This content was created by Tim Draper. This content was uploaded by Tim Draper. This is a YouTube video titled "Freedom of Speech | Steve Huffman" (uploaded 2017-08-31). The excerpt is an interview-style conversation featuring Steve Huffman and an unnamed interviewer discussing Reddit — its upcoming UI rebuild, the legacy of Hipmunk, and Reddit’s approach to free expression, moderation, marginalizing harmful communities, and balancing diverse perspectives during heated moments (e.g., election periods).
So the people who stayed at Hipmunk and were loyal to Hipmunk did well. And so I feel very good about that.
And now that you've taken kind of— you've scaled a different type of product at Hipmunk, do you have future plans for Reddit that improves— that includes kind of— I know there's a lot of complaints about the utilitarian UI of Reddit.
Yeah. Well, that'll be gone this fall.
So you guys are— Yeah, we're rebuilding everything. A new UI and everything. Yep. Yep. So actually, I know that was a couple comments from Questions that I requested.
Yeah, I mean, I'm tired of apologizing for the website. And our sales team is really tired of apologizing for the website. So that's a big project that's underway right now. So we're rebuilding that, yep.
And then Reddit has also been kind of a bastion of— you've called it a bastion of free speech. I did. And there was a point of contention with that phrase. And I was curious if you guys have kind of Come to an agreement on that or not? Yeah, I forget.
Did Alexis say that phrase or not? I don't know, whatever. The context doesn't matter anymore. We believe free expression is very, very important, and people being authentic is very important. And Reddit, as a reflection of humanity, is a very cool and valuable artifact of what's going on in the world at any point in time. And with that context, humanity is not perfect, right? One thing I've actually learned from Reddit is that people are actually overwhelmingly good, but 1% of people just suck. And Reddit for a long time let that 1% have a disproportionately loud voice and influence on Reddit, and that was a big problem. And so it affected people's perception of us. It affected our perception of ourselves and what we're trying to do, and that was painful to watch. There's still ugly stuff on Reddit. I don't like seeing it, but there's ugly stuff in the world as well. And I think if we were to present a sanitized view of humanity to the world, that would be doing people a disservice. So on Reddit, you are not, you know, just like in the real world, you don't have a right to not be offended. But you also— I think it's reasonable to expect that you don't have to be confronted with that stuff. And so a lot of the work we've been doing is to kind of marginalize those communities and get better relevancy, making sure you're seeing the stuff you want to see and not seeing the stuff you don't, while trying to balance the empathy generated by seeing different perspectives. I think that's really important. It's one of the things that Reddit does very well. You know, you can go on Reddit, especially during like an election year like last year, and both sides of US politics were represented quite strongly on Reddit. And it was very tense and hostile, and it felt unhealthy at times. But that was what was going on in the country. Yep. And so, you know, I didn't like it, but I don't like seeing it going on in the US either. But unlike maybe other places online, You're forced to confront that every day. You'd see both sides. And I'd like to think that there was some perspectives changed as a result of that. I think that part is very important. Yep.
