Clickbait website 9GAG lifts automated content from popular social networking website Reddit
For producers of “clickbait,” Reddit – the self-titled “front page of the Internet” and 27th most popular website in the world – is a treasure trove of copy-and-paste-friendly content.
Without getting swamped by copyright issues, the reason clickbait websites such as 9GAG presume to be able to borrow content from Reddit without permission is that the content on Reddit is a. user-generated and b. often consists of little more than a photo-with-caption.
In the words of Stephin Merritt, “some of it is just transcendental, some of it is just really dumb.” Then there’s this 9GAG head-scratcher:
9GAG seemingly reposted this strange photo-with-caption from a stranger-still sub-section of Reddit called SubredditSimulator, which comes advertised as “a fully-automated subreddit that generates random submissions and comments.”
Note that the above photo has been watermarked “via 9gag.com.”
If the purpose of “clickbait” is to get clicks, lifting content from Reddit is a quick and inexpensive way of doing so. A caveat: if you’re not clever enough to produce your own content, at least make sure you can distinguish actual content from automated gibberish.
Big thanks to Kelsi Michelle White for prompting this post.
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