Social news website

Last updated September 30, 2024

A social news website is a website that features user-posted stories. Such stories are ranked based on popularity, as voted on by other users of the site or by website administrators. Users typically comment online on the news posts and these comments may also be ranked in popularity. Since their emergence with the birth of Web 2.0, social news sites have been used to link many types of information, including news, humor, support, and discussion. All such websites allow the users to submit content and each site differs in how the content is moderated. On the Slashdot and Fark websites, administrators decide which articles are selected for the front page. On Reddit and Digg, the articles that get the most votes from the community of users will make it to the front page. Many social news websites also feature an online comment system, where users discuss the issues raised in an article. Some of these sites have also applied their voting system to the comments, so that the most popular comments are displayed first. Some social news websites also have a social networking service, in that users can set up a user profile and follow other users' online activity on the website.

Like many other Web 2.0 tools, social news websites use the collective intelligence of all of the users to operate. Social news websites also "impl[y] the technical, economic, legal, and human enhancement of a universally distributed intelligence that will unleash a positive dynamic of recognition and skills mobilization". Social news websites help participants to share a collective vision and awareness of how their actions are integrated with those of other individuals. Social news websites provide a new and innovative way to participate in a community that is constantly being flooded with new information. These social news websites "include opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, a changed attitude toward intellectual property, the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship". These websites can help to shape and reshape democratic opinions and perspectives.^[1]^[2]

Social news sites may mitigate the gatekeeping of mainstream news sources and allow the public to decide what counts as "news", which may facilitate a more participatory culture. Social news sites may also support democratic participation by allowing users from across geographic and national boundaries to access the same information, respond to fellow users' views and beliefs, and create a virtual sphere for users to contribute within.^[3]

Websites

Fark

Fark, which started in 1997, features news on any topic. On Fark, users can submit articles to the administrators of the site. Each day, these administrators pick out 50 articles to display on the front page.^[4]

Slashdot

Slashdot, started in 1997, was one of the first social news websites. It focuses mainly on science and technology-related news. Users can submit stories and the editors pick out the best stories each day for the front page. Users can then post comments on the stories.^[5] The influx of web traffic that resulted from Slashdot linking to external websites led to the effect being called the Slashdot effect

Digg

Digg, started in December 2004, introduced the voting system. This system allows users to "digg" or "bury" articles. "Digging" is the equivalent of voting positively, so that popular articles are displayed first. "Burying" does not lower an article's score. However, if an article is buried enough times, it will be automatically deleted from the site. Digg offers a social networking service, as members can follow other members and build personal profiles with information about their interests.^[6]

Reddit

Reddit, started in June 2005, is a social news website where users can submit articles and comments and vote on these submissions. The submissions are organized into categories called "subreddits". Unlike Digg, with Reddit, users can directly affect an article's score. An "upvote" will increase the score and a "downvote" will decrease it. Articles with the highest scores are displayed on the front page. There is also a page for "controversial" articles, that have an almost equal number of upvotes and downvotes. Free speech debates have arisen due to the shutting down of obscene or potentially illegal "subreddits" (including /r/jailbait, a collection of sexually suggestive underage pictures.)^[7] Reddit introduced a system of user-created communities called "subreddits", which are essentially categories for a specific type of news. Comments on the featured posts are shown in a hierarchical fashion also based on votes. Users have the ability to earn "karma" for their participation and time on the website.^[8]

Newsvine

Newsvine, started in March 2006, was a social news website mostly focused on politics, both international and domestic. The Newsvine home page allowed users to customize "seeds" and story feeds. Users received articles via "The Wire" from sources including The Associated Press or The Huffington Post, and from "The Vine" a stream of content from other Newsvine users. The "Top of the Vine" displayed the most voted and commented on articles of the day, week, month, or year. Additionally, Newsvine allowed members to create their own "Customizable Column", which could highlight a user's content posted, recent comments, and information about the specific Newsvine member.^[9]

Hacker News

Hacker News, started in February 2007, is a social news site focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship, created by Paul Graham and run by his startup incubator, Y Combinator.

feedalizr

feedalizr was a cross-platform, desktop social media aggregator built using Adobe Integrated Runtime that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites. Users can then use this application to update those sites from their desktop and view a consolidated stream of information.

NowThis News

NowThis News is a progressive social media-focused news organization founded in 2012. The company posts short (in most cases 15 seconds long) news videos and hyperpartisan content, which is primarily emotion-driven in order to generate views and shares.

