New Option to Add Gender Identity During Account Signup

https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/mawomr/new_option_to_add_gender_identity_during_account/

created by ninjayee on 22/03/2021 at 20:07 UTC*

0 upvotes, 29 top-level comments (showing 25)

Hey redditors,

In an effort to provide more relevant recommendations within the onboarding experience, new users will have the option to add their gender identity to their account while signing up. **Gender identity selections will never be publicly displayed.** This information will be used alongside other onboarding selections (e.g., interests) to improve content and community recommendations, like the ones you see in your feeds or that we provide users upon signup. As we use this information, we will be mindful of and seek to avoid reinforcing negative social stereotypes.

This new prompt will be rolling out in the next few weeks to new users who create an account using iOS or Android, and to more users and other platforms over time. Existing redditors will have the option of adding a gender identity in their account settings in the future.

This new prompt is part of a series of updates we’ve made over the last year to the onboarding flow to help people who are new to Reddit quickly find communities and content they enjoy. Some of these changes have included improving the welcome experience, making sign ups easier, and showcasing more granular topics in onboarding.

We’d like to hear your thoughts, feedback, and any questions you may have about this change. Suffice it to say, this is a big change, so let’s talk about privacy.

*It’s your choice whether to provide this information**

Privacy is in Reddit’s DNA. No one should have to reveal their identity to find support and community on Reddit—gender identity included. This means that people can choose not to share this information at all, and can change or remove this information in their settings at any time.

*How we’re using this information**

It’s important that you know how we use the data you choose to share with us. Here’s where we stand with privacy on Reddit:

We don’t sell your personal data to outside, third-party entities *ever*. And we don’t plan to.
You will always have control over your own data on Reddit.

Our intention is to collect and use gender identity data to personalize user experiences and provide recommendations for relevant content or communities. If we ever move towards using this information for anything other than recommendations, we will communicate those changes ahead of time to give users ample opportunity to change or withdraw the information.

*How the data is stored and accessed**

The data is stored internally in a privacy-secured backend database. In order to access the data internally for usage, internal Reddit teams will have to get access permission from our privacy team.
Other Reddit users will not have visibility to this information.
Third party apps and developers will not have access to this data.

*How it works**

When new redditors create an account, they’ll see a screen where they can choose their gender identity from the following options:

Female
Male
Non-binary
I refer to myself as (selecting this option reveals a freeform field)
Prefer not to say

New users can also skip this screen entirely, by selecting “Skip” in the upper right hand corner.

People will also have the ability to change their selection to any of the options above within their account settings at any time after sign up. And to effectively remove any gender identity information provided from their account, users may simply change their selection to “Prefer not to say.”

https://preview.redd.it/grh13cra9oo61.png?width=1120&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e16b0f479c62fd845e9a311b9485f145ab88d10

We’ll be here to answer your questions and hear your thoughts.

**Edit: updated screenshot***

Comments

Comment by irckeyboardwarrior at 22/03/2021 at 20:10 UTC

81 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Our intention is to collect and use gender identity data to personalize user experiences and provide recommendations for relevant content or communities.

Could you be more exact on "personalize user experiences"? Is this limited to just subreddit recommendations that people see, or is it more than that? And if it's the latter, what else is it?

Comment by [deleted] at 22/03/2021 at 20:37 UTC

33 upvotes, 1 direct replies

[deleted]

Comment by [deleted] at 22/03/2021 at 20:13 UTC

54 upvotes, 1 direct replies

So basically get more data from us if we choose

Comment by [deleted] at 22/03/2021 at 20:22 UTC

24 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Will this affect advertisements, and is there a way to opt out of sharing this information with advertisers?

Comment by essidus at 22/03/2021 at 20:19 UTC

42 upvotes, 4 direct replies

So question- why capture this data at all? Any data becomes inherently less useful when you allow an open field, so over time your demographics data is going to be screwed. And gender-based demos are becoming less and less relevant anyway, so why not just get rid of it as a suggestion vector?

