Reddit is launching a new site that’s the opposite of Reddit
Sometimes it’s easy to fall down a Reddit rabbit-hole and get lost in all the comments, threads and replies, and it’s also very easy to succumb to the all the negative chatter and trolls.
Reddit has taken a more positive turn for the authentic with the launch of their news site, Upvoted. Because so many publications, online or otherwise, are using Reddit as a secondary source anyway, the new site is staffed by journalists dedicated to highlighting stories from the site itself. Think of it as Reddit, distilled. All the stuff you need to know is pushed to the top, most visible spots, and readers are not permitted to comment — very un-Reddit-like.
Upvoted editorial lead Vickie Chang told the Washington Post, “We’re hoping to tell the whole story. A lot of stories don’t tell you what led up to [a viral] post, or what happened after. We’re hoping to provide more details for readers.” They want to get to you first, before other sites lift the stories from Reddit and claim them as their own.
This could mean quite a bit more transparency for a site known for its muddled conglomeration of stories and responses, and could make tracing the original poster a lot easier. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian said, “The content generated there becomes content for Facebook and Twitter, and that goes all the way to your local morning news program a day later,” so Upvoted can give credit where credit is due — directly to Reddit.
The new site hopes to generate 10-20 stories a day, possibly 40, but it won’t allow comments. This will significantly lower the hostility and troll-activity and has the potential to make Upvoted a significant online newssource. According to Wired, this is an attempt “for Reddit to recapture some of the attention (and, ahem, traffic) that the site loses when other news organizations take stories from the site.”
Who knows? Upvoted, as the anti-Reddit, might be the place you to go to get straight-forward news, instead of the place you go to avoid it.
Related: