The Knowledgable Free Speech of the Internet

1.	reddit	1326 up, 208 down
	Reddit, it's like 4chan with a condom.
2.	reddit	5638 up, 1201 down
	A user generated web 2.0 news website with a lefty, libertarian and geek slant. Tends to be slightly more upmarket than its larger competitor digg. The comment system at reddit actually works unlike the broken system over on digg. This results in (usually) more intelligent conversations. One issue with Reddit is that a number of users have installed bots which automatically down vote or up vote specific topics. In 2007, it was known for its support of Ron Paul (and then later Obama), its anger at George W Bush and Cheney and its opposition to the invasion of Iraq and its opposition to any potential attack on Iran. Reddit users are also overwhelming against organized religion be it Christian, the Cult of Scientology, Islam or Judaism. One annoying or endearing feature of reddit that is also unique is "theme" usernames who behavior in stereotyped fashions usually occuring to their chosen username (eg. CAPTAIN_OBVIOUS.) These can be fun, but they usually wear pretty thin after a few days. In general, reddit is a smart forum than digg, although everyone is always saying that slowly reddit is becoming digg while digg is becoming 4chan. From Urban Dictionary -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------    Reddit   In June of 2005, two 22 year old graduates of the University of Virginia, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, created the social news website of Reddit. Reddit features various and ample amounts of information that users post on the website to garner "upvotes" and "downvotes" from other users that determine the "karma" of the user and the popularity of the post itself. The more comments, upvotes and general votes that the post has, the more likely that it will show up on the site's frontpage of posts.  There are many different subreddits that contain information on certain topics that the subreddit has, ranging from solely pictures to gifs to politics to atheism. The users or redditors can obtain karma from their posts and comments as a way of showing how they symbolically are loved by the community.    Research done by Google's DoubleClick suggests that the main audience are males between the ages of 25 and 34 years old with some college education and are in the lowest income bracket.  Wikipedia's description of reddit is that,   The website is known for its open nature and diverse user community that generate its content. Its demographics allows for wide-ranging subject areas, or main subreddits, that receive much attention, as well as the ability for smaller subreddits to serve more niche purposes. The unique possibilities that subreddits provide create new opportunities for raising attention and fostering discussion across many areas. In gaining popularity in terms of unique users per day, Reddit has been a platform for many to raise publicity for a number of causes. And with that increased ability to garner attention and a large audience, users can use one of the largest communities on the Internet for new, revolutionary, and influential purposes.[46] Unsurprisingly, this ability of mass audience convinced that the site only has meaningful news on it has raised thousands to charity and has helped a lot for the worldwide community at large. Wikipedia explains some special numbers: Its popularity has enabled users to take unprecedented advantage of such a large community. Its innovative socially-ranked rating and sorting system drives a method that is useful for fulfilling certain goals of viewership or simply finding answers to interesting questions. User sentiments about the website's function and structure include feelings about the breadth and depth of the discussions on Reddit and how the site makes it easy to discover new and interesting items. Almost all of the user reviews on Alexa.com, which rates Reddit's monthly unique traffic rating 125th in the United States, mention Reddit's "good content" as a likable quality. However, others raise the negative aspects of the potential for Reddit's communities to possess a "hive mind" of sorts[47], embodying some negative aspects of group interaction theories like crowd psychology and collective consciousness. In recent history, Reddit has been known as the instigator of several large-scale projects, some short and others long-term, in order to benefit others. A selection of major events are outlined below: In early December 2010, members of the Atheism and the Christianity subreddits came together to cross-promote[48] fundraising drives for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and World Vision's Clean Water Fund, respectively. Later, the Islam subreddit joined in, raising money for Islamic Relief. In less than a week, the three communities (as well as the Reddit community at large) raised over $200,000, with the vast bulk of that raised by the Atheism subreddit.[49] In early October 2010, a story was posted on Reddit about a seven-year-old girl, Kathleen Edward, who was in the advanced stages of Huntington’s disease. The girl's neighbors were taunting her and her family. Redditors banded together and gave the girl a shopping spree[50][51] at Tree Town Toys, a toy store local to the story owned by a Reddit user. Reddit started the largest Secret Santa program in the world, which is still in operation to date. For the 2010 Holiday season, 92 countries were involved in the Secret Santa program. There were 17,543 participants, and $662,907.60 was collectively spent on gift purchases and shipping costs.[52][53][54] Members from reddit donated over $600,000 to DonorsChoose in support of Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive. The donation spree broke previous records for the most money donated to a single cause by the reddit community and resulted in an interview with Colbert on reddit.[55] Reddit users donated $185,356.70 to Direct Relief International for Haiti after the earthquake devastated the island in January 2010.[56] Reddit users donated over $70,000 to the Faraja Orphanage in the first 24 hours to help secure the orphanage after intruders robbed and attacked one of the volunteers, Omari, who survived a strike to the head from a machete.[57] Unsurprisingly, this ability to raise a lot of money has done bad too. Reddit is endowed with a strong sense of personal freedom and especially freedom of speech. Their have been many subreddits dedicated to controversial issues such as r/jailbait and other disturbing things such as pictures of corpses or obscene material. Usually labeled NSFW/L meaning Not Safe For Work/Life, these things can be easily avoided. The only initial rule of the website was that you could not post personal information on the website, but after threats were made to the site, they banned suggestive or sexual content featuring minors in 2012. Reddit is considered to be a knowledgeable source of group wisdom and hysteria, but is very biased with a political agenda toppling on the left but does have influence from the political right. Reddit is a good case of mob mind set, but it still needs refinement to be perfected. -The Observer