Comment by Draedron at 23/03/2021 at 12:49 UTC

11 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Privacy is in Reddit’s DNA

HAHAHAHA should be in /r/funny

Comment by Twisted_nebulae at 22/03/2021 at 21:19 UTC

38 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Privacy is in our DNA

The CEO said "We know everything about you"... can you clarify on this? (https://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2016/05/30/reddit-knows-your-dark-secrets/[1])

1: https://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2016/05/30/reddit-knows-your-dark-secrets/

Comment by Nerd_199 at 23/03/2021 at 03:31 UTC*

16 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Their put this in r/changelog so the least amount of people can view this.

No one ask for this and no one ask for to be show online when browsing on reddit.

Just "more feature" so their can sell your data to Increase their IPO https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/05/tech/reddit-cfo-drew-vollero/index.html

Comment by sparkplug49 at 22/03/2021 at 20:45 UTC

7 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Out of curiosity, what were old options?

Comment by OptimalCynic at 23/03/2021 at 10:17 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Gender identity selections will never be publicly displayed

Don't believe you. Not after the online indicator thing.

Comment by mokiboki at 23/03/2021 at 01:28 UTC

6 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Do you know right now what the difference in recommendations would be for each option? What kind of subreddits would you recommend for each?

Comment by [deleted] at 23/03/2021 at 05:36 UTC

6 upvotes, 1 direct replies

This new prompt is part of a series of updates we’ve made over the last year to the onboarding flow to help people who are new to Reddit quickly find communities and content they enjoy.

Our intention is to collect and use gender identity data to personalize user experiences and provide recommendations for relevant content or communities.

What communities or trends will be recommended to me or brought to my attention if I identify as male vs. female?

Comment by heartless-tramp at 23/03/2021 at 10:06 UTC

5 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Useless feature

Comment by hightrix at 24/03/2021 at 21:13 UTC*

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

WTF, I deleted this comment once. I'll delete it again.

Stop fucking with comments, reddit.

Comment by [deleted] at 22/03/2021 at 21:49 UTC

11 upvotes, 1 direct replies

you have no use for anyone gender as its irrelevant to the maintenance of the platform.

Comment by [deleted] at 23/03/2021 at 08:24 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I’m wondering how having my gender in a database will make you able to gauge what kind of content I’m interested in...

Comment by Heiks at 31/03/2021 at 13:04 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

yikes

Comment by TransDengXiaoping at 22/03/2021 at 21:57 UTC

7 upvotes, 2 direct replies

What's the point?

Comment by Draedron at 23/03/2021 at 13:02 UTC

2 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Anyone know a good non far right reddit alternative by now?

Comment by Idesmi at 23/03/2021 at 13:21 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

This is useless and counterproductive. Collecting info on gender identity, you're not only likely opening possibilities of sharing other valuable data with advertisers, you're also taking a conservative stance on gender matters.

Do you plan of twist your algorithm to cater fashion subreddits to women and war subreddits to men? Is this your progressivism?

Comment by YesAmAThrowaway at 23/03/2021 at 21:33 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Inb4 people claim to be hornygender. Gladly, even twitter has opposed that so far. r/truscum for more discussion.

Comment by violetgrumble at 23/03/2021 at 11:19 UTC*

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

This information will be used alongside other onboarding selections (e.g., interests) to improve content and community recommendations, like the ones you see in your feeds or that we provide users upon signup. As we use this information, we will be mindful of and seek to avoid reinforcing negative social stereotypes.

Can you please elaborate further? I know there are many gender-specific subreddits particularly for women like r/TwoXChromosomes and r/femalefashionadvice but then there's also subreddits like r/MakeupAddiction whose userbase is predominately comprised of women - if someone selected female upon signup, are these the sort of the communities they would be recommended? Edit: What about non-gendered subreddits which have a high male/female userbase?

*How are these recommendations determined**, and **what are you specifically doing to avoid reinforcing negative sterotypes**?

And finally, **do you have plans to introduce options to add other identity markers** (e.g. race, sexual orientation, nationality, etc) in future?