As much as I love it, the internet has some pretty unsavory corners. Assuming this makes any news outside the internet, I'd be curious to see what comes out -- "President Obama answering questions on new technology associated with necrophilia AND child porn".
I'm being snarky, but it's comments like the one you just made which are echo-chambered into "there is something wrong with communications medium X because it was once used by group Y". Reddit's a big public forum: any big forum will have those issues.
> "the internet has some pretty unsavory corners."
Average voters actually use the internet and understand it. There's porn and stuff "out there", but most people don't run into it when they're visiting facebook, yahoo, espn.com, and other mainstream sites. The average voter isn't going to question the judgment of someone who "uses the internet" because it doesn't seem seedy to them.
The average voter doesn't know what reddit is, and wouldn't "get" it from the homepage. On the homepage right now, there's Obama's AMA and a couple of other serious political stories -- sandwiched between half a dozen memes, a picture of a canker sore shaped like a penis, and several instances of the word "fuck". You don't have to go looking in the unsavory corners of reddit to find stuff that would make my mom question the judgment of people who use the site.
I've recently been wondering why they don't move away from the 'default subreddits' model homepage and to a splash page: "Welcome to Reddit, a place where you can share links and talk about your favourite subjects. What are you interested in?", with a big search box, and a list of suggested subreddits that you can subscribe to. It gets users to create an account, and can allow for a friendlier experience for new people. Of course, there'd still be a 'go to the front page' link for people who preferred it, but this would help change the 'default' reddit experience, which for most people isn't great, as well as helps convey the message that reddit isn't a singular, rage comic-loving, pro-weed legalisation commmunity.
Back when reddit only had about 10 categories, I made a joke about how I wouldn't be surprised to see an xkcd category, because of how frequently the comics posted. When that actually happened, I rolled my eyes and wondered what these idiot admins had done, segregating the community into separate, yet very similar categories. In hindsight, it has shown itself to be a great idea, and by far reddit's greatest strength. I'm glad you guys have plans to highlight that to people.
I guess I'm just more curious to see if the benefit provided from using reddit will outweigh any potential consequences. I do believe this will mostly be overlooked by news outlets outside of tech spaces, but... Most people don't understand reddit and it'd be ridiculously easy for opponents to spin this one deep into the negative.
I guess I'm just more curious to see if the benefit provided from using reddit will outweigh any potential consequences
That's an awfully long-haired way of wondering aloud to no-one in particular whether associating with Reddit will be considered to be a liability. I'm fairly sure the President has a near-army of people whose job it is to worry about such things.
Was the...did you say "necrophilia?"...really an issue outside of Sean Hannity's (or whoever's) shrieking fanbase? I think those people have less power than even pot advocates in the national landscape.
I'm being snarky, but it's comments like the one you just made which are echo-chambered into "there is something wrong with communications medium X because it was once used by group Y". Reddit's a big public forum: any big forum will have those issues.