President Obama made a surprise appearance in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread as part of the President’s campaign stop in Charlottesville, Virginia. The traffic caused by this event caused the popular site to experience outages.
“I was sitting in [the University of Virginia’s] Alderman Library when I came up with the name ‘Reddit,’ and I never could’ve imagined that seven years later, the president of the United States would be using it — let alone from the same place!” said Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.
Significant to Reddit and everyone who uses the Internet for their business, the President fielded a question on Internet freedom and what his polices were. “Internet freedom is something I know you all care passionately about; I do too,” responded Obama. “We will fight hard to make sure that the Internet remains the open forum for everybody – from those who are expressing an idea to those to want to start a business. And although there will be occasional disagreements on the details of various legislative proposals, I won’t stray from that principle – and it will be reflected in the platform.”
Obama has done many social media trysts during his Presidency, participating in a Twitter town hall, a LinkedIn townhall, and also answered Facebook users’ questions from the company’s headquarters.
“I want to thank everybody at Reddit for participating – this is an example of how technology and the internet can empower the sorts of conversations that strengthen our democracy over the long run. AND REMEMBER TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER – if you need to know how to register, go to http://gottaregister.com {link no longer active}. By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole Reddit experience – NOT BAD!” said the President in farewell.
Source: Washington Post
