Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has said that the platform is being spammed by AI bots, and is now in “an arms race” to detect and block these fake posts.
The irony here is that the very reason Reddit is being targeted by bots is because the company sells access to user posts for AI training …
Expand Expanding Close
Reddit has announced plans to fight back after a large-scale AI fraud was carried out against users of the highly popular Change My View subreddit.
However, the company’s plans to take to fight AI bots may not be popular with users, as it could compromise the platform’s long-standing approach to privacy …
Expand Expanding Close
Trigger warning for brief references to sexual assault.
It’s been discovered that millions of Reddit users were deceived and “psychologically manipulated” by an unauthorized AI experiment performed by researchers from the University of Zurich …
Expand Expanding Close
Update: Reddit says this outage has been resolved.
If you’re having problems accessing Reddit today, you’re not alone. The company has acknowledged an ongoing outage across its website and apps.
Expand Expanding Close
Reddit posts will be less likely to break the rules of a given subreddit, thanks to a number of changes the company is introducing to its apps.
These include the ability to ask an AI to check your post before you submit it …
Expand Expanding Close
Digg – once known as “the homepage of the internet” – is making a come-back, after being bought by its co-founder Kevin Rose in partnership with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
It’s an interesting move given that Reddit was a competitor who pretty much inherited that “homepage of the web” accolade. Also ‘interesting’ is the pair’s belief that most moderation can be done by AI …
Expand Expanding Close
The UK’s privacy watchdog has announced a “major investigation” into the child protection measures of three popular apps: TikTok, Reddit, and Imgur.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said that it has previously succeeded in bringing about child protection changes on X, Sendit, BeReal, Daily Motion, and Viber …
Expand Expanding Close
Plans for a Reddit paywall of some kind have now been confirmed by CEO Steve Huffman, after hints about it last summer.
Huffman confirmed the plan for paid subreddits during a pre-recorded Ask Me Anything video shown during the company’s earnings call …
Expand Expanding Close
Reddit banned more than 90 subreddits yesterday, later restoring them and blaming it on a bug, but some moderators are worried about what the move might signal for the future.
The banned subreddits were all ones allowing NSFW content, but while that is commonly thought of as adult entertainment, it also includes communities as diverse as r/cubancigars and r/transgender_surgeries …
Expand Expanding Close
Meta’s Threads app may be seeking to further push into the territory occupied by the app formerly known as Twitter, taking on one of Elon Musk’s favorite features.
The feature is known as Loop, and one developer who spotted the reference said that it might be similar to the Communities feature on X, or subreddits …
Expand Expanding Close
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has hinted that in future some subreddits could be paywalled, as the company seeks to devise new sources of income.
Huffman raised the prospect during an earnings call in which he said Reddit would also be testing AI-powered search results later this year …
Expand Expanding Close
Reddit is now blocking all search engines except Google from indexing its site as it effectively implements a paywall for AI training.
Back in February, it was revealed that Google was paying Reddit more than $60M a year to get access to user posts to help train its AI models …
Expand Expanding Close
Redditors who took advantage of their privileged access to stock ahead of the IPO have seen Reddit share value rocket from $34 to $59.80 by yesterday’s close – an 86% increase.
Update: Subsequent share sales by the company’s CEO and COO – coupled to a report describing the stock as “grossly overvalued” – saw the price fall to $49.32, below the closing price on the day of the IPO …
Expand Expanding Close
Following the company’s successful IPO, and a deal with Google to allow Reddit posts to be used as training data, the expansion of another Reddit data-sharing agreement has been signed – this time with Cision.
The data is likely to be used to help companies understand consumer perceptions of their brands, and insights into comments on their products …
Expand Expanding Close
We don’t yet know the exact cost of Reddit shares when they go on sale, but the company has indicated that the initial public offering (IPO) price will be between $31 and $34 per share.
Selected Redditors will get priority access ahead of the IPO, and unlike most preferential access deals, they will be free to sell their shares immediately if they wish to …
Expand Expanding Close
The first invitations to participate in the Reddit Directed Share Program (DSP) – in which moderators and very active users will get preferential access to shares – have now been issued.
Some moderators and other users with high Reddit karma have been invited to register, but so far vocal users seem unimpressed …
Expand Expanding Close
The long-awaited Reddit IPO is finally official, as the company formally notified the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of its plans to take the company public on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol RDDT.
Reddit has also revealed that the controversial $60M/year deal to provide access to user-generated content to an AI company was with Google …
Expand Expanding Close
Prolific Redditors are to be given preferential access to Reddit shares in the company’s initial public offering (IPO), according to a new report.
The plan would see an as-yet-unknown proportion of the shares set aside for the 75,000 most active Reddit users …
Expand Expanding Close
It’s being reported that a deal has been struck to allow an unnamed large AI company to use Reddit user content for training purposes …
Expand Expanding Close
The Reddit moderator rebellion earlier this year doesn’t seem to have fazed CEO Steve Huffman, who says that AI moderation is part of the solution.
Huffman says that he stands by the company’s decision to charge for API access despite the fact that it was massively unpopular, and led to the demise of the leading Reddit app, Apollo …
Expand Expanding Close
The Narwhal for Reddit app now has confirmed pricing, after surveying the views of users. The developer says that thoughts of tiered subscriptions have been abandoned, and that the app will instead have a single plan costing $3.99 per month.
This is the same as Now for Reddit, which also considered multiple tiers – while Android app Relay is going with usage-based pricing …
Expand Expanding Close
Reddit moderators who participated in protests against the company’s API charges say that they have been replaced by individuals who lack subject matter expertise. They say this is leading to dangerous advice being posted and going unchallenged in subreddits ranging from food canning to 3D printing of firearms …
Expand Expanding Close
A form of Reddit verification is currently being tested, in the form of an “official” label for some accounts confirmed as authentic.
For now at least, verification is only available to organizations, and not individuals, and the current test is extremely limited …
Expand Expanding Close
Reddit protests have been continuing, despite threats by the company to take over subreddits which refuse to end them. The company has now carried out its threat against one of the biggest subreddits – a move which seems set to backfire.
Additionally, a fun crowdsourced art project on Reddit is now being used to post messages protesting against the company’s decision to charge extortionate amounts for API access …
Expand Expanding Close
