Reddit's filing with the SEC makes clear that training AI with user posts is a core part of Reddit's new business model.

Reddit said in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission that its users’ posts are “a valuable source of conversation data and knowledge” that has been and will continue to be an important mechanism for training AI and large language models. The filing also states that the company believes “we are in the early stages of monetizing our user base,” and proceeds to say that it will continue to sell users’ content to companies that want to train LLMs and that it will also begin “increased use of artificial intelligence in our advertising solutions.”

The long-awaited S-1 filing reveals much of what Reddit users knew and feared: That many of the changes the company has made over the last year in the leadup to an IPO are focused on exerting control over the site, sanitizing parts of the platform, and monetizing user data.

Posting here because of the privacy implications of all this, but I wonder if at some point there should be an “Enshittification” community :-)

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
    461·
    10 months ago

    There’s also the issue of reddit comment sorting being entirely dominated by time. In something like 90% of posts, the top comment is one of the first five. Literally all you have to do is just comment first, and it’ll likely be the top.

    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
      22·
      10 months ago

      I noticed from the beginning that Lemmy’s default comment sorting improves visibility of a variety of comments including newer ones. Gee, I wonder who could have helped make it that way ;)

      Over the years I ended up getting a Reddit habit of replying to one of the top comments so that it could attain some visibility. I still do sometimes but less often on Lemmy.

      • Uglyhead@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        10 months ago

        Some of the better subreddits tried to mix it up and change how this affected upvotes. There was Muxing,…etc etc… But then,… Spez came in (back) and didn’t give af about anything at all except money.

        • Omniraptor@lemm.ee
          2·
          10 months ago

          First time I’m hearing about this, can you give any links? Maybe we could use something similar in lemmy

          • Uglyhead@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            10 months ago

            Muxing upvotes , “balances”, etc.

            Even hiding all upvotes of every comment thread until ~12 hrs after posting.

            • Omniraptor@lemm.ee
              1·
              10 months ago

              I’m still not sure what those first two mean.

              Hiding vote counts is a good idea imo however, having the info visible can influence people’s judgement of the comment and cause people to also vote based on the existing score rather than just the comment itself.

    • federico3@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      This tends to give more influence to people who spend more time on it and write more. And they are less likely to be subject matter experts.