Whether you’re a lurker or a user, you’ve probably discovered by now that, while Reddit is an excellent place for user-generated comments and content, it oftentimes devolve down to something we’ve come to expect from websites such as 4chan. The people running the website are well aware of this issue, as evidenced by their recent attempts to reduce harassment and the like, but not all of Reddit’s users are happy with the changes.
Running a community-based site is complicated; running a site with 9,000 active communities in a changing world is even more complicated. For the past six months we have been examining and reviewing reddit’s community policies and practices, collecting and analyzing data, defining our own goals, and making some hard decisions. Last week, we announced our internal company values, and we were proud to say: We value privacy, freedom of expression, open discussion, and humanity, and we want to make sure that we uphold these principles for all kinds of people. We didn’t announce them because we’d accomplished them, rather because we are striving for them. We’ve already begun making changes to live up to these values. In January, we released our first annual transparency report to share when we provide private information to law enforcement and when we take down content in response to legal demands or for privacy reasons. In March, we updated our privacy policy to address revenge porn, regardless of celebrity status. Yesterday, we made additional changes to be even more transparent about content that reddit removes for legal reasons.
