“We have come a long way in recent years to focus more on the needs of the hundreds of thousands of communities that make up Reddit,” the company said in a blog post. “We have dedicated ourselves to Reddit because we believe in the power of communities that provide a sense of belonging and connection as real as the ones we make offline.”
Reddit has been highly visible in recent days. Last month, shares of the video-game retailer GameStop soared as users of Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, which is known as a “subreddit,” egged one another on to buy the stock, partly to entrap hedge funds that had bet the stock would fall.
That sent GameStop’s stock on an extraordinary and volatile ride. After a flurry of media attention, the WallStreetBets forum ballooned to more than seven million members. Multiple book and film option rights have been shopped over the saga, with the prospect of fame and money embroiling the forum’s moderators in bitter disputes.
Reddit was also widely praised for a five-second commercial that aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday, which became one of the most talked-about ads on a day that was crowded with talked-about ads. Reddit’s spot, which required viewers to pause their television screens to read it, proclaimed, “Wow, this actually worked.” Viewers scrambled to grab screenshots of one of the shortest-ever Super Bowl ads to post to social media.
Reddit has had its share of controversy over the years. The company has long been criticized for its laissez faire approach to content moderation, which allowed racist, sexist and troll-filled communities to flourish. At one point, Reddit refused to remove subforums dedicated to racist commentary, citing the need for free and unfettered speech.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/technology/reddit-raises-250-million.html
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