Reddit has been one of the most prominent companies in digital advocacy, organizing to defeat SOPA in 2012 and to defend net neutrality in 2014. As the internet rallies for today’s pro-net neutrality protest, Reddit has organized Ask Me Anything sessions around the issue, and the company announced in a blog post that it will be making the company’s first “official” trip to DC next month to meet with lawmakers.
“Net neutrality is not the best phrase.”
“The Reddit company just hasn’t been in a place to do it,” co-founder Alexis Ohanian said in an interview today with The Verge. The company, he says, has now staffed up its policy team for coordinated lobbying, building relationships with lawmakers to push the issues the company cares about, like net neutrality.
Ohanian has been particularly visible in that debate, putting “traffic advisory” ads around DC ahead of a crucial FCC vote in 2014, and organizing Reddit users around related issues. At the time, Ohanian said in an interview that net neutrality had a branding problem. “Net neutrality is not the best phrase,” he says today. “I’ve even talked with Tim [Wu], the guy who’s coined it.”
“We’re basically stuck with it, that’s what we’ve got,” Ohanian says, but adds that “this product, net neutrality, is so damn good that it actually makes up for the fact that it’s not [branded well].”