As Reddit protests turn to porn-bombing, advertisers face increasing brand safety concerns

Some context: a number of developers who make popular Reddit-based apps, such as Apollo, have said the new rules would require them to charge users a monthly fee to remain operational. And although Reddit has claimed that its goal is not to box out such apps, “some skepticism surrounds this claim, as there’s a belief that Reddit is pushing users towards its native app for better tracking and personalization,” says Jeremy Goldman, senior director of marketing, commerce and tech briefings at Insider Intelligence.

And Redditors aren’t having it; many seem to believe the platform’s user experience pales in comparison to third-party apps, and they don‘t want to be forced to use the native app as their primary point of access. As a result, they‘re lashing out at the site’s apparent efforts to strengthen its influence in the market.

When the demonstrations began on June 12, significant swaths of the platform – which has around 56 million active daily users – went dark. Moderators pulled close to 8,000 of the most popular community forums, known as subreddits, from public view, including r/todayilearned and r/gaming. While some subreddits returned after 48 hours, others have remained inaccessible.

Then things got dicier. A group of hackers behind a February phishing attack on Reddit resurfaced, demanding $4.5m in payment from company leadership and changes to the new API pricing policies.

And everyday Redditors are getting more creative in their protesting strategies. One approach: tinkering with the platform’s ‘NSFW’ (Not Safe For Work) rules. Some moderators have added the tag to innocuous subreddits like r/mildlyinteresting and r/TIHI (Thanks I Hate It). Other moderators began allowing users to post porn and other NSFW content in communities without an NSFW tag, violating the site’s terms of service and its Moderator Code of Conduct. The approach gained traction and a handful of subreddits including r/TIHI, r/interestingasfuck and r/self were quickly overrun with porn.

The development sparked a prompt reaction from the company‘s leadership. A source at Reddit familiar with the matter tells The Drum that the platform took swift action to remove moderators who violated its rules about NSFW content, though they confirm that some have since been reinstated. They also say that NSFW content was found in just five previously SFW communities and has since been removed.

But porn-bombing the site has implications far beyond simply aggravating Reddit’s leadership team and adding a degree of chaos to the platform. It also poses immediate risks to the site’s advertising business – its primary revenue-driver, which grew to to $424m in 2022, up nearly 40% from the previous year.

“Whether the communities are going dark or, worse, being filled with NSFW content, either way [it] creates an unattractive proposition as an advertiser,” says Mike Allton, a social media influencer and head of strategic partnerships at social media management platform Agorapulse. “Advertisers don't want to pay for under-trafficked communities and [they] definitely don't want to pay to have their brand displayed alongside NSFW content.”

As it stands, Reddit does not allow advertising in NSFW subreddits or adjacent to NSFW content. The company insider who spoke with The Drum says the company‘s brand safety controls are currently working as intended.

Some evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Jeromy Sonne, an ad industry veteran and the chief executive at AI ad agency Daypart.AI, tweeted a screenshot on June 19 of the r/all page – essentially the site’s homepage – depicting a Lincoln ad placed below a pornographic video.

To wit here is a Lincoln ad next to some porn on the /all page pic.twitter.com/UdSAkOjNh2

— Jeromy Sonne (@JeromySonne) June 19, 2023

In speaking to The Drum, Sonne says he’s wary of the risks of advertising on the platform: “Reddit has had a lot of brand safety concerns for a while and the users have always been fairly hostile towards advertising on the platform. Personally, if a brand I’m working with flags content sensitivity or brand safety as a concern, I’m steering them away from Reddit entirely at the moment.”

Sonne says he isn’t the only one seeing red flags. “Myself and other advertisers and agencies I’ve heard from, including folks at GroupM, have some pretty serious concerns about this latest iteration of the protest.” A WPP-owned network, GroupM counts Coca-Cola, Ford, Nestle and L’Oréal among its clients. The company declined a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Tinuiti, an independent agency, told Campaign US that it had advised some clients earlier this month to dial back spend on Reddit .

However, not all experts feel that the brand safety risks on Reddit are especially high right now. “There are more significant brand safety issues on other platforms,” says Insider Intelligence’s Goldman. “Reddit hasn’t shown any red flags in this area in relation to other competitors; in fact, they have been making substantial investments in brand safety.”

And he’s right: last summer, the platform announced a partnership with DoubleVerify to help address brand safety and prevent ad fraud. It’s a development Goldman predicts is motivated by plans to go public in the near future.

“As of now,” he says, “I haven’t heard of any brands reducing their spending on Reddit.”

Of course, it’s worth noting that Reddit is not a major part of most brands’ media strategies. As a result, the platform may be more negatively impacted by advertiser backlash than a larger player would, Sonne says.

“With something like Meta or Google, [those platforms are] such a main part of most strategies that you sort of have to work around bumps in the road [like brand safety issues],” he says. “But with Reddit, the juice just doesn’t seem worth the squeeze in most cases – which I think means they tend to be disproportionately hurt by these sorts of developments.”

To recover potential skepticism among advertisers, Reddit should start with winning back its loyal user base, suggests Agorapulse’s Allton. “My number one concern right now as an advertiser would be that Reddit seems to be losing rapport with and control over their users. Reddit needs to talk to their community members now and work to regain their trust and support or risk losing brand advertisers long term.”

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