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.

    • Lag@piefed.worldEnglish
      33·
      2 months ago

      We switch to local meeting spots and pass around flashdrives of weekly memes. Refer to your local memester to turn in your flashdrive for a new weekly updated meme drive.

      I need to open a meme truck.

        • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
          1·
          2 months ago

          In many cases, it’s easier to have an online culture with an anti-AI policy than a local one. A bunch of people already insist on using AI when interacting with others irl, and many more are passively supportive of them doing so. (i.e. “they don’t care”, but in a very different way from how “they don’t care” about someone eating vegan).

          So an online group that has persistent identities where it’s hard to get a new account with a good status whose culture opposes AI is going to be much easier to keep AI-free than your local neighborhood third space.

          • REDACTED@infosec.pub
            1·
            2 months ago

            Right, like how heavily Lemmy hates AI but then I see AI generated memes or shitposts constantly?

            • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
              3·
              2 months ago

              Lemmy doesn’t have an anti-AI policy. It has people that hate AI, and some communities have rules that forbid AI in some contexts, but any instance federated with db0 is at the very least tolerant of AI.

    • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      anyone can scrap Reddit or Lemmy just fine to train on LLM.

      Well, until you hit flood limits and reddit keeps giving you ‘prove you’re not a robot’ screens or just timegates you from loading new pages at all.

      Plus, it would be a lot more convenient to have API access to automatically provide your AI with only the text of posts and not have to scrape/strip entire pages.

      You could scrape reddit without paying for it, but it would probably be a much slower and more annoying process.

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      This is 100% why Reddit made the API changes the originally brought many of us over. AI companies scraped the web, made LLMs, and Reddit missed out. They wanted to make sure the next ones paid them.