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 :-)
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.