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https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensing-deal-with-google-sources-say-2024-02-22/
Just had a look at Reddit TOS, and it has been updated on the 15th of Feb. The below is their term regarding content submitted on their platform.
When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.
Pretty much owning your content I say.
Nah, it's still referred to as Your Content, just that they can do whatever the fuck they please with it. I think. IANAL.
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That's the classic terms of service, right there. The "we own your stuff" clause. They assume all rights over your data but none of the responsibility.
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Pretty happy about my procrastination driving my decision to not put up a bunch of my Star Wars DnD modules and campaign notes.
I really need to get around to wiping my old content from Reddit. Much like Facebook, I just ignored it when I was done with the platform.
I'm skeptical that actually deletes it. Seems trivial for them to have backups if the plan is to sell our old content.
I'm skeptical too.
Lots of software is designed so the delete button just flags an entry so it doesn't show to low privilege users on the front end, while the data persists in the database where database admins and the like can still access it.
Online it's wise to assume every website acts like this if you don't actually run the site yourself with full admin access to the underlying web server and database . Once what you write gets on a site it is permanently out of your control in most cases.
Yeah... I'm like 99% positive Reddit wisened up to scrubbing and have been preserving backups for years, essentially rendering all forms of update/deletion useless.
All they'd have to do is have a separate "hidden" db that mirrors production, with separate business rules to ignore all non-mod updates/deletions beyond 12 or 24 hours.
The best you can do now is stop giving them content.
I also wouldn't be surprised if even the automated processes that edit your comment to be gibberish even accomplishes that. Text is, in the software world, remarkably cheap to store, even at volume. It also compresses easily, is remarkably easy to tie to version control mechanisms, and with reddit's comment system can easily be structured as a part of an existing dialogue tree. They know people are pissed at them and are looking to nuke their comment history, so I wouldn't be surprised if they already have multiple cold storage backups of reddit's entire site comment history over the course of months or years. Right now, that data is the most valuable thing they have, their reputation as the "front page of the internet" be damned.
What did you use? I don't really want to just delete everything - heck I wouldn't mind having AI generated a sentence or two to replace all my comments. 🤣
Not the guy you asked but I had chat gpt write up a few paragraphs about how Reddit used to care about it's users and why it sucks now. Then used power delete suite to overwrite every post and comment with it.
If you search for delete all comments you can usually find some js, or greasemonkey pattern, or script, etc.
I've had success using random howtos there. This new TOS change is news to me and I may delete everything again, will share what I used if/when
I used a command line tool that I can't remember the name of and a quick search isn't bringing up but I'll edit this comment when I'm at my laptop.
Edit as promised: I used shreddit. I did come across that while searching earlier but the name didn't ring a bell.
Be warned, if you search for shreddit there is a paid tool of the same name. That is not what I used.
The tool I used allowed me to give it a GDPR download to nuke everything.
I've heard good things about Power Delete Suite too.
I used Power Delete Suite the other day. It takes a while to run because it's scripted vs using API. Instructions were simple and easy to use. Just let it run in a tab in the background and eventually it will work through all your posts or comments. I set it to just edit all my comments. If you leave the text box empty for what you want it edited to it will put random comments in, such as I like coffee. I like hiking. I like reading. I like beer. Etc.
I used Power Delete Suite and you can set it to edit comments to whatever you want before deleting them. I recommend using something innocuous though as some subs have their AutoMod set to reject spammy looking stuff.
I’ve found that it didn’t work very well for an account that had thousands of years old comments though. I haven’t tried to run it again yet since this was just a couple of days ago but it did a good job editing and deleting newer stuff and getting everything on my less verbose accounts.
It was free and didn’t require giving your login credentials to some third party like shreddit and redact, so just depends on what you’re looking for.
The fuck you mean western media cabal?
Writing out Aaron is something Reddit has been doing since his death. This isn't a media conspiracy: it's reddit successfully scrubbing the past.
It was founded without Aaron Swartz. He was brought in later as part of a YC merger. Next you’re going to say that Elon Musk was a Tesla founder.
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Social media platform Reddit has struck a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search engine giant's artificial intelligence models, three people familiar with the matter said.
The contract with Alphabet-owned Google is worth about $60 million per year, according to one of the sources.
The deal underscores how Reddit, which is preparing for a high-profile stock market launch, is seeking to generate new revenue amid fierce competition for advertising dollars from the likes of TikTok and Meta Platform's Facebook.
The sources were not authorized to speak to media and declined to be identified.
Reddit and Google declined to comment. Bloomberg previously reported Reddit's content deal without naming the buyer.
Last year, Reddit said it would charge companies for access to its application programming interface (API) - the means by which it distributes its content. The agreement with Google is its first reported deal with a big AI company.
San Francisco-based Reddit, which has been looking at a stock float for more than three years, is preparing to make its initial public offering filing this week, which would detail its financials for the first time to potential IPO investors. The filing could be available as early as Thursday, two of the sources said.
The company, which was valued at about $10 billion in a funding round in 2021, is seeking to sell about 10% of its shares in the offering, Reuters has previously reported.
Reddit's stock market launch would mark the first IPO of a major social media company since Pinterest floated its shares in 2019.
Makers of AI models have been busy clinching deals with content owners in recent months, aiming to diversify their training data beyond large scrapes of the internet. That practice is rife with potential copyright issues as many content creators have alleged that their content was used without permission.
Founded in 2005 by web developer Steve Huffman and entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, Reddit is known for its manifold niche discussion groups, some of which boast tens of millions of members.
Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco, Echo Wang in New York and Martin Coulter in London; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Anirban Sen, Krystal Hu and Edwina Gibbs
I wonder how they go about licensing content people have shared from others without their consent?
If I went and reposted someone else’s work there, me making an account doesn’t give them permission to that persons work.
And reddit is like 90% reposted content.
Changing the TOS won't change the license for things the person posting it don't own in the first place.
If I go to reddit and post the lyrics to the latest Taylor Swift single, does reddit (and thus google) now own the rights to her song?
Content aside, it's odd to see a title with 'Exclusive' on a platform freely federating things between a bunch of independent nodes.
I guessed as much. Just contemplating how that would even work if the web at large was more like the fedi.