A protester takes a selfie in front of police dispersing the Capitol riot. (Photo: Tasos Katopodis, Getty Images)
Twitch’s relationship with misinformation is complicated. In 2020, platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter grappled with their outsized roles in the creation and cultivation of conspiracy movements like QAnon. Misinformation troubled Twitch in a different way, but the platform emerged curiously un-plagued by a comparable extremism epidemic. Now, midway through 2021, Twitch is finally gearing up to combat misinformation.
New York Times published a story about extremism on Twitch that overstates the scope of a much more nuanced problem, making it sound like a significant number of far-right influencers fled to Twitch after getting the boot from Facebook and YouTube. The story proceeds to only cite a small handful of specific streamers, one of whom appears to have given up on Twitch a month ago and none of whom have large audiences by Twitch standards.
Reddit CEO backs WallStreetBets amid calls for stiffer moderation
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Sarah E. Needleman
, The Wall Street Journal
Chief of the social network whose users sparked GameStop stock-trading frenzy expresses confidence in its user-reliant model for policing speech
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Reddit Inc.’s role in the recent stock-trading frenzy has brought millions of new users to the social-media platform, its chief executive says, as well as scrutiny to the power of large communities online.
One of Reddit’s defining quirks is that it largely relies on users, instead of algorithms or armies of tech employees, to police speech. Those community moderators didn’t intervene when users in a forum called WallStreetBets egged on people to buy shares of heavily shorted stocks such as GameStop Corp. U.S. regulators are now probing whether the ensuing market upheaval resulted in securities-law violations.
Reddit Inc. s role in the recent stock-trading frenzy has brought millions of new users to the social media platform, its chief executive says, as well as scrutiny to the power of large communities online.
One of Reddit s defining quirks is that it largely relies on users, instead of algorithms or armies of tech employees, to police speech. Those community moderators didn t intervene when users in a forum called WallStreetBets egged on people to buy shares of heavily shorted stocks such as GameStop Corp. U.S. regulators are now probing whether the ensuing market upheaval resulted in securities-law violations.
In an interview, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the WallStreetBets episode has demonstrated the durability of the company s model, as it matures and grows. The 37-year-old Reddit co-founder recently changed his Reddit profile image to WallStreetBets cartoonish mascot of a Wall Street trader with so-called diamond hands, in a show of support for the group.