In a context of unprecedented numbers of national and state-level bills focused on LGBTQ+ folks, and particularly the transgender and nonbinary folks, which U.S. states (if any) have been successful in passing evidence-based policies regarding the transgender health? If so, what factors contributed to those policy-making processes? If not, what barriers exist in states where policies are arguably not based on the evidence?

There seems to be broad consensus among clinicians in support of health care that meets specific needs of transgender people, and standards of care that emphasize the need to consider potential benefits and harms of any medical procedure. Scholarly studies have also repeatedly found associations between structural stigma, including restrictive policies, and poor mental health outcomes among LGBTQ+ folks.

With the understanding that attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community closely tied to cultural, moral and religious beliefs, is there a way to reach some kind of consensus on evidence about the health needs of trans folks, and to implement policies accordingly?

Hello r/NeutralPolitics,

The post-pandemic economy has cast a stark light on the societal challenges posed by the widening gap between wage growth and housing costs. My research, "Wage Policies and the Housing Affordability Crisis – A Critical Analysis of an Escalating Dilemma," explores the complex nexus of wage stagnation, housing market dynamics, and broader economic pressures, and how these factors contribute to rising income inequality and a worsening crisis in housing affordability.

With a basis in empirical data, the study critically examines the effects of urban planning, globalization, and monetary policy on housing markets, and advocates for evidence-based policy initiatives aimed at ensuring economic equity and housing stability. The objective is to address systemic challenges and avert threats to societal harmony and economic sustainability.

In light of this research, I would like to invite a discussion on the following questions:

What empirical data most convincingly illustrates the correlation between wage policies and housing affordability, and how have these dynamics shifted post-pandemic?

How can case studies of urban planning, globalization, and monetary policy inform policy actions that address housing affordability?

What are the evidence-based recommendations that emerge from this research for fostering economic equity and stability in housing markets?

For a more comprehensive view of the findings and for use as a basis for discussion, the full paper is available here.

Thank you for engaging in this critical conversation.

This isn't a rant. It's a civics question. I don't understand how the House rules work to make this true. Since Mike Gallagher hit the eject button, I've been seeing everywhere in the press that the Republicans now only have a one-vote majority in the house and that if they lose another then the gavel gets handed over to the Democrats. I don't understand the math. How would 217 to 213 equal a one-vote majority?
EDIT: Thanks everyone. It all makes sense now. :)

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rep-mike-gallagher-leave-congress-month-shrinking-gops/story?id=108398377

For about the last eight years, there's been a revitalized bail reform movement in the United States.

It's rooted in the idea that cash bail not an equitable way to get people to show up for their court dates, because poor people are far less likely to be able to afford bail. They remain in jail awaiting trial and often lose their jobs as a result, further exacerbating their poverty. Even if they're later found innocent or the charges are dropped, the damage is done.

One of the reforms being pursued is the dramatic reduction in the use of cash bail, to be replaced with things like pretrial support services, simple reminders, electronic monitoring or PR bonds.

There is debate about whether bail reform overall is working, but there's also a lot of misinformation out there about it. In an attempt to strike the right balance, New York City has changed its bail policy a bunch of times in recent years.

Questions:

• What does the most current research tell us about the effectiveness of bail reform policies?
• Is there evidence that certain aspects of the policies clearly are or aren't working?
• In countries with no history of cash bail, how do they ensure that people released while awaiting trial will appear for their court dates?
• Are there jurisdictions in the US that implement some of those methods, and if so, what are the results?

Thanks to /u/-myredditburner- for the idea to explore this topic.

A book published three years ago suggests democracy is on the decline globally, while a recent objective study "finds little evidence of global democratic decline during the past decade."

Is there an accurate way of measuring this kind of trend, or is it always going to be subjective? If we do have a good way of measuring it, what's the evidence that nations have or haven't been moving away from democracy recently?

Experts who think they have been cite a lot of different reasons.

If the trend of nations shifting away from democracy does exist, is there academic consensus on the reasons behind it?

Thanks to /u/SerpentEmperor for the original idea and some sources for this submission.

