this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Not The Onion

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But Huffman said Reddit was now battling to ensure its users stay at the center of the social network. “Where the rest of the internet seems to be powered by or written by or summarized by AI, Reddit is distinctly human,” he said. “It’s the place you go when you want to hear from people, their lived experiences, their perspectives, their recommendations. Reddit is communities and human curation and conversation and authenticity.”

As Reddit becomes an increasingly important source for LLMs, advertisers are responding with what one agency chief described as a “massive migration” to the platform.

Multiple advertising and agency executives speaking during this month’s Cannes advertising festival told the FT that brands were increasingly exploring hosting a business account and posting content on Reddit to boost the likelihood of their ads appearing in the responses of generative AI chatbots.

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[–] Tramort@programming.dev 196 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Starting when?

That ship has sailed.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 82 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The ship was never at that port.

Reddit was using bots and vote manipulators back to the Digg days, as well as scraping/reposting akin to what 9gag became famous for.

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 10 points 2 weeks ago

Anyone who participated in any r(slash)place could tell you this has been a lie for at least a few years.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 32 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I know he's just selling the platform to AI companies, but it's an odd take considering they've been moving away from being a message board and towards being just another content feed for years now.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 22 points 2 weeks ago

Looked up some information a bit ago and found Reddit using AI written answer pages to aggregate information. Which- why? The information was already indexed by a search engine, the sole reason I landed on this page. Why are you offering me secondhand, watered down information written by your idiot machine when I can instead read sourced accounts with citations?

It’s interesting to know that you can do this, but I could not care less about a machine’s perspective on what is or is not the prevailing opinion. Moreover, it completely contradicts your stated goal, you perjurious pool of feculence.

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[–] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 61 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Half of the comments are from bots and everyone gets autobanned.

Reddit is quite literally on autopilot

[–] ef9357@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago

And the other half are re-posts.

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 54 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

He didn't say entirely or how many, lol. If there's 2 humans writing, it's technically still, "It's the place you go when you want to hear from people."

[–] huppakee@feddit.nl 25 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Exactly what I thought, cause a lot of comments are from bots and even the ones that appear from humans aren't necessarily humans. How can you say it remains like it is now and it is written by humans at the same time?

[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago

The site is loaded with engagement bots, and that has increased exponentially in the last year. Before I left, I was constantly getting pinged with inane questions to try to elicit a response (engagement). So much different here.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Does it count as "a human" if it's a bot reposting human-made content for the 50th time?

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[–] wanderwisley@lemm.ee 53 points 2 weeks ago
[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 49 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] D_C@lemm.ee 18 points 2 weeks ago

Wow, that's a bit unfair. What has he ever done to show he's a lying, money grabbing, scummy piece of shit?

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[–] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 45 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

brands were increasingly exploring hosting a business account and posting content on Reddit to boost the likelihood of their ads appearing in the responses of generative AI chatbots

[–] ILoveUnions@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

"exploring" meaning they've been doing it for more than 5 years already and just got another incentive to continue doing so

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 39 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If we don’t look for bots, there aren’t any. Sounds more republican every day. If we don’t record covid deaths, there aren’t any.

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[–] Tronn4@lemmy.world 36 points 2 weeks ago
[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 33 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Maybe he shouldn't have permabanned all of us power users after the Inauguration. He might have some active humans posting if he hadn't let the DOGE Goblin intimidate him into firing all of his best posters, the ones who built Reddit into what it was over the past decade. WE were Reddit, not bots, and now we're gone, and only the bots remain.

Good job, Spez.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

I'm glad he did, I like Lemmy so much more.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 30 points 2 weeks ago

I'm guessing he hasn't browsed his own site recently then.

Probably nothing there to interest him since they banned /r/jailbait

[–] SirMaple__@lemmy.ca 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ironically the fact that Star Trek is the one of the only specific media franchises that can maintain an active community on Lemmy explains it.

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[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 26 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe 26 points 2 weeks ago

Not by this human.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 24 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Pretty sure all the humans left Reddit like two years ago.

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[–] TomMasz@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ha ha ha. Spez can be hilarious when he wants to be.

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[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 weeks ago
[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Woah. A pledge from a CEO. There’s no way this is meaningless PR bullshit. We better take it seriously.

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 18 points 2 weeks ago

"Trust me!" says yet another capitalist.

[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

...with AI admin and moderation. Anyone who's been banned from reddit will tell you that, hell it says as much in the message they give you. I was banned once for saying "slava ukraini" which according to my ban was a direct attack at a minority (apparently russians are a minority according to reddit bots) and then another for asking how long before citizens begin shooting at ICE agents which, again according to reddit bots, was inciting violence on a minority (ICE agents are now also a minority according to reddit).

the vast majority of posts and comments are bots. the obvious reposts with misleading titles to generate karma to allow said bots to have enough karma to then post on various other subreddits to push whatever bullshit agenda or product they want to push.

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[–] ennof@feddit.org 17 points 2 weeks ago

Reddit is filled to the brim with bots.

[–] Zenith@lemm.ee 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

How does that work when your auto-banning everyone?

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[–] Sho@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Fuck, can this loser just fuck off into oblivion already?? You got your money pig boi now piss off!

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[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

He can't let people poison the training data, or else his site will have no value to its customers.

[–] Smorty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

how cn we poison the training data for llms? only ever saw stuff for image gen-

imfo: i updated the spelling. it was unreadably bad before.

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[–] thefluffiest@feddit.nl 15 points 2 weeks ago

… and mined and monetized by AI

Fuck /u/spez

[–] DrSoap@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago
[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Sounds like a AI saying it. Half of reddits users are bots, mostly ran by AI

[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

It's really wild that the guy who co-founded Reddit is so universally hated by the users.

Talk about having completely lost touch.

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[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago

And we're supposed to take his word for it?

[–] Balaquina@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, they may not have AI generated content (yet) but I left because their AI moderators REPEATEDLY warned/banned me from the site. Every time I sent a protest letter and had an actual person look at the post, I was unbanned, but I am fed the fuck up. That site is a study in enshittification. I am done with those assholes.

And, if they think I'm going to let them scan my retina in order to post, they can fuck right off.

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[–] rottenmummy@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 weeks ago
[–] BubblyRomeo@kbin.earth 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Biggest woosh moment on the whole history of internet! On the other note, shut this community now! We can't get peak than this!

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[–] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

He said, in his best human voice.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Then maybe they should stop banning all their human users.

[–] letsgo2themall@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

meh, haven't been to reddit in months. nothing but bots arguing with bots. won't miss it. /fuckspez

[–] Nangijala 9 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

It's gotten to the point that if someone were to ask me what my super power would be if I could choose, I'd say that I'd like to be able to see what is human and what isn't when I'm online. Very boring super power, but it would make some things a lot easier.

Ironically I also lost count on how many times I was accused of being a bot near the end of my time on reddit. I wouldn't be surprised if those who accused me were bots themselves. It was just insane sometimes.

But good luck with that, Mr CEO. I'm sure you care very much about your human users on your goofy platform.

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[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Really? So he's going to get rid of all the bots?

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