Reddit Surges in Popularity to Overtake TikTok in the UK - Thanks to Google's Algorithm? (theguardian.com) 38
Reddit "has overtaken TikTok as Britain's fourth most-visited social media service," reports the Guardian:
The platform has undergone huge growth over the last two years, with an 88% increase in the proportion of UK internet users it reaches. Three in five Brits online now encounter the site, up from a third in 2023, according to Ofcom. Its popularity is rising fastest with younger internet users. It is now the sixth most visited organisation of any kind by UK users aged between 18 and 24, up from 10th a year earlier. More than three-quarters of that cohort now visit it....
The UK is a boom market for the platform, with the second largest user base behind the US, according to company records. A series of factors are behind its rise. However, a change in Google's search algorithms last year to prioritise helpful content from discussion forums appears to have been a significant driver. A recent deal with Google that allows the company to train its AI model on Reddit's content also appears to have provided a boost. Reddit is the most-cited source for Google AI overviews, which is likely to see more people directed to its forums. It has a similar deal with OpenAI, which owns the most popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT.
According to the article, Reddit "believes it is also benefiting from shifting internet habits, as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions."
The UK is a boom market for the platform, with the second largest user base behind the US, according to company records. A series of factors are behind its rise. However, a change in Google's search algorithms last year to prioritise helpful content from discussion forums appears to have been a significant driver. A recent deal with Google that allows the company to train its AI model on Reddit's content also appears to have provided a boost. Reddit is the most-cited source for Google AI overviews, which is likely to see more people directed to its forums. It has a similar deal with OpenAI, which owns the most popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT.
According to the article, Reddit "believes it is also benefiting from shifting internet habits, as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions."
Considerring... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Considering that in some cases you effectively have to be on LinkedIn to get a job, I believe this. Of course the ghost job posts and other nonsense have kind of ruined the idea.
LinkedIn has become nothing more than a marketing front to deny an obvious Recession.
Dont believe me? Force every lying cocksucker to remove every ghost job listing that exists for the sole reason of maintaining a bullshit stock price. THEN tell me what the actual economy looks like.
I honestly hope good employees start boycotting LinkedIn. Employers want actual talent? Get off your ass and go find it. It’s not gonna wait around for you on some site that enshittified itself because stock price.
Re: Considerring... (Score:3, Informative)
According to the article, Reddit believes (Score:5, Funny)
Oh my gods, Reddit has become self-aware? Please, tell us more about what Reddit believes, so that we might worship it accordingly. Does it believe in animal sacrifice, like the god of the Christians? I'm going to need to invest in turtledoves right away.
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Oh my gods, Reddit has become self-aware? Please, tell us more about what Reddit believes, so that we might worship it accordingly. Does it believe in animal sacrifice, like the god of the Christians? I'm going to need to invest in turtledoves right away.
Reddit became self-aware that “popularity” is now more important than even profitability.
Reddit also became self-aware of the book Bots for Dummies; How To Win A Popularity Contest.
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I don't know how they measure "popularity" these days.
I happen to know a few people who, for various nefarious reasons that I don't care enough to inquire about, have created hundreds of accounts in the past year. I guess it is some kind of ad scheme based on AI pretending to be people.
Are they requiring a passport scan on reddit now?
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I don't know how they measure "popularity" these days.
Really? Because the absolutely batshit insane signs have been around for years now. Remember Snapchat? In their pre-IPO filing, they practically bragged about how they’re losing millions, have lost millions, and have never made a profit. Ever. Hundreds of millions. Gone.
What was the response from the Street now corruptly infamous for being Too Big To Fail? A thirty fucking billion dollar valuation.
Don't wonder how Girl Math ever became a thing powerful enough to create bankruptcies. It’s
Re: (Score:2)
Because the absolutely batshit insane signs have been around for years now.
They were there back in 1999, too. If you say nothing has changed, then ok, I can believe that.
Reddit - AI bots, and Sad Basement Trolls (Score:5, Informative)
RTFM! (Score:2)
The biggest problem there is no effective way to decipher crazies from normal people. The karma system is a joke. Most of the crazies (overly aggressive, angry, know-it-all, echo chamber weirdos) are the high karmas. Almost the opposite of what karma is supposed to be used for. This might be ok, but this same sort of fanatacism carries over to the mods. You go to some relatively normal sounding subreddit, and read some posts. Cool, so you respond to some posts. Ask innocent questions. Uh oh - the echo chamber jumps you with tons of downvotes.
This sounds a lot like Slashdot to me.
I remember when comments asked innocent Linux questions on Slashdot and the immediate response was RTFM you filthy fucking n00b!
I do feel nostalgic for penis bird and Goat.se Rick Roll comments, though.
The issue is unpaid mods given power (Score:1, Informative)
Low efforts slop posts (Score:2)
The bots show up to flood the political forms and as a workaround the mods require a certain amount of karma before you can post (karma or upvote points)
So on the retro game forums you get a lot of shitty posts like "anyone remember such and such game?!" Can you get a lot of posts on nostalgia bait forums in general. Because of that the quality of the discussion can be really really low on the hobbyist forums.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah... Reddit and Slashdot have a similar moderation system where you get to vote on comments. The only real difference is that Reddit lets you vote on everything, where Slashdot intermittently lets people have moderation powers.