Yevgeny Prigozhin died under mysterious circumstances following an attempted coup in Russia.

Outside of the Ukrainian War, the Wagner Group is also involved in contracts across the African continent

What is the fate of the Wagner group post-Prigozhin? Are they still working as a distinct military group in Ukraine separate from the Russian military?

Are they still running missions outside of Ukraine as in Africa?

Who is their leader today?

How has their structure changed?

"On May 10, 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new immigration bill into law, which, among other immigration enforcement measures, requires employers with more than 25 employees to use the federal E-Verify system to verify the employment eligibility of new employees. The requirement takes effect July 1, 2023."

I guess it is only like 8 months old, but has there been any notable affect yet?

​

Source:

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1718

https://www.floridapolicy.org/posts/top-five-things-to-know-about-sb-1718-floridas-new-immigration-law

Today, the Supreme Court heard Trump v. Anderson (1), a.k.a. the Colorado case that decided that Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the Colorado Republican primary ballot. In the past, pundits and legal analysts have used oral arguments to make predictions about how the court will rule.

Often this takes the form of legal experts forming subjective opinions, and in this case, the broad consensus among such experts appears to be that the Court appeared much more receptive to the arguments presented by Trump’s legal team than the Colorado voters’ legal team (2, 3). However, some researchers have taken more objective approaches to tackle the same question, for example, by counting particular features of oral argument (such as number of questions, sentiment analysis, interruptions, etc.) and applying some kind of model (4, 5).

My questions are:

• In the past, what methods have performed the best at predicting the outcome of SCOTUS cases based on oral arguments?
• What do those methods say about Trump v. Anderson?

Sources:

1. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/08/us/trump-supreme-court-colorado-ballot
2. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/02/08/trump-supreme-court
3. https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-brings-fight-stay-ballot-us-supreme-court-2024-02-08/
4. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-read-the-mind-of-a-supreme-court-justice/
5. https://academic.oup.com/book/27148/chapter-abstract/196549212?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

Big caveat: I am not American.

What is the political background to the issues at the southern US border and what evidence exists that particular people or parties are responsible?

Article with background information about the current situation:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/07/mexico-border-explained-chart-immigration

There is a notable increase in illegal(?) immigration to the US, which puts the US-Mexico border basically at the center of the upcoming US elections.

The increase appears to be caused by immigration from south America due to violence and political unrest.

But what are the underlying factors on the US side of things? How does the severity of the current issues at the border compare to historical norms? Are certain laws that could alleviate the sitation being kept "hostage" by either side for political clout? Is this a result of bad policies of past governments? Or a failure of the current one?

Is there any evidence this can (partially?) be pinned on one side or the other?

Jim Geraghty with National Review stated in an article that it is impossible for Haley to win, but that it could still be advantageous for her to remain in the race. Geraghty pointed out that remaining in the race might make Trump dislike her and feel vengeful, but it could also give her serious political leverage with which to influence his campaign and possible presidency.

Article: https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/nikki-haley-at-a-crossroads/?lctg=649d7e8e5c611349e34dd0ea&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20240124&utm_term=Jolt-Smart

Article (no paywall on this one): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/01/23/nikki-haley-gop-trump-new-hampshire/72312421007/

What is the evidence that she does or doesn't still have a path to the nomination? If she doesn't, what are the pros and cons of her continuing to run?

Context: Argentina grappled with persistent inflation, reaching 25% in 2017, despite attempts to address it through interest rate adjustments yielding limited success. The severe 2018 drought impacted soy production and tax revenue, contributing to economic challenges. Global factors, including Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, led to a significant rise in the US dollar's price, affecting Argentina. Seeking financial support, the country secured a substantial $57 billion IMF loan, implementing austerity measures. The 2019 election brought a change in leadership with Alberto Fernández, who opted against further IMF funds. Economic challenges persisted amid the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the reintroduction of restrictive policies for stability.