Voat

Voat, launched in April 2014 and discontinued^[10] in December of 2020, was also a social news website and is very similar to Reddit visually and functionally. The site's userbase included a large number of alt right users, many of whom migrated to Voat after being banned on Reddit.^[11]

Prismatic

Prismatic combined machine learning, user experience design, and interaction design to create a new way to discover, consume, and share media. Prismatic software used social network aggregation and machine learning algorithms to filter the content that aligns with the interests of a specific user. Prismatic integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and Pocket to gather information about user's interests and suggest the most relevant stories to read.

Artifact

Artifact was an iOS and Android app that used machine learning to personalize news recommendations to readers, and also had social features such as liking articles, commenting, and reputation scores for users.^[12]^[13]

Related Research Articles

Slashdot is a social news website that originally billed itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories on science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evaluated by site users and editors. Each story has a comments section where users can add online comments.

Kuro5hin was a collaborative discussion website founded by Rusty Foster in 1999, having been inspired by Slashdot. Articles were created and submitted by users and submitted to a queue for evaluation. Site members could vote for or against publishing an article and once the article had reached a certain number of votes, it was published to the site or deleted from the queue. The site has been described as "a free-for-all of news and opinion written by readers". Around 2005, its membership numbered in the tens of thousands.

Newsvine was a community-powered, collaborative journalism online newspaper which drew content from its users and syndicated content from mainstream sources such as The Associated Press. Users could write articles, "seed" links to external content, and discuss news items in an online forum. These news items were submitted by both users and professional journalists. Newsvine, the company, was not a news bureau and exercised no editorial voice, but provided social news platform for the online community which had grown around it. Members decided with their online actions what news articles stay on the site and what news is removed. Newsvine was named the Top News Site of 2006 and one of the 50 Best Websites of 2007 by Time magazine.

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "subreddits". Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Reddit administrators moderate the communities. Moderation is also conducted by community-specific moderators, who are unpaid volunteers. It is operated by Reddit, Inc., based in San Francisco.

Fark is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. The site receives many story submissions per day and approximately 100 of them are publicly displayed on the site, spread out over the main page as well as topical tabs that are organized as entertainment, sports, geek, politics and business). Curtis says the stories are selected without intentional political bias, but that he tries to run both far-left and far-right articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digg</span> Social media/news aggregator website

Digg is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select articles specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launched in its current form on July 31, 2012, with support for sharing content to other social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller website, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily become unavailable. Typically, less robust sites are unable to cope with the huge increase in traffic and become unavailable – common causes are lack of sufficient data bandwidth, servers that fail to cope with the high number of requests, and traffic quotas. Sites that are maintained on shared hosting services often fail when confronted with the Slashdot effect. This has the same effect as a denial-of-service attack, albeit accidentally. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic which would result from the technology news site Slashdot linking to websites. The term flash crowd is a more generic term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hacker News</span> Social news website

Hacker News (HN) is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by the investment fund and startup incubator Y Combinator. In general, content that can be submitted is defined as "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Steve Huffman, also known by his Reddit username spez, is an American web developer and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Reddit, a social news and discussion website, which ranks in the top 20 websites in the world. He also co-founded the airfare search engine website Hipmunk, which shut down in 2020.

A votebot is a software automation built to fraudulently participate in online polls, elections, and to upvote and downvote on social media.

A like button, like option, or recommend button is a feature in communication software such as social networking services, Internet forums, news websites and blogs where the user can express that they like, enjoy or support certain content. Internet services that feature like buttons usually display the number of users who liked the content, and may show a full or partial list of them. This is a quantitative alternative to other methods of expressing reaction to content, like writing a reply text. Some websites also include a dislike button, so the user can either vote in favor, against or neutrally. Other websites include more complex web content voting systems; for example, five stars or reaction buttons to show a wider range of emotion to the content.

Chime.in was a social networking service and Web site launched in October 2011, operated and privately owned by UberMedia. Unlike most social networks, Chime.in is organized around subjects instead of people. The website is designed as a place to learn and share with other people who have similar interests. Chime.in lets users share content with others through a number of different mediums. It has a newsfeed, profile pages and a system for following other users.

On the social news site Reddit, some communities are devoted to explicit, violent, propagandist, or hateful material. These subreddits have been the topic of controversy, at times receiving significant media coverage. Journalists, attorneys, media researchers, and others have commented that such communities shape and promote biased views of international politics, the veracity of medical evidence, misogynistic rhetoric, and other disruptive concepts.

