Is Reddit a force for social good?

Jefferson Graham | USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES —Are the folks on the Reddit social news site truly an out-of-control mob, or a force for social good?

Reddit, of course, is where millions of folks go to find out the latest on everything from tech news, soccer scores and funny cat photos posted online. It is a major source of traffic to sites like BuzzFeed, eBay, the Washington Post and USA TODAY.

But if you saw the headlines over the past week, you might get the impression that Reddit is also one wild place to be. A vocal group of Redditers got their way when embattled CEO Ellen Pao resigned.





Their problem with Pao: she had tried to clean up the site and get rid of some offensive personal attacks, such as a so-called "subreddit" where Redditers made fun of overweight folks, or ones where they had attacked both her and her husband.

"Stop Ellen Pao from destroying the Reddit.com community by making her step down as CEO of Reddit Inc." one of the petitions said.

In announcing her decision to step down, Pao wrote on Reddit that she had seen the "good, bad and ugly," in public comments.

"I just want to remind everyone that I am just another human; I have a family, and I have feelings. Everyone attacked on reddit is just another person like you and me. When people make something up to attack me or someone else, it spreads, and we eventually will see it. And we will feel bad, not just about what was said. Also because it undercuts the authenticity of reddit and shakes our faith in humanity."

However, she noted that the positive on Reddit "far outshone" the hate.

And if you talk to Reddit fans, as I have this week, they agree.

Theo LLoyd-Stericker wrote me from the UK to say that "Being mean is very rare as it is usually not worth wasting comments on unkind remarks."

On Reddit, you can only comment every seven minutes.

You also get what's called a "Karma" score, based on what links you post to share, and whether other members of the community like it.

Being really rude on Reddit means you might lose your "precious karma," and really bad comments could result in a ban from the service, Lloyd-Stericker says.

The issue with Pao was "just steady and persistent complaints about the direction she was taking Reddit in," writes Lloyd-Stericker. "She wasn't doing a good job."

Reddit isn't pretty. It looks like one of the earliest Internet forums, with little graphics, but instead it's just a bunch of headlines and links. The site calls itself the Front Page of the Internet.

High school student Izzy Frankel told me he checks Reddit constantly for the latest soccer headlines, finding the most interesting stuff, not in the links, but in the comments section. Reddit is where he goes to find people with similar interests

My colleague Sean Fujiwara goes on Reddit all day long, to keep on the latest tech news.

Yes, some people can be rude and nasty on the site, but not always, he notes. He points out that everyone from President Obama to Bill Gates and Tesla founder Elon Musk have gone on Reddit to answer questions from users, known as the Ask Me Anything, or AMAs.

There are "experts in every field ranging from science and astronomy to vacuums who share their knowledge," Fujiwara says. "There's the side that bands together to donate money to people in need."

Max Patrick Schlienger, who moderates one of the Reddit communities, says he's learned more from what he's read on Reddit than he did in college.

The nasty subreddits "are a very small minority, but a vocal one, and they're not limited to Reddit alone. Go anywhere and you'll find people like them."

What are your thoughts on Reddit? Love it? Hate it? Is it misunderstood? Send your comments to me on Twitter, where I'm @jeffersongraham. And look for me on Stitcher and TuneIn for my daily Talking Tech audio reports.