Abstract

Advertisers aim to avoid content containing controversy, sex, violence, and profanity, while platforms like Reddit aim to monetize as much content with ads as possible. This research explores the dynamics of content monetization in the two-sided market of social media, focusing on Reddit's brand safety system's effectiveness in shielding advertisers from unsafe user- generated content (UGC). Analyzing 2,267 active subreddits and 2.74 million submissions over three months in 2022. 55% to 66% of subreddits with relatively high toxicity deemed acceptable for advertising. Overall, brand safety on reddit seems to only affect 15% of submissions, with 85% deemed safe for advertising. Inconsistencies in blocking highly toxic subreddits suggest factors like subreddit size may impact Reddit’s brand safety decisions. Together it appears that Reddit's economic motivations in content monetization outweigh advertiser pressure for brand safety. This research underscores the need for more transparent and precise brand safety solutions. It also suggests advertiser concern to appearing alongside “unsafe” content, is overblown as no advertisers have spoken out against brand safety on Reddit.

How to Cite

Vargo, C. J., Hopp, T., & Agarwal, P. (2024). Balancing Brand Safety and User Engagement in a Two-Sided Market: An Analysis of Content Monetization on Reddit. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 45(2), 242–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/10641734.2023.2301621

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Version and Rights

This is the author preprint. For the final published version, see the DOI above.