Currently, the newly elected President that ran on a campaign to end inflation, Milei, is proposing full dollarization

• What evidence is there that a dollarization will have an effect on inflation and wealth?
• Are there pros and cons to dollarization. Specifically in the case of Argentina?
• What barriers are there in Argentina to implement dollarization?
• Are there any academic journals on the dollarization of Argentina, and if so what was their conclusion, if any?

edit: Not sure if I can edit the original post per the rules of the subreddit (so I apologize ahead of time, I can delete this edit if that’s the case), but I forgot to add the inflation rate in argentina for 2023 is 185%

Right now, there's active war in Ukraine and Gaza, lower level conflict in Yemen, Myanmar, Niger, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, on the Israel/Lebanon border, throughout Syria, and tensions in the South China Sea, Venezuela, North Kosovo, on the India/Pakistan border, on the India/China border, and more. The list is long.

On the other hand, modern media is fast and ubiquitous, so we might be getting a greater sense of global conflict than we're used to, which contributes to a cycle of distress.

During the 40-year Cold War period, worldwide battle deaths were pretty common, but the period since then has, by some estimates, been one of the most peaceful in human history.

So, what does a dive into the data show? Are there more conflicts today than in past periods of modern history or does it just seem that way? Are the conflicts more or less lethal? If the perception is different from the reality, what does the collection of evidence tell us about the reasons for that?

Posting in a couple different subreddits, as I don't know which is the best place to get an answer. I've been looking for books, papers, or scholarly articles about modern Ukranian history to get a better understanding of current events. Basically anything more substantial than 5-minute summaries on CNN or the like. Does anyone have recommendations? Specifically looking to learn more about the Donbas war and the Revolution of Dignity, but I'll take anything you guys think is relevant.

A few sources I've looked at so far: an interview with Wolfgang Sporrer from the beginning of the current invasion (concerning the Minsk Agreements) and a report done by the Rand Corperation analyzing the annexation of Crimea. Also read the Wikipedia article on the Euromaiden protests. Not sure how good these sources are though - this is very much a new field of study for me.

An October 19 article in the Economist reads: "In the end the best Mr Biden could do was secure an Israeli pledge not to obstruct aid deliveries and an Egyptian one to let 20 trucks a day into Gaza."

This seems to imply that Egypt is limiting aid to 20 trucks per day, while Israel wants to allow unlimited aid via the Egyptian border.

On the other hand, this October 21 article in the Guardian reads: "The Rafah crossing point between Egypt and Gaza has finally opened to allow in a trickle of aid for the first time in two weeks, after intense negotiations involving the US, Israel, Egypt and the UN... Under the US-brokered agreement, only 20 trucks are being allowed in on Saturday, deliveries from the Egyptian Red Crescent to the Palestinian Red Crescent organisation."

This seems to say that Israel and the UN were parties to the agreement, but it says nothing about which parties were pushing to allow more aid and which parties sought to limit it. What accounts for the Economist's statement that Egypt is the party limiting aid? Is there a primary or more detailed secondary source to illuminate this question?

Given the recent mass shooting in Maine, I’m interested in firearms regulation. Apparently Maine does not have so called “red flag laws” but does have what some call “yellow flag laws”.

• What evidence is there that the implementation of these laws has had an effect on gun violence?
• Is there data about the empirical consequences of the different varieties of these regulations?
• What barriers there are to implementing these laws?
• Does polling indicate they're popular among voters?

It's no secret that the process of getting a submission approved in r/NeutralPolitics is more difficult than in just about any other subreddit. We have a strict set of submission rules that was developed over years of observing what kinds of posts lead to unproductive discussions that are difficult to moderate. We aim to filter those out.

On the other hand, if mods see a submission in the queue that holds promise, we'll suggest edits to bring it into compliance.

Today we'll try to pull back the curtain on that process and let the users see how we apply the rules. Put your proposed post in a top level comment below and one of the mods will let you know how we'd handle it if we saw it in the queue.

— r/NeutralPolitics mod team

Today, the US House of Representatives elected Congressman Mike Johnson to be its Speaker. Johnson is regarded as a the "architect" or "mastermind" behind the House Republicans' effort to keep Donald Trump in power through the use of Electoral College objections.

