Does Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian have any regrets about his creation? The entrepreneur and founder of venture fund Seven Seven Six spoke at an event at the University of Virginia, where he asserted a rather negative view of the current social media environment and the creator economy. The environment, he says, is one in which everyone is “very trained and now conditioned to just getting likes, retweets and upvotes…More optimistic We want to be, and we see it happening before our eyes. Still, he ultimately described himself as a “techno-optimist.” This is a clear nod to a16z general partner Marc Andreessen’s recent accusation that technology can solve all problems.
“He is guilty as charged,” Ohanian said at the hearing. interview With Kara Swisher. “I think the pendulum will swing back. We’re thinking even faster than we think.” To understand the world, we need better platforms than we have today. He theorized that a war in the Middle East could even be a turning point because it is “so clear” that something is needed.
As you may recall, the founder notably resigned from Reddit’s board in 2020, citing disagreements over moderation and a desire to police the community on violence and hate. It was a moment when he seemed to be thinking about what his platform had brought him. At the time, he called for his board seat to be replaced by a black director. The company agreed and appointed Y Combinator partner Michael Seibel as its first black board member.
Reddit has since also banned several toxic communities, including r/donaldtrup, in the wake of the violence at the U.S. Capitol, but Ohanian said the site has “definitely gotten better” since then, and that the business He also said that he had improved.
But when it comes to social media as a whole, of which Reddit will be a part, Ohanian said social media brings out “the worst parts of human nature in many ways.” Additionally, he is concerned that with any leaderboards the platform has, people have a desire to be first and want to win, which can lead to situations where misinformation can be spread. I announced.
“There’s so much pressure to be number one right now, and UGC (user-generated content) always wins. But that doesn’t mean it’s always true. But it becomes the epicenter of the conversation. And what percentage of our population is going to really seriously take a breath and say, “Let me stop doomscrolling, and people can do the work and integrate it and then help me react.” Do I want to say, “Let’s just wait until it happens?” he continued.
“Also, we are deeply involved in all these storylines, whether they come from traditional media, user-generated ones, or posts on Telegram groups on our phones. We’re overwhelmed, we’re overloaded, and unfortunately that appeals to our worst instincts,” Ohanian added.
Part of the problem with how social media platforms were developed had to do with how companies originally developed them. For example, Ohanian said Reddit grew out of running his site online, a forum in college where he believed the community felt just as real as offline. He said when Reddit became a multibillion-dollar business with hundreds of millions of users, he never imagined the site would one day become so influential. That idea would be “ridiculous,” he says. And he never could have imagined that his startup would be so successful as to influence elections and democracy.
“It takes a level of delusion that even I, as a first-time CEO, can’t think to think, “Oh my god, I’m going to be this successful, that I can have such a huge impact on our democracy,” he said. Stated. . “Was that a blind spot? Of course,” he admitted.
Ohanian noted that another part of the problem is that there are more people online today than early technology founders imagined. While he’s happy to see greater access to technology, it also comes with many complications.
“I don’t like the idea that the Internet, which I’m so nostalgic about, was actually an ivory tower,” he said, but on the other hand, he said, we’re exposed to more people in real time. said. More than we could have imagined. And that can pit people against each other and against their different versions of the truth — even if their version of the truth believes in something as far-fetched as the Earth is flat, he said. He cited one example that has supporters on Reddit.
On the other hand, he said, getting platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit to take on the responsibility of verifying truth and accuracy is a challenge. Ohanian also described TikTok as a “weapon of the Chinese government” that is very good at “giving us what we want, when we want”, meaning it is always a fountain of truth. He also said that there is no limit.
If anything, Ohanian credits Twitter (now called X) with devising the best moderation system ever.
“I personally think community notes are a good thing. It’s the best instrument I’ve ever seen. And frankly, I wish we had thought of it in the first place. I think so,” he said.
Still, he championed the notion that platforms like the X could become town squares.
“The public square is [analogy]…I feel depressed. I mean, if you mean the public square, I mean, what? Is it a town or a city? If you’re in charge, you’re the mayor. But there are no democratic elections,” Ohanian said. “You’re the CEO. So you’re like a king? If you want to lean into the town square, fine. Just own it and say, yeah, this is the town square and I’m Just say that there is an endless dictator, a tyrant.”
Despite the challenges and urgency of social media, Ohanian believes there is still hope in terms of social impact. For example, he noted that the founders his fund 776 invests in are much smarter and more aware of the issues than they were at their age. Perhaps the next platform will still be addictive, but in a way that “doesn’t disrupt democracy further,” he mused.
He also believes that if everything on social media is perfectly curated for us, our brains will start craving things that aren’t. “I think live gatherings and in-person experiences will return. The bright side of this is that I hope we can reconnect with our humanity and the things that no amount of AI can replace.”
“I’m trying to be an optimist about it,” Ohanian added. “And I think we still have a way to go, but we’re fighting a very, very powerful human thing. And if we can solve that, we’ll have a very good outcome. Because we… Because you can see that they have more in common than they don’t have,” he said.
