reddit’s first transparency report

We regularly get requests from governments and law enforcement agencies for private information about our users or to remove content or subreddits; we occasionally get formal subpoenas and legal requests from individuals. These requests are usually legitimate; we push back on any that we view as overbroad or unnecessarily invasive of privacy. Two weeks ago, we announced that we would publish a transparency report covering requests from 2014, because we want to share what goes on behind the scenes. Today, we're releasing that report (html version).

In 2014, we decided not to provide user information in response to 42% of all government and civil requests for private information. We pushed back and did not remove content in 69% of requests to remove content.

In most cases, we tell users before sharing private information in response to requests. The only times we do not tell users are if a court order prohibits us or if there is a threat of imminent and serious bodily harm to a person.

As part of our privacy commitment, we plan to report on these requests and our responses every year.

Renew your resolutions

It’s the last week of January. Going to the gym five times a week has turned from an enthusiastic goal into a dreaded chore. It’s been getting harder and harder not to bum a cigarette from your co-worker during lunch breaks. And you still haven’t spent a weekend with your parents even though you vowed to spend more time with your family this year.
Not to worry! We're here for YOU. Here are some communities you can check out to keep you motivated to do whatever it is that thing you promised yourself you were going to do 3 1/2 weeks ago was:

• /r/100pushups
• /r/C25K
• /r/DecidingToBeBetter
• /r/eatcheapandhealthy
• /r/getdisciplined
• /r/getemployed
• /r/getmotivated
• /r/GetOutOfBed
• /r/GetStudying
• /r/keepwriting
• /r/KickassDay
• /r/loseit
• /r/NoExcuses
• /r/productivity
• /r/stopdrinking
• /r/stopsmoking
• /r/stopgaming
• /r/selfimprovement

“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

Welcome Andy, Ashley, Cameron, Jordan, Michael, Greg, Rachael, and Zubair!!

We're excited to announce eight new members to team reddit. We've also just moved into our new SF office, fabulously decorated thanks to Dante(/u/youngluck) and some of his very talented artist friends (seriously, thank you!). You'll find photos below, but first we'd like to introduce our new teammates.

Andy (/u/cfcommando), mobile engineer

Hello! I’m an engineer working with our mobile team to make reddit’s apps on iOS fast, pretty, and buttery smooth (with special thanks to AsyncDisplayKit ;) ). I have a passion for good design, League of Legends, and reading online fiction. I follow /r/leagueoflegends, am a big fan of Cloud9 HyperX, and enjoy lurking in /r/WritingPrompts and /r/Parahumans*.

When I'm not at work, I can often be found reading, playing story-driven games, or getting my win of the day in LoL. I’m also planning to pick up photography with my shiny new camera, and give my New Year’s resolution to start exercising regularly a shot - just as soon as I figure out which ones I need to lose weight!

* Kind of a niche community, but Worm is super awesome and an enthralling story in the superhero genre.

Ashley Dawkins (/u/bethereinfive), director of outreach

Hello! I am so excited to join the team and help amplify all of the amazing stories that begin on reddit thanks to all of you! When my phone isn't in my hand, you can find me helping people get items off of top shelves.

My favorite subreddits are /r/news, /r/todayilearned, /r/nfl, /r/documentaries, /r/virginiatech and/r/tall.

Cameron Brain (/u/cmrnwllsbrn), head of commerce

Hello!  I recently joined reddit as its head of commerce, helping to build gold, redditgifts, redditmade and our other non-advertising businesses.  I grew up in Seattle, went to school in upstate New York (/r/rpi), spent a few years in Salt Lake City, and recently moved with my wife to beautiful San Francisco. When not at the office, I'm probably cooking, walking, or reading.  Favorite subreddits? /r/todayilearned and /r/iama. :-)

Jordan Milne (/u/largenocream), engineer

Hey folks! I'm a web security nerd originally hailing from /r/newbrunswickcanada. I've been working with reddit on security for a while now: both through responsible disclosure (shout out to /r/whitehats,) and then through consulting. I'm excited to be able to devote more of my time to keeping the community I love safe! I'll mostly be working on the product security side of things: auditing our code for security issues, thinking of ways to bake security into our development process, as well as handling reports of security vulnerabilities.

In my spare time, I love researching browser security, and drinking my weight in coffee (no cream, please!) The subreddits I'm digging most lately are /r/netsec, /r/ainbow, and /r/CatsOnGlass.