Since Trump is the likely Republican nominee for President in 2024, there's a chance we could see a repeat of his claims to have won in swing states where the vote counts were certified for his opponent.

A subsequent amendment to the Electoral Count Act raised the threshold for objections to certification, but I'm still wondering if the position of House Speaker includes control over specific procedures, powers and tactics that can be used to prevent certification of a Presidential election, thereby giving Trump a better chance of succeeding with that tactic under Johnson than he did in 2020.

To date, Congress has approved about $113 billion in aid to Ukraine over 20 months of war with Russia, which works out to about $68 billion per year. The Biden administration just proposed a new package that includes $61.4 billion of additional aid for Ukraine, much of which would be pushed to the next calendar year. However, some portion of all these packages is not budgetary expense, because it's the drawdown value of items not likely to be replaced, such as M1 Abrams tanks. So, roughly speaking, the US is spending about 1 percent of its annual budget to aid Ukraine.

Questions:

• What level of US support is sustainable without raising taxes?
• What, if any, domestic services are at risk by continuing this aid?
• Historically, has it been a good investment to aid countries who are fighting one's adversaries?
• What are the pros and cons of maintaining, reducing or increasing aid to Ukraine?

The Biden administration agreed to lift sanctions on Venezuela in return for guarantees that previously barred politicians can run int he next election, over 7 Million migrants have fled Venezuelas ongoing economic crisis since 2015.

What are the economic decisions either inside or outside Venezuela that have led to this situation?

The United States has been without a Speaker of the House for the past 12 days since Kevin McCarthy was voted out on October 3. This unprecedented situation has effectively frozen the House of Representatives, making it unable to pass any legislation at all, with the government funding deadline drawing near on November 17.

• What can and cannot the US government do without an elected Speaker of the House?

• What specific major legislative items are being held up besides the debt ceiling negotiation?

• In particular, how is funding for Ukraine and Israel being affected? The Senate and White House have signaled that they will be seeking supplemental funding requests to address both of these cases. Is this method a blank check, or what limitations does it have for the future?

• Where does this leave disaster relief funding for flooding and wildfires, and other time-sensitive funding needs?

American healthcare costs the average person more than any other OECD country.

The OECD ranks it as the most expensive with the worst care outcome, what accounts for the cost of US Healthcare?

How have other OECD countries kept costs lower?

As of today, r/NeutralPolitics is open again and accepting rules-compliant submissions to foster evenhanded, empirical discussions. Welcome back.

Here are a few anticipated questions and answers:

Why are you reopening now?

We had discussed how and when to come back, but hadn't reached a conclusion. Reddit is now forcing our hand. They've threatened to replace the mod team if we don't reopen.

We haven't exactly figured out how to deal with the reduced capabilities of moderating without third party apps, but we're also reluctant to see all the effort we've put in over the last dozen years passed to an unknown team, so we're giving it a try.

What has changed about the subreddit?

Very little. The rules and procedures are just as they were.

However, mods are on Reddit less, so response times may be a little longer. If that becomes a problem, we'll address it.

Additionally, it's a little easier for users to get banned now. Since the summer protests, we've noticed that the quality of discussion has declined sitewide. The percentage of comments we remove for rule violations in our sister subreddit, r/NeutralNews, has gone way up. Because we pride ourselves on not banning users capriciously, we've maintained the same system of warnings and escalating bans as always, but lowered the thresholds for bans in both subreddits.

Why not bring on more mods?

It's easier said than done. When we've put out calls in the past, we've gotten very few responses. Of the people who do respond, a very small number follow through and end up qualified. On average, we take on one new mod per mod call, and it's rare that they last more than a month after the training period. Simply put, trying to bring on new mods involves a lot of time investment for the existing team with traditionally poor return. However, as stated above, if continuing to manage the subreddit becomes difficult, we'll consider it.

Other than becoming a mod, what can I do to help?

Follow the rules, report any violations you see, and generally don't make more work for the mods. If you're about to click "save" on a submission or comment and you think, 'this probably isn't compliant, but if so, a mod can remove it,' please don't. That just makes more work for the team and lowers the proportion of quality content for everyone else.

