder and CEO sees this as more important than ever as the AI generation emerges.

Listen to Steve Huffman and VC Jason Calacanis discuss:

• How Reddit views free speech and content moderation

• What Huffman expects to happen with the proliferation of AI

• The thinking behind excluding Reddit from APIs in 2023

That’s all for today’s breakdown - hope you enjoyed!

Written by a couple of folks who spent way too much time on Reddit growing up: Alex McLelland and Tom Alder

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