Both systems get abused in a similar manner, where many people think that the -1 down vote option is the "I disagree with your worldview" option.
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I deleted most of my social media, but I kept Reddit. There's a setting you can enable where it only shows you posts from subreddits you have actually joined and nothing else on the front page. I only belong to about 5 or 6 very sane subreddits like r/learndutch and r/my_city.
Enabling that setting is the key to an enjoyable Reddit experience.
Re: (Score:2)
I use reddit. It can be good at times. The biggest problem there is no effective way to decipher crazies from normal people. The karma system is a joke. Most of the crazies (overly aggressive, angry, know-it-all, echo chamber weirdos) are the high karmas. Almost the opposite of what karma is supposed to be used for. This might be ok, but this same sort of fanatacism carries over to the mods. You go to some relatively normal sounding subreddit, and read some posts. Cool, so you respond to some posts. Ask innocent questions. Uh oh - the echo chamber jumps you with tons of downvotes. Then you respond (not being rude mind you - just sharing data to address the downvotes), and some snowflake mod decides they don't like your response and bans you. You can appeal but good luck - in their demented world the appeal is just so they can flex their basement troll "power". The mods violate their own rules, don't give you warnings (even though they say they have to), and repeatedly abuse their role. In all my years I've never seen such a poorly instrumented, and abused mod system. This even goes back all the way to BBS's.
If you know a way to cure tribalism, I'd love to hear it.
Until then, we'll just have to manage it as best we can.
I live in the UK and regularly read Reddit as an anonymous user (meaning I don't have an account) and it's fairly good. Most of the really nutty stuff gets filtered out relatively quickly and it doesn't seem to push anti-vax or other extremist propaganda to average people (read: those not expressly looking for it). Many of the UK centric sub-reddits are great examples of British humour, whi
Human-powered Ignorance. (Score:4, Insightful)
According to the article, Reddit "believes it is also benefiting from shifting internet habits, as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions."
According to human history, PT Barnum didn’t need a lick of help from non-human sources in order to prove there’s a sucker born every minute. 4chan is (mostly) human-generated too. Should we consider that a viable source of non-machine powered intelligence too?
Gotta love the circle-jerk logic of fallible greedy humans needing to create AI in business because of fallible greedy humans, who now seek out the advice of fallible greedy humans because of what fallible greedy humans have ironically done with AI.
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Hey! We offered them /b/ to train their AI [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
According to the article, Reddit "believes it is also benefiting from shifting internet habits, as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions."
According to human history, PT Barnum didn’t need a lick of help from non-human sources in order to prove there’s a sucker born every minute. 4chan is (mostly) human-generated too. Should we consider that a viable source of non-machine powered intelligence too?
Gotta love the circle-jerk logic of fallible greedy humans needing to create AI in business because of fallible greedy humans, who now seek out the advice of fallible greedy humans because of what fallible greedy humans have ironically done with AI.
PT Barnum was a hell of an optimist to think there's only one born every minute.
Remember when (Score:2)
Seriously, remember when Slashdot was the only forum worth visiting?
Re: (Score:2)
Before they stopped updating the software (Classic mode still can't cope with a UK pound sign typed directly from the keyboard: £ See? But SoylentNews runs on the same software too and that works just fine), flooding it with dupes, crap and even ads-masquerading-as-articles (I remember a bomber jacket or similar?), and then sold it out a few times to people who literally DID NOT UNDERSTAND what they'd bought, and then they all gave up ever doing anything about updating it or curating it or
Re: (Score:2)
Ignoring the nits, I remember when Slashdot was the place to get tech news, now it looks three days behind everywhere else.
That tells me people don't care about Slashdot enough to have it high up on the list of places to post their tech news stories because it's hurtling towards obscurity.
Re: (Score:2)
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SomethingAwful had some enlightening content back in the day.
Re: (Score:1)
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Looks like you're suffering from TDS. If you're going to schiz out and cry about how "everything is left now", at least learn how to use a keyboard.
It’s better than the dark endless feed (Score:1)
Stay off Social Media. It'll drive you mental. (Score:2)
“Jonathan Haidt’s case for getting kids more interested in real life and less interested in their phones”
Re: (Score:2)
This is the only account I have not yet been banned from.
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And they wipe all your old posts over on Reddit - fcuk em!
Who still uses Reddit? (Score:2)
I thought we all agreed to abandon it in 2023 when it wanted to charge insane amounts for accessing the API? https://developers.slashdot.or... [slashdot.org]
not even retarded, we think (Score:1)
see, the free market is fair! And you can pay to make it MORE fair, for you.
Tencent declared a CCP military Asset by US state (Score:1)
I'm known as one of the top video gamers in human history, many call me #1, proof at Crystalfighter.com I discovered something in League of Legends known as POLITICAL CENSORSHIP QUEUE. China gives you all bad allies if you aren't all for their politics.
Don't laugh, it's scientifically proven by many... 8000 games, 80% bad allies, should be close to 15% or 30%... Other people with 3000+ games like this.
RIot even has