Even Reddit CEO Steve Huffman reached out to the volunteers who moderate the forum to tell them that he starts his day by reading it and to thank them for their work.īut the work these moderators do isn’t easy, as the forum is also a breeding ground for misinformation. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as top researchers. The community has also hosted Q&A discussions with the likes of Bill Gates and Tom Frieden, former director of the U.S. The forum has become a one-stop shop for up-to-date coronavirus information, offering up pandemic news, locations of vaccination sites and how to sign up for clinical trials. Today, the page has 2.4 million users, with around 10,000 new comments a day. That number spiked to 1.5 million by March of 2020, partly due to Reddit highlighting it on their homepage over any of the other related subreddits. In January 2020, it had around 1,000 members. One such place is the r/Coronavirus community on the website Reddit. Combating misinformation online is an ongoing challenge for big tech, and it’s especially difficult when it’s on a discussion board with millions of people during a pandemic.
