Reddit, the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet,” has officially confirmed a $60 million deal with OpenAI, granting the ChatGPT creator access to its vast trove of notoriously left-wing user-generated content for training purposes.
Mashable reports that in a joint blog post released on Thursday, Reddit and OpenAI shed light on the details of their agreement, which involves Reddit trading its content for access to AI tools and an advertising partnership. The move has raised concerns among Reddit users about the privacy and control of their posts, comments, and images.
Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., speaks with members of the media during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, US, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. The summit is typically a hotbed for etching out mergers over handshakes, but could take on a much different tone this year against the backdrop of lackluster deal volume, inflation and higher interest rates. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
According to the blog post, “Keeping the internet open is crucial, and part of being open means Reddit content needs to be accessible to those fostering human learning and researching ways to build community, belonging, and empowerment online.” The post further emphasizes the importance of Reddit as a “uniquely large and vibrant community that has long been an important space for conversation on the internet.”
Under the terms of the agreement, OpenAI will utilize Reddit’s Data API to access real-time, structured, and unique content from the platform. This will enable OpenAI’s AI tools, including ChatGPT, to better understand and showcase Reddit content, particularly on recent topics. The implications for Reddit users are significant, as any content posted on the platform, past or present, will be used to train the AI.
Reddit’s User Agreement sheds light on the rights users relinquish when posting on the platform. By creating or submitting content, users grant Reddit 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 their content across all media formats and channels. This license allows Reddit to make user content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by partnering companies, organizations, or individuals.
For users concerned about their privacy and the use of their content for AI training, the options are limited. While refraining from posting or commenting on Reddit moving forward may prevent future content from being used, the fate of previously posted content remains unclear. Even if users decide to delete their content, it may already be too late, as deleted content can still be archived.
Reddit is notorious for its left-wing bias. In one egregious act of censorship before the 2020 election, the site banned “The_Donald,” a pro-Trump community of 750,000 users. As Breitbart News reported at the time:
A spokesman for The_Donald condemned the move by Reddit in a comment to Breitbart News:
“Reddit has been finding methods to methodically censor The_Donald for years now. Enforcing special rules that only The_Donald has to follow, largely screening our submissions from reaching the front page, allowing far-left communities to harrass and dox our members (to the point of creating a chrome extension that marks anyone that posts on The_Donald).”
“This is their next step, and is generally Reddit’s step just before outright banning a community. Their reasoning is hardly sound, given that they claim they’ve had to spend too much time removing content on the subreddit that violates site-wide rules, yet their own logs show less than one removal [per] day. This censorship also takes place on the eve of the Democratic Primaries, which seems less than coincidental,” the spokesman continued.
Read more at Mashable here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
