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Reddit Presses Play on Video Ventures, Buys Dubsmash

Photo-Illustration: Vulture, Dubmash and Reddit

Reddit is building up in the video department with the purchase of shortform-video platform Dubsmash. The online forum bought the TikTok competitor, aimed specifically toward “underrepresented creators,” on December 14. According to a Reddit blog post, the platforms will continue to operate separately, but Reddit will also “integrate Dubsmash’s innovative video creation tools” for its own use. Before the purchase, Dubsmash boasted over 1 billion monthly views on its videos, with users accounting for over a quarter of all Black American teens along with skewing 70 percent female. The deal comes nearly six months after Reddit implemented a hate-speech policy and banned thousands of far-right and white-supremacist sub-Reddits. “It’s clear that our missions closely align and that our community-focused platforms can coexist and grow as we learn from each other,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a statement. Just don’t call it a pivot to video, okay?

Reddit Presses Play on Video Ventures, Buys Dubsmash