I just found out reddit sold everything we wrote to AI companies… and honestly I don’t know how to feel
I just found out reddit sold everything we wrote to AI companies… and honestly I don’t know how to feel
So I was reading about Reddit’s API controversy from 2023 and fell down a rabbit hole.
Turns out every post, every comment, every opinion you’ve shared here - reddit licensed it to openai and google. No opt-out. No warning. Just. - done.
And that’s just reddit. Meanwhile Google, Meta, and basically every major platform are quietly building a profile on you — your interests, your political leanings, your daily routine, your insecurities. All from things you said or clicked on “anonymously.”
The wild part? We already knew this was happening. It’s not new. Yet here we all are, still posting.
So I’m genuinely curious — why do you still use reddit (or big tech in general) knowing this?
Is it because:
- The alternatives (Lemmy- kbin- etc…) just aren’t there yet?
- You’ve accepted it as the price of the internet
- You actually don’t think it’s that big a deal?
- Or you simply never thought about it until now?
Not judging anyone — I’m still here too. Just want to hear honest answers.
I think you will find that most people posting here are not posting on Reddit these days. A see a few saying they still do, but mostly on niche subs that don’t have the critical mass needed here.
The Fediverse has a ton to offer, I personally abandoned Reddit and haven’t looked back when the API lockdown happened. Even though a lot of the niche communities that I was a part of aren’t here, I prefer posting to a platform that doesn’t disrespect its users.
Edit: whoosh. I did not realize this was a post on reddit OP screenshoted.
Same for me. The only thing that’s awkward is when I try to explain something I saw “on the Reddit alternative I use.” I still can’t get my friends to understand Lemmy.
Shit, most of my friends don’t even get Reddit. Lemmy would probably make their heads explode.
It should go without saying that I don’t work in tech.
I’ve been explaining lemmmy as a communication platform that’s run by tons of different people that have their own servers all around the world and they can connect with each other, so you can’t get randomly banned from the platform. If you get bumped (which is really unlikely) from one server you can sign up on another and pick right back up where you were.
NGL, few of my friends used reddit so they just smile nod and go “yeaaahhh.”
But, I do not give up on sharing about it.
i just tell everyone “if Lemmy from Motorhead was a forum” and it makes way better impression that “reddit is what happens if metafilter was the shits”
I’m pretty much in the same boat. But I do lurk on Reddit sometimes when I’m looking to doomscroll, but I often find that the ads and bots prevent me from enjoying the doomscroll mindlessness.
I thought it’d be funny to share this post, because it looks like some people are becoming fed up with reddit for all the reasons that have been glaringly obvious for years now. Eventhough this is likely a bot post. Which might make it even funnier.
Statistics say its very likely its a bot. And yes, that is absolutely hilarious
Looking at that big ol’ mdash
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After cutting it out completely for a while I started lurking Reddit again because honestly while I love Lemmy for general discussion/politics/memes it just doesn’t have anything related to my more niche interests. I do however refrain from ever posting/commenting there because fuck giving them any more data from me or helping drive their engagement metrics.
i quit cold turkey because reddit nuked my account and it’s been four months since i last peeked into that wretched place and no love lost i guess. reddit been progressively more bad for me ever since 2022 russian invasion and lots of mentally unstable harrassing me because “fuck ukraine you nazi” wasn’t what i was looking for on the platform. just so many aggressive tankies.
the last thing i did on reddit was digging through yet another wave of bots reporting every post on my subreddit as violence or threats and then the next day - bam you’re banned for 7 days, no 30 days, no permabanned no appeal fuck you.
There are also a lot of tankies on Lemmy, so don’t really expect that part to change.
There’s a way to filter out the lemmy.ml instance and that apparenty cuts a lot of that noise down significantly.
i’m yet to encounter them en masse and they’re not lurking anywhere around me so that’s already something. on reddit - smorgasbord bizarre was basically under siege at times
Yeah, I just stuck with my boost client. Never installed their shitty official reddit app.
I tried their app. It was soooooo bad. Such a waste of time. I can only imagine how much data they were harvesting from your phone. I uninstalled it almost immediately. Then deleted all my Reddit accounts. This was around the time of the api ban.
Anyone remember alien blue? Such a shame they killed it and turned it into the reddit app they have now.