Ben Eisenkop, known online by his Reddit username Unidan, is an American ecologist. He became popular on the social media website Reddit as the "excited biologist" who answered questions and explained concepts related to biology and ecology before being banned. He was banned from the website for vote fraud – using multiple secret accounts to increase the popularity of his own posts and decrease the popularity of competitors' posts.

Voat Inc was an American alt-tech news aggregator and social networking service where registered community members could submit content such as text posts and direct links. Registered users could then vote on these submissions. Content entries were organized by areas of interest called "subverses". The website was widely described as a Reddit clone and a hub for the alt-right. Voat CEO Justin Chastain made an announcement on December 22, 2020 that Voat would shut down. The site was shut down on December 25, 2020.

A user revolt is a social conflict in which users of a website collectively and openly protest a website host's or administrator's instructions for using the website. Sometimes it happens that the website hosts can control a website's use in certain ways, but the hosts also depend on the users to comply with voluntary social rules in order for the website to operate as the hosts would like. A user revolt occurs when the website users protest against the voluntary social rules of a website, and use the website in a way that is in conflict with the wishes of the website host or administrators.

r/The_Donald Subreddit in support of U.S. president Donald Trump

r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and Internet memes in support of U.S. president Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots". The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting. It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit.

r/IAmA is a subreddit for question-and-answer interactive interviews termed "AMA". AMA interviewees have ranged from various celebrities to everyday people in several lines of work. Founded in May 2009, the subreddit has gone on to become one of Reddit's most popular communities.

Lemmy is a free and open-source software for running self-hosted social news aggregation and discussion forums. These hosts, known as "instances", communicate with each other using the ActivityPub protocol.

References

↑ Levy, Pierre (1997). "Collective Intelligence". Collective Intelligence.
↑ Jenkins, Henry (2006), Confronting Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century
↑ Papacharissi, Zizi (2007), The Virtual Sphere 2.0: The Internet, the Public Sphere, and Beyond
↑ "Fark FAQ" . Retrieved February 4, 2011.
↑ "Slashdot FAQ" . Retrieved February 4, 2011.
↑ "The Case of Digg" (PDF). Retrieved February 4, 2011.
↑ "Reddit: "Jailbait is bad, but pics of dead kids are OK"". ExtremeTech. February 13, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
↑ Kristina Lerman (2006). "Social Networks and Social Information Filtering on Digg". arXiv: cs/0612046 .
↑ "Reading: the most basic use of Newsvine" . Retrieved December 14, 2011.
↑ "I Can't Keep It Up". Voat.
↑ Ross, Alexander Reid (December 24, 2020). "Another Blow for QAnon as Voat Announces a Christmas Shutdown". The Daily Beast.
↑ "Instagram creators' Artifact app is starting to look more like Reddit". Engadget. April 11, 2023. Retrieved August 20, 2023.
↑ Newton, Casey (January 31, 2023). "Instagram's co-founders are back with Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text". The Verge. Retrieved August 20, 2023.

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[1] Levy, Pierre (1997). "Collective Intelligence". Collective Intelligence.

[2] Jenkins, Henry (2006), Confronting Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

[3] Papacharissi, Zizi (2007), The Virtual Sphere 2.0: The Internet, the Public Sphere, and Beyond

[Fark_FAQ-4] "Fark FAQ" . Retrieved February 4, 2011.

[Slashdot_FAQ-5] "Slashdot FAQ" . Retrieved February 4, 2011.

[2009_Digg_Paper-6] "The Case of Digg" (PDF). Retrieved February 4, 2011.

[7] "Reddit: "Jailbait is bad, but pics of dead kids are OK"". ExtremeTech. February 13, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2013.

[Social_Networks-8] Kristina Lerman (2006). "Social Networks and Social Information Filtering on Digg". arXiv: cs/0612046 .

[Newsvine_Help-9] "Reading: the most basic use of Newsvine" . Retrieved December 14, 2011.

[10] "I Can't Keep It Up". Voat.

[11] Ross, Alexander Reid (December 24, 2020). "Another Blow for QAnon as Voat Announces a Christmas Shutdown". The Daily Beast.

[12] "Instagram creators' Artifact app is starting to look more like Reddit". Engadget. April 11, 2023. Retrieved August 20, 2023.

[13] Newton, Casey (January 31, 2023). "Instagram's co-founders are back with Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text". The Verge. Retrieved August 20, 2023.

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