Reddit

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.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/66918676

Reason number 5,386 to delete your Reddit account and encourage your friends & loved ones to do the same.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. (Have to sign in to read the whole article, but you can see the first couple paragraphs.)

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/44753223

The story of how Reddit became ensnared in an ICE-related grand jury began early last month, when the company received a request to turn over the name, address, phone number, and other data associated with an account belonging to a user identified in court records as John Doe.

The request was what’s known as an administrative summons or administrative subpoena, a powerful legal tool typically associated with serious crimes such as child trafficking. Under Trump, the subpoenas, which do not require judicial approval, have increasingly become a weapon wielded against opponents of the president’s immigration policies.

While it does not disaggregate ICE’s activities from other law enforcement agencies’ requests, Reddit reports that January to June 2025 marked the highest volume of requests the company has ever received in a single reporting period. Sixty-six percent of the 1,179 requests came from agencies in the U.S., including 423 subpoenas and 27 court orders. Reddit disclosed user data in 82 percent of those cases. While most requests concern child safety, the next highest category of data sought by law enforcement agencies falls into what Reddit lists as “other/unknown investigation types.”

In the John Doe case, Reddit received an initial request on March 4 from an ICE agent in Fairfax, Virginia.

“Failure to comply with this summons will render you liable to proceedings in a U.S. District Court to enforce compliance with this summons as well as other sanctions,” the summons read. “You are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time. Any such disclosure will impede the investigation and thereby interfere with the enforcement of federal law.”

Post is basically the title.

This subreddit is all about a series I quite enjoyed called The Nature of Predators. Or at least the first book . So far I can tell, there really isnt another place to discuss this series other than this subreddit. Over time, people have been making their own fan fiction work (as one does). Some are extremely good, at least I enjoyed it! But they stayed on reddit instead of other platforms to write their stories.

Fast forward to now. Reddit has been shadow-banning peoples accounts. Which makes it next to impossible to read their works. Thankfully some people have been saving some of the works on https://archiveofourown.org/ but its not complete.

Reddit is not a good place for anything you want to keep around. But im preaching to the choir here.

Yo everyone, what's good? Lemmy virgin here, just got signed up after being banned on Reddit for my opinions and takes on Israel (lol) hoping here isn't the same.

Question though if anyone can help me. I'd been testing out and using Mirage before this and what I really liked over there was the fact I had to give no personal info when signing up. It seems to be more privacy focused. I had to give my personal email to sign up here on Lemmy. But then I seen someone commenting on a topic on privacy that they didn't? Have I done something wrong?

I much prefer operating on these forums without giving any info about myself, like on Mirage for example. Can anyone advise?

I can't even copy a url without being tracked. When I copy the urls, they get copied with tracking ids, i don't know what they are doing with this data but I think they are creating a mesh table of people, their relatives friends etc. So, I am done, I will delete all the social media in a few weeks, use my phone only with federated apps.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/957372

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2377145

along with the strong censoring that has occurred on reddit throughout the years, they have now removed r/all from the app and while using a desktop/laptop browser. instead of being able to stumble upon new subreddits you never knew existed, it wants to curate what you're allowed to see

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/21196516

Paul McCartney’s official Reddit account seems to have been banned. The account, u/paulmccartney, had just dropped a set of photos and videos from the first night of his shows at the Fonda Theatre. It went straight into the r/PaulMcCartney subreddit. Then, not long after, the whole thing disappeared.

I refused to believe an "artificial intelligence" could write a realistic post title, but then I saw this series of posts. Now I'm 10 feet tall and can move objects with my mind.

Browser extension for downloading images and videos from Reddit posts. Supports individual downloads and mass downloading with auto-scrolling.

Since most other Options have stopped working, I thought I'd share this extension I came across. Works fine, although not the fastest

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/fediverse/p/1923069/with-reddit-flirting-with-requiring-age-verification-the-next-rexit-might-be-around-the

With previous Rexit's like the API debarcle etc. many users were left looking for an alternative, but with decision fatigue and bad UX etc. most did not find the Fediverse a viable option.

What needs to still improve, how can we be ready this time?

First they came for the new accounts but I did not speak out because I did not have a new account...

Reddit's AI ID age verification might affect the whole website. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman recently said that he is considering having "face ID" to ensure humanity to combat AI bots on the platform. Reddit may soon require AI facial scans and age checks just to use the website. Let me know what you guys think about this situation in the comments below.

Steve Huffman, Reddit's CEO, said that using biometrics is the "most lightweight way" to verify that it's a human.

This is just 5 of the links and their about 10+ links on the subreddit asking for the head mod to step down

https://old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/1rwlmqj/fixing/_this/_subs/_image/_problem/_is/_long/_overdue/
https://old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/1rwmson/another/_mod/_just/_dropped/
https://old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/1rwnjz9/its/_pretty/_clear/_cedar/_wont/_step/_down/_and/_drewie/
https://old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/1rwl34a/just/_resign/
https://old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/1rwnsuq/dont/_move/_subreddits/_that/_just/_disperses/_pressure/

So WHAT HAPPENED?

So a few days ago a user posted about an ex-mod of the subreddit that was a pedophile, https://archive.ph/jg5u2 . They were calling out Cedarwolf for defending the ex mod basically. The ex-mod is a registered sex offender and people understandably angry about it.

