Russian Propaganda Is Spreading on Reddit

Melissa Ryan is an author at Media Matters For America and writes why it’s important for everyone to know about Russian Propaganda spreading on Reddit. The blog, titled “Russian propaganda is rampant on Reddit. Here’s why it matters”, is directed to everyone because she wrote “Here’s why it matters”. Even though she didn’t include a “you” in the title, she used third-person perspective to give that approach to readers.

Ryan starts her blog by writing that the CEO of Reddit, Steve Huffman, knew about Russian propagandists using Reddit. One big reason why this came to light was because, “...the Senate intelligence committee had expanded its Russian interference investigation to include Reddit and Tumblr”; Reddit responded by disclosing their efforts to do something about it. Ryan wrote Huffman admitted that Russian trolls had weaponized the platform and that the company cooperated with the investigations as asked. Huffman added that the misinformation would be difficult to solve because there was “a thousand shades of grey” between the truth and the fiction. Reddit now faced the same scrutiny as the other media platforms did such as Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Ryan also wrote that Reddit was a different targeted platform because, the volunteered moderators on the Russian propaganda page would generally respond to questions when an announcement was made. This means that the page was always in tact and active on the issue to strangers and to the known alike.

Ryan makes an important point by saying that a subreddit as close to the Russian Propaganda one is r/The_Donald. Ryan mentions that the subreddit has most of the site held hostage. Also, redditors claim the subreddit was invaded by Russian trolls and that the subreddit itself made it look like the platform wasn’t taking the Russian Propaganda seriously.

Huffman addressed the criticism by responding to comments saying that banning them won’t solve anything but that maybe, they’re own dysfunction will. Redditors didn’t respond so happily as they downvoted his comment in a record-breaking 6,000 times.

Ryan’s response was her saying that no matter what the issue is, tech platforms will not change unless it’s profitable or if the users put enough pressure for them to change. Ryan also mentions that Reddit works better to solve these type of media problems than others do. One reason is because there’s a public forum where users can speak directly to the company’s leadership which makes it easier for the media to boost the conversation.

Her conclusion focuses on the point that actions speak louder than words and that Reddit’s unique way of structuring the community can be the new “advocacy model” for other tech platforms to follow.

I believe her blog did bring importance into the issue of Russian propaganda spreading in Reddit because she used expert evidence to support her claim. She never went off topic and kept her points clear, short and didn’t include much bias in them. Ryan’s evidence was factual because it had direct links on them.