Why not just turn it over to another team?

We've spent over a decade building a userbase that expects a certain level of quality and a particular kind of adjudication from the mods. We wouldn't be able to guarantee that if we cede it to another team, which seems disrespectful to the users who have stuck with us.

What are the plans for the future?

We've had some productive discussions about our next steps and there are some ideas in the works, one of which we're really hopeful about, but it's still too early to announce anything.

What if I have questions or feedback about the subreddit?

Put them in the comments below, but please be polite about it.

Thanks.

— r/NeutralPolitics mod team

Hi Neutralverse,

As we consider our next moves, we wanted to keep some life in the subreddit. One of the ways discussed was to highlight some of our favorite topics or responses that make NP special.

Does white privilege exist in the United States?

This post was special to me in that it helped to push my perspective over the hill into accepting the alternative viewpoint. Many of the comments are well sourced and reasoned, and the discussion was productive.

This topic is 7(!) years old. Did it age well? Does the discussion hold up in retrospect?

Dear users,

After reading the feedback and discussing our options, the mod team has decided that r/NeutralPolitics will remain 'restricted' for the time being. This means there will be no new user submissions, but we will have occasional moderator posts. Comments will be allowed. Our sister subreddit, r/NeutralNews, will reopen with a sticky message of protest.

The status of these subreddits may change at any time depending on internal or external factors, including potential actions by Reddit admins. And as mentioned in the meta post, these questions of status will only continue until our team can move to a new platform. We don't see a future on Reddit.

If engagement here returns to pre-protest levels, we may need more mods, in which case we'll put out a public call. We're not taking unsolicited requests to join the mod team at this time.

Thanks for your patience.

— r/NeutralPolitics mod team

EDIT: The mods have noted that the feedback so far is almost exclusively from users who have little to no posting history in this subreddit. We would like to hear from some regular contributors, so if you're out there, please share your perspective below or by modmail.

Dear users,

Over the past month, the moderator team of r/NeutralPolitics and our sister subreddit, r/NeutralNews, has done some soul searching about our future.

As a discussion platform, Reddit has been in steady decline for years. With the shift to mobile and the redesign, content that favors quick engagement and upvotes, continued scrolling, and serving ads seems to be winning out over the kind of text-heavy comment sections we favor here. Reddit admins have frequently promised tools and administrator engagement to improve moderation for subs like ours, and although there has been some progress, delivery often falls short. Reddit's recent announcement about API access price hikes has pushed most third party apps out of business, which in turn has driven half our mod team off of Reddit. It's been years of feeling like we're swimming against the tide.

Nevertheless, the mods believe that the kind of environment we try to foster here has value for certain subset of internet users who are looking for evidence-based discussion of political and current events, so rather than shutting down the project, we've decided to seek out a new platform. The trouble is, none of the Reddit alternatives we've looked at are quite ready for us yet. They're quickly maturing, but don't currently provide the tools necessary to moderate this kind of environment with the small team we're able to assemble. We're following the latest developments on those platforms and will transition when we feel it is appropriate.

In the meantime, there's a question about what to do with these subreddits while we're waiting. r/NeutralPolitics and r/NeutralNews are currently "restricted," meaning no new submissions are allowed, which diminishes the prevalence of comments and practically eliminates our content from users' feeds.

Part of the remaining team thinks we should reopen (allow new submissions again) and place a kind of protest banner at the top of the subs (and perhaps stickied to each post) explaining our status, future, and reasoning. Others on the team believe it's important for us to stick together with protesting subreddits, remaining restricted so that we can motivate Reddit to negotiate with the mod community over API pricing. Under that model, there's a suggestion that we could follow the lead of r/AskHistorians and have mods post occasional content that keeps the subreddit alive, even while it remains blocked for user submissions.

Most of the third party apps are already gone and the pricing changes are due to take effect on July 1st, which is only a couple days away, so now is the time for us to make a decision. We'd like to incorporate user feedback in that choice. Eventually, we'll be off Reddit, but in the meantime, what do you users think? Should we reopen or remain restricted?

