Reddit receiving massive investment from Chinese social media giant Tencent

[BananaInSandals]

Source: 

TechCrunch

FORTUNE

South China Morning Post

Reddit (meme)

 

Quote

Reddit is blocked in China, but that isn’t stopping one of the country’s largest technology firms, Tencent from making a massive investment to help keep the “Internet’s front page,” moving full speed ahead.

Reddit is said to be raising between $150 million and $300 million as part of a Series D fundraising round led by Tencent. The round is being raised at a pre-money valuation of $2.7 billion, and depending on how much Reddit raises, could push the company past a $3 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch

 

Personal thought:

Ironic. While Reddit is blocked in China, it's invested by a Chinese company. God knows what they'll take from Reddit? Personal data? Freedom of speech? We might need a new place for discussing ideas and posting memes...

 

(Random meme I saw some time ago)

#neverforget64 #毋忘六四

[Fnige]

well... ok... Please keep reddit live tencent

[Crunchy Dragon]

I was disappointed to not see this Thomas image:

Spoiler

In all seriousness, this is kind of interesting.

10 minutes ago, BananaInSandals said:

Freedom of speech?

They technically can't, as Reddit isn't government-owned or sanctioned, and freedom of speech does not apply there(much like here, for example). You basically have to follow the various rules and you won't be removed from communities or have your content removed from the site.

[Tech_Dreamer]

wouldn't be the first time reddit selling out to something with massive funding's to promote something .  *cough* 2016 *cough*

[dizmo]

Investment does not always equal meddling, or even being able to meddle.

[HolaImBob]

They are probably planing to work with Reddit on something for china specifically. Tencent has done this in the past with Ubisoft, Activision and take-two interactive, either investing or buying a percentage of the companies to help them expand into china. 

 

http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=86428&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1301322

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/vivendi-exits-ubisoft-in-2-46-billion-deal-bringing-in-tencent

https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/activision-blizzard-and-tencent-announce-long-term-strategic

[Guest]

Just because it's a Chinese investor doesn't mean they are going to censor anything. Probably just worth investing money in a platform like Reddit. 

[HolaImBob]

17 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

but reddit's more or less different from regular forums in the sense that the users can create subforums o_o i highly doubt they'd be as open with self-moderated subs though (or maybe admin mods would have general control)

 

the upvote system they could probably just port and tweak the equations ._. it's only when they weight them by specific users or just vote manipulation in general

its extremely easy for the government in china to track internet users, so there wouldn't be many problems with having self-moderated subs.

with pretty much every website in china you will either use your phone number or Chinese ID number to sign up. to get a phone number/sim card in china you need your Chinese ID. so just through that they would be able to track everything posted on the sub-forums by every user and put it through their internet filters ensuring nothing against the government/president is said/posted.

 

edit - this is just based of my own knowledge so it might not be completely correct. i have visited china, and could not get a sim card as i didn't have a Chinese ID. data was crazy expensive.

[mxk]

Doesn't Tencent own Epic?

[Eaglerino]

2 minutes ago, mxk. said:

Doesn't Tencent own Epic?

I dunno about epic, but they own GGG (path of exile) and League of Legends

 

Although I'm wondering, how do you take freedom of speech from a platform that already heavily suppresses freedom of speech? Go type "build the wall" in any of the default subs and see how long you last

[mxk]

Just now, Eaglerino said:

I dunno about epic, but they own GGG (path of exile) and League of Legends

 

Although I'm wondering, how do you take freedom of speech from a platform that already heavily suppresses freedom of speech? Go type "build the wall" in any of the default subs and see how long you last

I just looked, they own Epic.

 

Tencent is fucking richhhhh

[williamcll]

1 hour ago, BananaInSandals said:

We might need a new place for discussing ideas and posting memes...

 

 

Have you considered 4chan?It's not blocked in China and has fresher memes that reddit copies from. 

[Mihle]

2 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

I dunno about epic, but they own GGG (path of exile) and League of Legends

 

Although I'm wondering, how do you take freedom of speech from a platform that already heavily suppresses freedom of speech? Go type "build the wall" in any of the default subs and see how long you last

It's a private company, so it's nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Also, it's the mod of spesific subreddits that usually ban/kick people from the subreddit, not Reddit itself

 

there is no subreddit that don't ban/delete/kick anything that I know of btw.... But what they do ban/delete/kick for is different from one to another.

[Mihle]

1 minute ago, VegetableStu said:

untill you have admins hard nuking entire subreddits, lol ._.

Well, yes. But have that happened much apart from obviously illegal stuff or similar?

[Teddy07]

4 hours ago, BananaInSandals said:

While Reddit is blocked in China, it's invested by a Chinese company. God knows what they'll take from Reddit? Personal data? Freedom of speech? We might need a new place for discussing ideas and posting memes...

1

relax.

I am not scared of the Chinese government or companies.

[Syntaxvgm]

5 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I was disappointed to not see this Thomas image:

  Reveal hidden contents

In all seriousness, this is kind of interesting.

They technically can't, as Reddit isn't government-owned or sanctioned, and freedom of speech does not apply there(much like here, for example). You basically have to follow the various rules and you won't be removed from communities or have your content removed from the site.

how many times do I have to tell people freedom of speech is a concept/value, not just something that refers to legal rights, so the idea that someone isn't legally required to not censor people doesn't instantly invalidate any complaints about it?  
I mean I totally agree that reddit hardly ever had anything close to that. Exact opposite really. 

[yian88]

Its already too late they started massive censorship and banning of subrreddits to adapt to their new dictator patrons.

Next is google and the rest of the silicon valley SJW communists.

 

China: if you cant beat em make them join you, first take over silicon valley, then social media  by buying a lot of shares then change their rules to fit communists ideology and slowly make people less resistant to marxist ideology.

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

More details 
 

 

 

[MoonSpot]

6 hours ago, dizmo said:

Investment does not always equal meddling, or even being able to meddle.

 

6 hours ago, BananaInSandals said:

While Reddit is blocked in China, it's invested by a Chinese company.

Get ready for a lot of pro 'weird things' messages attempting to social engineer and recruit useful idiots in everything /r/.

[Trixanity]

5 hours ago, mxk. said:

I just looked, they own Epic.

 

Tencent is fucking richhhhh

They don't. They own 40% of Epic Games. 

[Taf the Ghost]

The ChiComs running Reddit will likely improve the place. Genocidal Communists running the place at least still want to make money. It's the same thing with Hollywood. Chinese Money actually improved movie quality because they insisted on some actual quality standards. 

 

The ChiComs are pretty horrible, but there truly are people that are a lot worse, if not quite as directly destructive.

[Jito463]

Ironic that the company at least partly responsible for banning Reddit in China, is now investing heavily in Reddit.

 

https://gizmodo.com/reddit-banned-in-china-is-reportedly-set-to-land-150-1832375439

 

I mean, I really don't care about Reddit (I don't read it), but it's still interesting to note.

[poochyena]

I hate reddit, but wow I love that after the announcement users started to spam content about Tienanmen square

https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/aojy1h/tiananmen_square_massacre/

 

11 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

They technically can't, as Reddit isn't government-owned or sanctioned

you are confusing freedom of speech and the 1st amendment. There is nothing government specific to free speech.

 

[suicidalfranco]

 

[DrMacintosh]

11 hours ago, BananaInSandals said:

God knows what they'll take from Reddit? Personal data? Freedom of speech? We might need a new place for discussing ideas and posting memes...

That’s not how investments work...but it is still suspicious as to why a Chinese company would invest in Reddit...