One of the users, crystal-lake gave a whole run down I am just going to copy and paste as it contains most of the content of what is happening:

---
Original thread with context

https://archive.ph/jg5u2

Gallery including CedarWolf's replies from original thread:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/G1X5kfZ

CedarWolfs previous response in /MTF:

https://old.reddit.com/user/crystall-lake/comments/1rwmsnf/cedarwolfs/_original/_response/

CedarWolf's new response in /asktransgender:

https://old.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/1rw2jxc/comment/oaxi1u1/ Chat between me and CedarWolf:

https://old.reddit.com/user/crystall-lake/comments/1rwijqq/chat/_log/_between/_me/_and/_cedarwolf/

Mobile Friendly:

https://old.reddit.com/user/crystall-lake/comments/1rwmjy2/chat/_log/_between/_me/_and/_cedarwolf/_mobile/_friendly/

---

The crisis has gotten bad as most of the mod team has left leaving only 2 moderators left on a subreddit prone to transphobic attack waves and trolls. Elon Musk and various other transphobes have also posted about the situation on twitter. Has been posted and deleted about on various trans affiliated subreddits People are calling for the head mod's removal. Complete chaos.

ADDITION:

Head moderator for r /mtf is stepping down after constant action, what does the future hold? Who knows but chaos reigns on mtf
Post by head mod CedarWolf stepping down

Hi, I hope its fine to write about this here.

I recently got PERMANENTLY banned from Reddit on my alt for rule 1 (Hate speech / inciting violence).

Apparently the reason was for writing a slur ? I had no idea it the word I used was even a slur in the first place, because I saw so many others use it before me with no issue, and there were posts using the same word as I did BEFORE and AFTER I got banned and those posts are still up. I have no idea how Reddit AI moderations even judged that my own comment was offensive.

Sadly for me, even my main account, that I have had for 8 years and used to talk to a lot of communities, was also permanently banned.

In just one night, I had lost a lot of the communities I interacted with over the years. Besides, you might hate Reddit (and rightfully so) but atm its too mainstream and widely used, and there sadly isnt a better alternative for a platform where you can access forums for any sort of niche topics, ask questions etc... Many of these are not available elsewhere, not even here.

Anyway, I tried appealing to Reddit but I have been automatically rejected within 5 minutes of writing my appeal (idk if I can believe their "This decision was made without the assistance of automation").

I have now written to them through their reddithelp explaining that I had no idea it was a bad word, that I will be more careful in the future and wish for another chance. But I dont expect a positive response (if I get one to begin with).

I have read how their ban evasion detection works and it seems either impossible or extremely hard to bypass, and I am worried about this because I am scared I will forever be unable to ask questions there ever again, or interact with my previous subreddits.

Almost scrolled by their post because it was so stupid and hateful that I just assumed it was a joke. Apparently it wasn't

Hey all. I'm here to tell you about my experience getting "shadow-banned" on my 8-year-old Reddit account. Short alike others: https://lemmy.today/post/49087735, https://lemmy.today/post/48784920, https://lemmy.today/post/47876190, https://lemmy.today/post/47779751

Almost smart

I basically stopped using Reddit 3 year ago around the whole "Reddit's killing Thirdparty APPS" but, got sucked back in to a niche health/lookmaxing style Sub that I helped Mod for 10 months.

The day of

About a week ago I'm making posts, commenting, Moding, etc, and interactions stop working strangely lets of red error popups, and the "Important Information About Your Reddit Account" notification, saying "after detecting some technical irregularities on your USER_NAME account, we took the extra precaution of locking your account. To unlock your account, reset your password now."

Figuring it out

So, I reset it via my email and log back in. Worried, but it seem top be working.... then a few hours later the same red banner errors when I try to interact with users. So, I view my account on a logged out browser and it says "account suspended"

What to-do?

After filling out both https://www.reddit.com/appeal & https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360000600232 I waited for an email, Reddit notification..... And got nothing about it.

Now, the current non-signed in status is "This account has been banned" & all posts/comments are removed (Mods can still see them as from u/deleted & manually approve them)

When signed in:

• No banner on my account or reason for being banned.
• All public interactions fail with a Red popup error, and my entire history of posts and comments says "Sorry, this post was removed by Reddit’s filters." or "Removed by Reddit"

Why?

What did I do wrong? Only reddit knows that! We can speculate, but, there is no point really. Reddit's TOS allows them to!

How I feel about it

I feel disrespected, gaslit, lied to, and discriminated against. Sad, angry, depressed, etc... :( You all know the stages of grief.

Reddit pretending there's a technical issue to me, but banning me without even saying it, and removing all my past posts & comments is very disheartening. From my personal experience, Reddit has proven to be largely a waste of time, and very much uninvestable.

Moving forward

Well, I'm not gonna make another Reddit account just for the same thing to happen, that would be me participating in (as I see it) a toxic relationship. I still get other random Reddit notifications (modmail, streak messages, etc) I can't do anything with. It's like Reddit is teasing me now. This guy has a good point https://lemmy.today/post/47176601/22123471

A little help?

Anyway, I know there is a lot of hate for conservative/Christian views around here, so any TIPS on where to find a 'safe space' to be me & express my self, and how to limit/block toxicity would be appreciated.

Maybe this is a sign from God, that my time is better offline.