Reddit AMA with President Obama

2012

Date: 29 August 2012 · Place: Reddit r/IAmA, posted from a Charlottesville, Virginia campaign stop · Figures: Barack Obama, 44th president · Victoria Taylor, Reddit director of communications · Steve Huffman, co-founder · Alexis Ohanian, co-founder · Tags: Reddit AMA, Political Internet, Platform Legitimacy 01. I Am Barack Obama, President Of The United States On 29 August 2012, ten weeks before the general election, the sitting US president submits a post to Reddit's r/IAmA subreddit titled I Am Barack Obama, President of the United States. AMA. The thirty-minute session draws more than two hundred thousand concurrent visitors and briefly takes the site down. It is the first time a sitting head of state participates in a public Q&A on a user-generated platform without media intermediation. 02. The Format As Institutional Object The Obama AMA legitimizes the Ask Me Anything format as an institutional press object. After 29 August, AMAs are conducted by Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Madonna, and the Norwegian Prime Minister, among many others. It also exposes Reddit's editorial fragility. The 2015 firing of AMA coordinator Victoria Taylor will trigger a site-wide moderator revolt that brings down CEO Ellen Pao and reveals the volunteer-mod dependency at the heart of the platform. "By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience, NOT BAD!" — Barack Obama, r/IAmA, 29 August 2012 Sources • Reddit r/IAmA, Obama session archive (29 August 2012) • The Atlantic, 'Obama Does Reddit' (29 August 2012) • Wired, 'Reddit and the Obama Effect' (5 September 2012)