Michael Pope (/u/cat_sweaterz), creative projects manager

HI all! It’s truly an honor to meet all of you, and to be working at reddit! I’m really excited about the creative things that we’re going to be making with and for the community — the podcast being the first of many to come. The things I enjoy in life are cheeseburgers, Jurassic Park, Metal Gear Solid games, A Rage to Live by John O’Hara (also my favorite author btdubz), The Walking Dead (both picture form and moving picture form) and /r/outoftheloop. Feel free to ask me anything, anytime all the time. I hope to make you all proud.

Greg Goomishian (/u/bluepinkblack) support

Hey world, my name is Greg, and I’m incredibly pumped to be working for reddit, and for you. Like many of my fellow employees, I’m stoked to work in an environment on the absolute forefront of connecting humans around the globe, where creativity, positivity, and the potential for awesomeness are constantly thriving. Experiencing the joys and fears of humanity across countless reddit communities excites me, (and scares me a bit), though I’m humbled by the opportunity to be a part of this growing family.

A few quick tidbits about myself— I graduated from the greatest public university in the world, The University of California Berkeley, with a Bachelor’s and Minor in English and History, respectively. You may be able to tell by my snoovatar, but I’m also a fan of Disney and Star Wars (and, as it remains to be seen, Disney’s Star Wars) Additionally, I’m a walking Weezer encyclopedia, #goatpunishment. Feel free to PM me if you’d like to discuss any of these interests, as I’d love to riff on topics ranging from R2-D2 lego sets, to SFTBH B-Sides. I love travel, fine dining, collecting vintage 80‘s and 90‘s retro toys and figures, poetry, sneakers, and I attend SDCC each year. A slew of my favorite subreddits include /r/fantasyfootball, /r/shittyfoodporn, /r/crappydesign, /r/thewaywewere, /r/askculinary, /r/travel, /r/squaredcircle, /r/wheredidthesodago, /r/woahdude, and as of recent, /r/unexpectedthuglife.

Rachael R. (/u/willowgrain), mobile & redditgifts support

Hey everybody, Rachael here. I handle user support via mobile and gifts. My favorite part of working at reddit is getting to know YOU! I find our community to be very unique and diverse. I love that reddit allows people to share their lives and be as authentic as possible. You can catch me around /r/food, /r/AskReddit and /r/aww.

I’m a Bay Area native and your typical cat-obsessed redditor. I recently got into this thing called coffee. Adulthood rules!

Zubair Jandali (/u/zubair), VP Sales

Hi reddit! My name is Zubair, I hail from Berkeley and am joining reddit by way of Google and AdMob. When on reddit, I'm most likely lurking in /r/worldnews, /r/politics, /r/askhistorians, and /r/unexpectedthuglife.

Office Murals:

'Birds of a feather' - Acrylic and spray paint
Artist: SV Williams

'Horse Sized Duck' - Acrylic & Spray Paint
Artist: Dante Orpilla

'Mother' - Spray Paint
Artist: Shaun Burner

'General Toad' - Acrylic Ink
Artist: N8 Van Dyke

'Ride' or 'Dream Bigger' - Acrylic & Spray
Artist: Dante Orpilla

'Flight' - Acrylic & Spray
Artist: Erin Yoshi

'Feng Spray' - Acrylic & Spray
Artist: Miguel ‘Bounce’ Perez

'Do stuff… An ode to Calvin and Hobbes' - Acrylic
Artist: N8 Van Dyke

Join us in a final push for net neutrality! It's as easy as calling (858) WHEELER

This is quite a way to mark the one-year anniversary of court decision undermining Net Neutrality rules. When the FCC started writing new rules, Title II reclassification, which is the only real way to protect net neutrality for generations to come, was not even being discussed. Then the internet got involved. We took something that everyone considered impossible and made it nearly inevitable.

You set the record for FCC comments when millions of you wrote in about Net Neutrality. I've made a number of trips to DC over the last year for this fight and spoken to Congresspeople on both sides of the aisle -- your voices matter. They made the difference in defeating SOPA & PIPA and they will make the difference in preserving Net Neutrality.

I'm so proud of how reddit has led the fight for Title II and now we need one more push.

We're expecting the FCC to issue a new rule on Net Neutrality on February 26th and we need to be sure that Congress hears from us so they don't get any bad ideas to overturn the FCC's decision.

I've gone all over the United States talking about the importance of the open internet and what a difference millions of Americans (many of you) made in thwarting SOPA & PIPA -- now the internet needs you again. Demand Progress, Fight For The Future, Free Press Action Fund, and reddit have partnered around today's push: Battle For The Net.

All you have to do is enter your phone number.
Or, just for today, you can call (858) WHEELER or (858) 943-3537.

Tell your members of Congress & the FCC how you feel -- if you do it between 3pm and 6pm Eastern today, afterwards you'll be connected to me for a personal thank you on behalf of all of us at reddit.

