Earlier last year, when Musk restricted access to Twitter’s API (see: X) and started charging for access to it, Reddit’s team, and likely also the CEO, Steve Huffman, decided that this was a way cool and awesome idea. And, just like the nonstop shoehorning of AI into literally everything, most people were disgusted by the move. A move that also destroyed third party Reddit apps.
This, also, is what brought about the construction of Lemmy, an array of Reddit-like alternatives that serve as an ActivityPub replacement to the NFT and now AI littered battleground of ideas, former front page of the internet. I think there’s a lot of work left to do in regard to Lemmy, along with excising the hipster-angsty “Nobody but me can be correct at any given time” type of dudes who most certainly exist there. But, it’s still a completely viable and workable alternative.
So, what are they doing now, that is likely just a carbon copy of ideas they’ve stolen from the megalomaniac in-charge of what used to be the internet’s town square?
AI. You already know about Musk’s “Grok,” which is basically just a copy and paste of source code from the OpenAI project, and you’d be a fool to think that everything people posting on Twitter (X) isn’t being fed directly into it (and honestly, I don’t understand how regular normal people are excusing this, as their words are plagorized by someone who can’t even properly design a vehicle).
Via Ars Technica, “Stuff posted on Reddit is getting incorporated into ChatGPT, Reddit and OpenAI announced on Thursday. The new partnership grants OpenAI access to Reddit’s Data API, giving the generative AI firm real-time access to Reddit posts.”
Now, obviously, when you signed up for Reddit (if you ever did), you agreed to their terms of service, that likely conveyed something along the lines of, “Reddit’s dorky CEO can use all content you post any way they see fit.” But, I am not fan of AI, and I’m not a fan of things suddenly changing while my consent has already been taken before those changes are made.
And don’t bother going back and changing every post you’ve ever made to something like, “I do not consent to my written words being used for generative AI.” Because they absolutely already have archives of everything you’ve posted, and editing everything just gives them more words to feed into the plagiarism machine.
So, what can you do?
Nothing.
Nothing but leaving Reddit behind, and joining the rest of us on the open internet. Find a place that respects your privacy and rights as an autonomous human being, on the ActivityPub fediverse, and forget Reddit ever existed. Because, at this point, it’s just another corpo-sludge-trash dumpster fire that will, in all inevitability, eventually perish. Just like Twitter.
Yes, I keep hammering on about the open internet, and the fediverse. It is the future, after-all. A return to the way it used to be back in the nineties when we were all making our own pages, our own social circles, and all-around just being … social. No farming for engagement, no race to get as many follows as possible–Just people being people, online. Maybe some weren’t ready for it in 2017, but it’s 2024 now, and corporations want everything you have, including your identity and your thoughts. Don’t give it to them.
Take back the internet, your privacy, your data. Maybe the corporations don’t care whether they make any money, or retain any users. Maybe they’re in a race to see how fast they can destroy the modern internet. But you don’t have to be part of it.
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