this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
122 points (96.2% liked)

Reddit

13624 readers
1 users here now

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
norz@lemmy.ml
122
Why Reddit's decision to cut off researchers is bad for its business -- and humanity (web.archive.org)
submitted 9 months ago by spider@lemmy.nz to c/reddit@lemmy.ml
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Though Reddit's leadership claims to be 'leaning into its humanity,' it seems the company is more committed to leaving humanity in the dark.

Reddit promised that it would maintain a free-tier API, but researchers and moderators repeatedly stressed that the new access was too limited and would cut off many tools, projects, and archives that their work depended on. Finally, Reddit’s olive branch came in the form of an online application for moderators and researchers to request increased access to the API and (for moderators only) access to Reddit archives that the updates took offline.

The mistake seemed to have taught Huffman that ignoring the needs of communities that the platform had long relied on posed a greater risk than benefit to the profitability of the company in the long run. Yet six months later, many of us working in public interest research fields have heard nothing back from Reddit in response to our applications, and key archives of historical data remain inaccessible to researchers.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 49 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I still don't see how reddit can claim the data they hold (which they don't actually own, in spite of what Huffman says, they merely claim a license to) has value that they're entitled to be paid for by AI trainers, when they don't actually pay the people who create that data.

[–] spider@lemmy.nz 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It's probably because the U.S. legal system typically favors big business.

Also, this:

the landed gentry

noun

wealthy people who own land

In this case, the "land" is the platform.

(and spez himself is "the landed gentry")