When it comes to social media, there are a lot of options out there. What stands out from the pack, however, in several ways: Reddit.
From an online forum about anything and everything, Reddit has built up a strong community of passionate users over the years. Here are some of the top reasons why Reddit may be the best social media platform today.
1. Reddit is built for anonymity
Often, social media sites require information such as your name, birthday, contact number, etc. Occasionally, you may also be required to submit photographic ID and other personal information.
These can create many problems if the service is hacked. With information like your full legal name, birthday, and supporting documents, hackers can steal your identity and commit fraud. For example, they can open bank accounts or apply for loans in your name.
On Reddit, users can use its service without revealing any details about themselves that they are not comfortable with. Other than a username, password and email address, you are not required to reveal your name or face when you sign up or connect with others.
2. Reddit Prioritizes User Feedback
Reddit is a platform that prioritizes its users’ feedback when it comes to what it shows first. With its unique upvote and downvote system, it is able to identify not only what people like, but also what they don’t like, in a timely and accurate manner.
Using this information, Reddit can quickly sift through millions of posts and draw attention to content other users have identified as valuable.
In comparison, some social media sites, such as Twitter or Instagram, only have mechanisms to show what users like. Additionally, while Facebook has added reaction emoji to aid with sentiment tracking, it’s not as straightforward as Reddit’s downvote and upvote feature.
In fact, some platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, even limit the organic reach of user-generated content from existing followers. Unless account owners pay for sponsored posts, a lot of content on these social media channels will disappear into the internet void.
3. Content-Driven Social Credibility
While other platforms place a premium on followers, engagement rates, and network size to determine social credibility, Reddit uses the Karma system.
On Reddit, Karma is initially calculated by subtracting the total downvotes a person receives on their posts and comments from the total upvotes – with a total Karma score assigned for each category.
A better way to determine how much a user contributes to subreddits is on the platform.
Unlike other social media platforms, where it’s common to find services to fake your follower count, likes, or comments, there aren’t many services you can use to fake Reddit’s Karma rating. Not to mention that soliciting or paying for karma is strictly against its community guidelines.
In addition, your posting history, which shows how you’ve earned karma, is available for all to see.
4. Strong Niche Community
At its core, Reddit is a place where people come together to share their questions, thoughts, opinions, and experiences. Whether it’s a place to discuss serious topics like politics or a fun place where people share cute cat content, there’s a subreddit for almost every type of interest group.
Reddit makes it easy to interact with strangers from around the world with shared interests or things in common with you. Without names attached to faces, some discussions become even easier.
For example, NIH previously hosted an official “Ask Me Anything,” or AMA, in 2021 about rare disease research and gene-based approaches to therapy. AMA is basically an open forum in which Reddit users can ask questions to professionals, field experts or lay people. With interesting background.
During the NIH AMA, Reddit users were able to ask questions about animal testing, the impact of the internet on rare disease communities, and addressing health care system inequities.
