US online discussion platform Reddit has overtaken X to become the fifth most popular social media platform in the UK, according to the communications watchdog.
Ofcom said Reddit, where users post in discussion threads within themed communities, was visited by 22.9 million UK adults in May this year, compared to 22.1 million on X.
The figures make Reddit the fastest growing large social media platform in the UK and represent growth of 47% on the same period in 2023. The jump took Reddit above LinkedIn and X to fifth place in the chart of UK social media platforms, which is now topped by YouTube after it overtook Facebook, reaching more than 44 million adults.
Reddit, known for its devoted user base who refer to each other as Redditors, appears to have been boosted by Google’s search engine updates this year.
Farhad Divecha, CEO of UK-based digital marketing agency AccuraCast, said: “Google’s latest algorithm update in the first half of 2024 gave Reddit a big boost in organic search traffic. “I think that’s probably contributed a lot.”
Ofcom also speculated that the change may have been caused by alterations to the way third-party apps accessed their content, forcing users of those apps to switch to the Reddit site. The watchdog also pointed to the publicity surrounding Reddit’s IPO on the stock market in March this year.
X’s popularity also fell during the same period, according to Ofcom, with its reach falling 8% since May last year. X has come under fire over content moderation standards since its acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022, but has also faced competition since July 2023 from Threads, an X rival launched by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta.
Ofcom figures featured in the watchdog’s annual report on the country’s digital habits revealed that four in 10 UK adults say they have encountered misinformation or deepfakes, with the majority of those cases occurring online.
The misinformation survey, based on a survey of more than 4,000 UK adults, also found that three in 10 adults believe there is a single group of people who control the world as a whole, and the same number believe there are “ significant evidence” of electoral fraud. in the UK.
The regulator also found that a third of UK adults do not feel confident in judging whether an image, audio clip or video has been created by artificial intelligence.