Seriously. I'm sitting at my desk for three hours, waiting for your calls so I can give you a quick verbal upvote and thank you for being an awesome citizen and member of #TeamInternet.

OP Proof!

snoo is helping, too!

 

Upvoted: a reddit podcast for all the stories behind the stories that hit our frontpages

There are so many remarkable things bubbling up in communities across reddit every day that we’ve created a podcast, Upvoted by reddit, to learn about the people and their stories beyond all the upvotes. So much content is sourced from your reddit contributions, but rarely are you all involved in the process, so we figured we’d try something a little different.

When a compelling story pops up, we’ll follow up with the people involved to see if they’d like to share what happened after all the internet fame, or the life-changing comment, or even the simple kind gesture from an internet stranger. There’s no shortage of content and we’ve been thrilled with how excited everyone has been to contribute.

From day zero, Steve and I knew reddit would only succeed thanks to our users, but we had no clue just how remarkable this worldwide network would become. I hope that with every weekly episode, we can highlight something that caught our attention, from one of our thousands of communities, and left us wanting to know more about the people, in their own words. Part This American Life and part ESPN 30 for 30, with a spoonful of orangered.

We want to know what you think, so please subscribe to /r/upvoted and be the first to find out about every episode each Thursday and join in on the discussion after you listen, or during--why not? Without further ado, here's our first six episodes...

Our first episode chronicles the story of Dante Orpilla (/u/youngluck). We talk to Dante about the Bottom Dwellerz; losing custody of his son; his drug addiction; his trial; discovering reddit; having Kleinbl00 from the /r/favors subreddit help him write a speech for the judge; Blackmarketarts; getting involved with redditgifts; and eventually getting his dream job at reddit.

If this goes well, hopefully we can broaden working with you to keep telling your stories behind the stories of the frontpages of reddit. Let us know what you think on /r/upvoted!

Create your own reddit alien avatar with reddit gold

We’ve always been impressed with the sheer variety of community renditions of Snoo, reddit’s alien mascot. Over the years redditors have customized Snoo in a staggering variety of ways to serve as the logo for thousands of subreddits. The inventiveness of the reddit community has inspired us to launch customizable reddit alien avatars, which we have dubbed snoovatars.

If you have reddit gold, please dive right in and create your snoovatar by following the link from the sidebar of your userpage. If you set your snoovatar to be public, other users will be able to see it too. Quite spiffing!

If you don’t have reddit gold, consider purchasing some, sending us a postcard or making an exceptionally witty/insightful/stupid comment and hoping a kindly passing stranger gilds it.

get reddit gold

We'll be adding extra item options to snoovatars over time. We’d also love to continue the tradition of community collaboration for snoovatars and will be adding your suggestions in the future! If you have an idea for an item you’d like to see included as an option for your snoovatar, make a post on /r/snoovatars. You can also discuss the project and share your creation.

History Time with /u/kn0thing

I doodled the reddit alien while I was bored in class my senior year at UVA. It’s called ‘snoo’ because that’s what Steve & I originally wanted to call reddit (expecting people would say: 'what’s snoo?' and we’d say - exactly!). The guy who owned the domain wouldn’t sell for less than a few grand and since we didn’t have that kind of money, I picked reddit and we named the alien 'snoo.' It is a genderless, time-traveling alien from the future and it is a blank canvas, because it can represent any one of us, it represents all of us. One of the first things I did was make a personalized snoo for Steve and then myself. Now, I’m excited to say that as we approach our 10 year anniversary, that is now available to anyone with reddit gold.

Begone ‘Edit: thanks for the gold!!’

As well as allowing you to include your username and a message upon gilding, we also recently added an option to allow you to reply directly to your gilder. Not only do you no longer have to edit in an Oscar-worthy acceptance speech, but if your benefactor is anonymous they will have the option to reply to your message and reveal themselves. You can read more about this feature here.

/u/sername mentions for all!

In keeping with our policy for gradually un-gating reddit gold features, we have also rolled out username mentions to the masses. From this day forth, everyone, not just the gilded elite, will receive a PM when their username is mentioned. If you'd prefer not to receive notifications when your username is mentioned you can disable the feature on your preferences page. Read more about this feature here.

Gold Partner Updates

We’ve also added a handful of great partners & benefits to our gold benefits program.

VyprVPN - VPN service
3 months free on an annual subscription

Rusty Frets - boutique guitar shop
15% discount on any purchase

Carved - real wood phone cases
20% discount on any purchase

Casper - a well designed mattress
$60 discount

You can see all our partners & benefits here.