An overview

Reddit merges web content, social news, a forum, and a social network into one giant beast of a platform. Registered members can contribute to the site with content such as images, text, videos, and links.

Other members can vote all content on the site up or down. This meritocratic system ensures that exciting content rises to the top and uninteresting content falls into a void. As a result, Reddit is the birthplace of most internet memes and viral sensations.

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Reddit is comprised of various communities called subreddits. Subreddits have their pages and are focused on a particular theme, interest, or belief. Some famous examples are News, Movies, Funny, IAmA, Pics, and LifeProTips. You can subscribe to however many you want, and your Reddit homepage will only show you posts from those subreddits.

Creating a Reddit account is pretty straightforward. It's also free and allows you to post anonymously. Because of this, it makes it easy for people to troll, harass, and generally post offensive or malicious content, despite the website's rules.

Read also: What is Reddit really used for?

Because of this, the controversy around the site occasionally rears its head. There have been racist and hateful subreddits that were shut down due to their communities making threats, spewing hate speech, and sometimes even committing illegal activities.

While the above may sound off-putting, there's still a lot of good that can come from using Reddit.

In most communities, offensive posts and comments get downvoted before they can reach the front page, and users are often banned when violating the site's terms of service.