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Because they have a boundary of control with others, users can share opinions and feelings more openly or experiment socially without fear of social repercussions. Īnonymity online allows users to feel a sense of security and privacy between themselves and other users. Reddit never sells private information and only given to authorities when required by law or during emergencies. The only information collected on users is post analytics to improve site performance. When creating a Reddit account, the only fields used to identify a member are an email (optional) and the username. One important aspect of Reddit is the anonymity of user accounts. Due to the anonymity of the site, much of the user information is generated through data-driven speculation or online surveys. Users are also predominantly Male and ages 18-24, according to a voluntary demographics survey by. Users generally spend 11.5 minutes per visit, the 2nd highest in the top 50 pages for the U.S. The United States alone accounts for 56.2% of total Reddit users. Reddit is the fifth most visited site in the U.S, with over 330 million active monthly users who generate 14 billion screen views per month.
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As with many online communities, there are two types of Redditors, content providers, who supply the URL links for the viewing of the community, and lurkers, who may or may not have Reddit accounts, but do not typically supply content. Reddit has a content policy that apply to all users, but subreddits can create supplementary rules that are enforced within individual subreddits. Moderators are charged with guaranteeing that content on their subreddit is relevant and appropriate. Content is divided into categories, called subreddits, which are maintained by Redditors called moderators. Content with more up votes shows up on the Reddit front page. Users also determine the visibility of content by voting the content either up or down. In recent years, Reddit has added functionality to personalize user pages and information, like linking to other social media sites.Ĭontent on Reddit is supplied in the form of hyperlinks to external websites which may display images, text, or any general web content. Consequently, Reddit is largely a community of completely anonymous users that provide web content for each other. There is no requirement for the Redditor to incorporate any personal information into their content or username. Redditors are characterized by only a username and content they provide. It is an online forum where all content is provided by the users, called Redditors. Reddit is the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet”. 2.2 Echo chambers and the self-policing of groupthink.
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