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Tech NewsReddit Turns to Michael Seibel to Replace Alexis Ohanian
Less than a week ago, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian made news when he announced he was resigning from the website’s board, urging the company to replace his seat with a Black candidate. Now, it would appear Reddit has honored his request by appointing Michael Seibel, a venture capitalist investor and entrepreneur known for promoting diversity … Continued
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Tech NewsAlexis Ohanian Is Done With Reddit
Alexis Ohanian has stepped down from his seat on the board of Reddit, the website he cofounded just shy of 15 years ago, in an apparent act of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. “It is long overdue to do the right thing,” Ohanian wrote in a blog post Friday afternoon. “I’m writing this … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsTwitter and Reddit Highlight How the Trump Administration Is Stifling Speech on the Internet
On the same day that Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to throttle social media to defend his freedom to lie, Twitter and Reddit highlighted how the administration itself proactively, enthusiastically stifles speech online. On Thursday, the companies submitted evidence in support of a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for surveilling visa applicants’ social … Continued
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Tech NewsReddit Furiously Backpedals on Chat Feature After Fierce Backlash
Earlier this week, Reddit announced it was introducing chat rooms to some of its subreddit communities. Then roughly a day later, that new feature was rolled back due to “several errors” and pissed off moderators. The “Start Chatting” feature was billed as a way for more redditors to connect over their favorite topics now that … Continued
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io9Tessa Thompson Is Helping Turn a Reddit Sci-Fi Horror Story Into an Amazon TV Show
It’s time to get creepy(pasta). Amazon Studios has announced plans to adapt QCode’s The Left Right Game podcast, based on the Reddit r/nosleep story by Jack Anderson. The podcast’s star, Tessa Thompson (Westworld), is on board as an executive producer. According to Deadline, Amazon beat out over 10 film and television offers to adapt The … Continued
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Tech NewsReddit’s Imaginary Maps Show Us It Could Always Be Worse
We’ve all mapped out some mental image of the world we live in, and it’s not great. Whatever our doomscape looks like, though, we can probably agree that it still beats a medieval patchwork of theocratic states after an unspecified Event, a zombie-colonized Britain, or a Pacific Northwest after Oregon’s fallen into the sea. This … Continued
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ScienceHealthYouTube Launches Verified Coronavirus Coverage Hub on Homepage
In response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, YouTube announced Thursday that its homepage will now feature a news shelf of trustworthy COVID-19 coverage for users to easily source up-to-date news. “We want everyone to have access to authoritative content during this trying time,” YouTube tweeted. This dedicated hub launched in 16 countries Thursday, with plans … Continued
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Tech NewsReddit Will Start to Punish Users for Upvotes as It Eyes Ad Cash
Over the past few years, Reddit’s gained a reputation for being one of the last mainstream strongholds for kinda fascist-y content, thanks in part to the free-speech ideals long touted by its leadership. But it looks like the need for “growth”—and funding—is pushing the platform to do a bit of growing up. Yesterday, Reddit CEO … Continued
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Tech NewsActivision Subpoenas Reddit to Uncover Mysterious ‘Call of Duty’ Leaker
Reddit’s had its fair share of leakers in the past, with more than a few subreddits dedicated to the task of sharing leaks from video games, movies, tv shows, and the like. Last week, one of these leakers posted a now-deleted clip that they claimed was from the game’s new “battle royale” mode coming to … Continued
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Tech NewsHow Online Platforms Are Tackling Coronavirus Misinformation
As the deadly coronavirus continues to wreak havoc in China and around the world, several social media kingpins are fighting the outbreak on a different front: By curbing the spread of misinformation and fake claims online amid a public health emergency. False information on the coronavirus has only been proliferating on certain platforms as more … Continued
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Tech NewsPoliticsReddit Uncovers Russian Interference Campaign Ahead of Pivotal UK Election
Fears of Russian interference ahead of a heated U.K. election were all but confirmed this week with a Reddit post. In a post Friday, Reddit announced that its internal investigation found evidence that an account purportedly linked to Russian disinformation campaign was behind last month’s leak of contentious US-UK trade documents on the platform. “We … Continued
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Tech NewsConspiracy Theorists Are Less Angry Than the Rest of Reddit, Study Finds
The path to the million-member-strong league on Reddit’s r/conspiracy is paved with politics, toxicity, and tech culture, a sprawling study has found. From an eight-year sample ranging from 2007 to 2015, a team of Australian researchers compared 15,370 r/conspiracy posters to an equal number of users who’d started out posting on Reddit in similar forums … Continued
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Tech NewsHey, Reddit NSFW Communities: Imgur’s Sick of Your Smut
Image-sharing site Imgur announced this week that it’s distancing itself from Reddit’s smuttier corners and will no longer display content from the forum’s NSFW communities. “Over the years, these pages have put Imgur’s user growth, mission, and business at risk,” the site’s blog post reads. “We want Imgur to be a fun and entertaining place … Continued
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Tech NewsVan Attacker Who Allegedly Killed 10 in Toronto Says He Was Radicalized on Reddit and 4Chan
Alek Minassian, the 26-year-old man accused of killing 10 people with a rented Ryder van in Toronto on April 23, 2018, told police that he’s an involuntary celibate (incel) and that he was radicalized online through websites like Reddit and 4Chan, according to a police interrogation that took place shortly after the attack. Minassian, charged … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsSocial MediaPhilly News Anchor Sues Facebook, Reddit After Her Photo Shows Up in Dating, Erectile Dysfunction Ads
A Philadelphia-area Fox 29 anchor, Good Day Philadelphia co-host Karen Hepp, is suing Facebook, Reddit, and other platforms in federal court after discovering that a photo of her taken in a convenience store was popping up in dating and erectile dysfunction ads, per the Verge. In court documents, Hepp alleged that Facebook, Reddit, Imgur, Giphy, … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsGalaxy Note 10+, Alternate Internets, and Bernie’s Climate Plan: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week
This week at Gizmodo, we took a long, hard look at what could have been with our Alternate Internet series, cataloging some of the ways the web could have been different—or still could be. While we didn’t have the time to write a sweeping, The Wheels of Time-length series on what would happen if I … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsI Liked Something Online Today
It’s hard to shock the staff of Gizmodo dot com. Collectively, we’ve spent millions of hours online, covering everything from fishman dildos to catfish fetishists. Today, however, we discovered something truly surprising: Reddit Public Access Network, the platform’s new experiment with livestreaming, is honestly pretty good. Launched on Monday as a five-day test, RPAN invites … Continued
By Hudson Hongo -
Tech NewsSwastika Ride Shut Down at German Amusement Park After Going Viral on Social Media
A new ride at a German amusement park recently raised quite a few eyebrows on social media for its bizarre design. Now the ride, called the Adlerflug or “Eagle’s Flight,” will reportedly be shut down after so many people pointed out the obvious: The ride looks like two giant swastikas. The ride opened in July … Continued
By Matt Novak -
io9GamesAll the News and Key Details From Google Stadia Chief’s AMA
Google’s big play at making game streaming a reality—Stadia—is slated to go live sometime in November. That’s less than four months away, so to help answers questions and provide more info about Google’s upcoming game streaming platform, Stadia’s director of product Andey Doronichev hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on the Stadia subreddit. We … Continued