Thanks.

— r/NeutralPolitics mod team

Hi everyone,

After discussion amongst the Neutralverse mod team about the current API protests and input from all of you, we have decided to place the subreddit in a read-only state for the time being. All submissions will be restricted and all comments are by approval only. We will continue to monitor the situation and adapt to new developments.

Thanks,

The Neutralverse mod team

Hi everyone,

We've reopened the subreddit as we originally communicated. Things have evolved since we first made that decision.

1. /u/spez sent an internal memo to Reddit staff stating “There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well.” It appears they intend to wait us all out.

2. The AMA with /u/spez was widely regarded as disastrous, with only 21 replies from reddit staff, and a repetition of the accusations against Apollo dev, Christian Selig. Most detailed questions were left unanswered. Despite claiming to work with developers that want to work with them, several independent developers report being totally ignored.

3. In addition, the future of r/blind is still uncertain, as the tools they need are not available on the 2 accessible apps.

/r/ModCoord has a community list of demands in order to end the blackout.

The Neutralverse mod team is currently evaluating these developments and considering future options.

If you have any feedback on direction you would like to see this go, please let us know.

In light of the upcoming changes to Reddit's API pricing and the surrounding controversy brought to wider attention by the recent AMA by u/spez, NeutralPolitics has made the decision to join our fellow moderators in going dark for 48 hours from June 12-14.

For a deeper look at the issue, we suggest checking out our recent discussion post and the AskHistorians post.

We're happy to take any user feedback in this thread.

— /r/NeutralPolitics mod team

The Florida governor has signed Senate Bill 1718 into law. Some of the provisions are:

• ⁠Banning local governments from issuing identification cards for people who can’t prove citizenship.

• ⁠Requiring hospitals that accept Medicaid to include a question on intake forms about the patient’s citizenship status.

• ⁠Banning undocumented law school graduates from being admitted to the Florida bar.

• ⁠Increasing penalties for human trafficking-related offenses.

• ⁠Beefing up the required use of E-Verify, a federal database employers can use to check a worker’s employment eligibility.

Many businesses and workers are against this law. At the same time, the US is a democracy based on the rule of law.

What are the pros and cons of implementing these provisions on a federal level to combat the effects of illegal immigration?

And what is the effectiveness of past measures, or present measures, in other states/countries with similar provisions, meant to combat the effects of illegal immigration and/or discourage illegal immigration altogether (except of course to make said illegal immigration legal)?

The mods acknowledge that this is not exactly a political question per Rule A. There have been a couple times in the past when we've attempted to leverage this subreddit's combination of strict rules, established culture, and moderation style to host productive discussions about Reddit-specific incidents. In light of the current conflict around API access costs and third-party apps on Reddit, this is another one of those times.

Background and description

Third-party software that interfaces with Reddit relies on the company's "application programming interface" (API) to communicate with the site. Back in April, Reddit said it would begin charging for access to its API, and on May 31st, the company announced to developers that it would be adding an Enterprise-level tier for API access, though it did not publish the pricing.

That same day, Christian Selig, developer of the popular Apollo app, said Reddit is proposing to charge $12,000 for 50 million requests, which he estimates would cost him $20 million a year, an amount that could easily cause him and others to shut down their apps.

For comparison, Selig cites the photo site Imgur as a more reasonable pricing scheme, "I pay Imgur (a site similar to Reddit in user base and media) $166 for the same 50 million API calls." Twitter recently announced a three-tier API pricing scheme. The highest tier, which is aimed at commercial-level access, is estimated to cost as much as $42,000 per month. Some Twitter developers said the new pricing would kill their projects.

If Selig's reported numbers are correct, Apollo and many other third-party apps could be priced out of access to Reddit. Many users say the official Reddit app is inferior and the loss of all third-party apps would have a dramatically negative effect on the site and their participation. This has led to petitions, protests, and widespread calls for a boycott.

Reddit history and financial information

Reddit admins have been notably quiet in all this. As of this posting, they haven't issued a statement or commented on Selig's post. Until they do, we can only infer the company's reasoning by examining the public information.

