cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/8775123

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 :-)

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I just went over to Reddit to see what people were saying about the recent news. It’s sad that people are so down on this news yet they refuse to leave. Buncha addicts

    • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It still amazes me that there are people on Reddit who are upset about this but still keep using Reddit lol!

      Even if they’re “addicts” it’s not like there’s no where else to go! That’s like an alcoholic finding out that their favorite brand of whiskey is laced with lead and arsenic but still continuing to drink it instead of just changing brands!

      I guess there are still some people there who naively think that it’s all somehow going to go back to what it used to be, but at this point it mostly seems like pure laziness

      • KingBoo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Even if they’re “addicts” it’s not like there’s no where else to go!

        For people that want a true reddit replacement, there ISN’T somewhere else to go.

        It certainly isn’t lemmy (imo) Twitter is a cesspool…

        • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You are correct that Lemmy is not a “true Reddit replacement”. In my opinion it’s better than Reddit! The only downside I’ve really noticed is that there aren’t as many varied communities built up yet

          • KingBoo@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Ahh. What about the site has been better for you?

            I’ve bad the opposite experience, unfortunately.

            I’ve struggled to easily navigate and find communities I want to participate in, on lemmy.

            Everytime I’ve asked for help I’ve been told it’s a me problem, because lemmy isn’t reddit.

            • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I haven’t had any issues navigating the sites at all! It’s been pretty easy for me to search for communities so far! Maybe it’s the app you’re using? I’m on Jerboa and it honestly works better than anything I ever used on Reddit! I’ve been trying the Boost app too since that was how I used to get on Reddit but Jerboa just works better so far

            • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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              8 months ago

              Yeah I totally agree, I like it here but I couldn’t recommend it to a friend really because it’s super awkward with not knowing where to sign up because it’s so hard to tell who is blocking who - sign up to thy wrong server and basically no one can see your posts and you can’t see helf the stuff. Then finding communities is difficult enough to start with let alone finding an active community among the dozens of similar named ones - and that before you even get into the various problems with elitists and gate keepers and wokescolds…

              It’s annoying that it feels most the users would rather this place dies than do anything to make it usable for normal people. We need to work as a community and make it more welcoming, to create tools to help people find what they need and to make it worth while to be here

              • KingBoo@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                THANK YOU!

                This is my exact situation and no one has really shared my experience yet but you.

                You’ve listed many of the problems I have.

                Which app do you use?

          • Makeshift@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            This is a downside. I mainly was on a couple specific video game subs and some small branch subs of broader communities.

            I have fallen back about once a month.

        • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Reddit rose from the ashes of digg. Maybe lemmy will take its place, maybe another will. The biggest issue is that it’s already a trove of knowledge, and users are shredding their account history as they leave to keep reddit from profiting from it. I understand why they do it, but it’s kind of like burning the library of Alexandria.

          • Makeshift@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            I took the only multi-viewed comment I remember making and moved it here.

            Had one comment people kept digging up YEARS after I made it, copypasta’d it to Lemmy and edited original comments to redirect here.

            If more people would migrate info they’ve shared like that it would be nice.

          • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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            8 months ago

            Yeah, so do I, but let’s not kid ourselves. Lemmy has a long ways to go. It can scratch the itch the same way Reddit did, but there’s a whole ton of stuff missing here that’s only on Reddit.

          • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            But they won’t bring them here until it’s a good space to be.

            I run a community on here and reddit, I hate to say it but reddit is far more welcoming even once you get past the difficulty of servers and stuff here. Lemmy has problems with down voting and lack of participation, and it’s not like I’m talking about right wing politics subs or anything it’s for an open source project.

            We need to make discovering communities easier and we need to be more open to new people coming - that means supporting things even if they aren’t to our taste and trying not to gatekeep.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        People sometimes prefer the devils they know to the angels they don’t know. It’s hard to break out of even abusive relationships.

      • Blaze@reddthat.comOP
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        8 months ago

        pure laziness

        Inertia, low priority.

        Changing habits can be hard, the statu quo is usually easier

      • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It still amazes me that there are people on Reddit who are upset about this but still keep using Reddit lol!

        I’m not sure why you’d be amazed, I mean people are still using Twitter and that’s a thousand times worse than Reddit.

      • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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        8 months ago

        I mean fuck, i’m an addict and I’ve managed to stay away. They’ve got other issues. Like a person that won’t leave an abusive spouse.

    • Meltrax@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I get it - there are in fact no real alternatives. Lemmy is great but there are a lot of niche communities I learned a ton from on Reddit and Lemmy just doesn’t have the people for that. Yes, yes, maybe one day, everyone just needs to contribute more, etc. But for right now, that’s a large barrier to exiting Reddit for a lot of people.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Everyone wants to consume the content without doing the work to actually populate the content.

        • ZeroCool@slrpnk.net
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          8 months ago

          Exactly, that’s the issue. Leave reddit, start whatever community you want on Lemmy. Quit expecting others to do everything for you. Believe it or not, reddit didn’t have your favorite little niche until someone made it and started posting content. I’m tired of these lazy bullshit excuses for staying on reddit or any other traditional social media site for that matter.

          • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            We’ve become too accustomed to instant gratification. I know I’m guilty of it too; thankfully my predisposition to fight petty battles with corporations that don’t even care I exist helps motivate me.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          The internet used to feel more vibrant and alive than it does now. These companies reward passive consumption and doomscrolling over conversations… even reddit is trying to become more like twitter.

      • fluxion@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I survived the early internet when there weren’t large communities dedicated to custom keyboards. It wasn’t so bad, friends.

    • Blaze@reddthat.comOP
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      8 months ago

      I guess once the Revanced apps will stop working, or old.reddit will be shutdown, they will give Lemmy a try

      • PlexSheep@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        What does that have to do with revanced? That’s YouTube clients? And is there any news on revanced being shut down somehow?

        • Kabloink@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Revanced allows you to insert your own Reddit developer token into third party reddit apps like redditisfun. Which let’s them access the Reddit api.