Reddit began as a website, but like most social media, has experienced a notable shift towards mobile access, such that now over two thirds of visits are from mobile devices. In most cases, Reddit cannot serve ads to users browsing through third-party apps. I think we can also infer that users of those apps are more likely to pay premium subscription fees to the app developer than to Reddit itself.

This means those apps incurs costs to Reddit of serving the API calls without any corresponding revenue stream. The third-party apps probably also steal some users who would otherwise be using Reddit's native app where the company could serve ads, although many of those users say they'd just leave Reddit rather than use the native app.

Reddit's main revenue streams are from advertising and premium subscriptions. The company reportedly took in $350 million of gross revenue for 2021, which pales in comparison to Meta’s 2022 ad revenue of $113 billion. Even Twitter, despite its many controversies, raked in nearly $7 billion last year.

Although Reddit ranks as the 9th-most-visited website in the world and 6th most-visited website in the US, its users are the least valuable of any major social media network, with estimated average revenue per user (ARPU) of about $0.30. For the sake of comparison, Facebook and Pinterest have estimated ARPUs of $7.37 and $2.80 respectively.

Since 2006, Reddit has been majority owned by Advance Publications, the parent company of Conde Nast. Other significant investors are various venture capital firms. Because it's privately held, Reddit isn't subject to any of the financial reporting requirements for public companies, so we don't know if it is profitable or to what degree.

It has been widely reported that Reddit is preparing for a potential initial public offering (IPO) sometime later this year. In such cases, it's common for investors to be looking for growth in — or entirely new streams of — revenue.

Companies are also legally required to enter a quiet period before an IPO, limiting their public statements. It's not clear if we may be in that period, but beyond the legal requirements, it's also in the interest of a company planning for an IPO to be careful not to communicate anything that could diminish its perceived value. The 2012 JOBS Act eliminated many disclosure requirements for "emerging growth companies" (which Reddit qualifies as) for a period of five years from their date of filing to go public. "What that means from a communications perspective is that – apart from rumor and speculation – the general public has no knowledge of the EGC’s IPO plans until the finalized registration statement is publicly filed which, in most cases, is about one month before the company complete[s] the IPO and goes public." So, unfortunately, the financial motivations behind of Reddit's move on API pricing remain obscured from the users.

In the broader market, though, funding for tech companies has dried up and layoffs abound. High interest rates have also taken their toll, because potential investors can get better returns elsewhere. Increasing revenue and a successful IPO may be Reddit's only avenues to profitability.

What's notable behind all the numbers is that users and moderators are key elements for the company. A loss of users would directly lead to a drop in revenue and valuation. Meanwhile, moderators provide an enormous amount of free labor in the form of content moderation on the platform, without which Reddit would be at risk of severe reputational harm. A policy shift that results in an exodus of both mods and users cannot be good for the company's bottom line. At the same time, running out of cash or provoking an exodus of investors and/or employees could also be very detrimental to the site's future.

Questions

• Acknowledging there's a lot of presumption here due to the lack of information from Reddit itself, if a decision for a public media company comes down to open access versus survival, how do they balance those forces?
• Are there other public/social media companies that do a good job of this, and if so, how?
• If a company like Reddit determines it needs to raise revenue in order to continue to provide a platform for public discourse, are there ways to do it that maintain the relative freedom of access (from different apps) such discourse requires?
• And even if the platform is not at risk of extinction, are there ways for a social media company to ensure a reasonable return for investors while also balancing the interests of free and open discussion from all devices?

Statement from the moderators

The mods of r/NeutralPolitics appreciate the time and effort of all the teams who have brought public attention to this issue. We generally support whatever fosters more productive discussion on Reddit, and based on what we've seen so far, it's difficult to see how that goal would be served by the elimination of third-party apps. However, if anyone — especially the Reddit corporate officers or administrators — wants to chime in to offer more information, it would be most welcome. All viewpoints will get a fair hearing, so long as they stick to this subreddit's rules on commenting. Towards that end, when citing primary sources in this thread, the rule against linking to content on Reddit is lifted.