Tag: reddit

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit to possibly pull the plug on free third party apps

Reddit has a long tradition of providing support for third-party apps, allowing users to engage with the platform using alternate clients such as Apollo, Infinity, and Relay.

The social media platform also provides a Reddit Premium subscription, which removes ads on its first-party client, among other perks.

Many third parties have circumvented the subscription model by providing a one-time payment to remove ads in their apps. Now, however, it looks like Reddit will begin charging developers for access to its API.

In a post on r/reddit, the company outlines a number of updates to its terms. It appears these changes are an effort to reduce lost revenue that third-party apps result in.

An Update Regarding Reddit’s API
by u/KeyserSosa in reddit

Though the details are not yet finalized, developers may be required to shift to a paid subscription model of their own in the near future.

Apollo app developer Christian Selig took to r/apolloapp to describe some of the clarifications he has since received from officials.

📣 Had a few calls with Reddit today about the announced Reddit API changes that they’re putting into place, and inside is a breakdown of the changes and how they’ll affect Apollo and third party apps going forward. Please give it a read and share your thoughts!
by u/iamthatis in apolloapp

Discussions with other app developers are currently ongoing.

Header image credit: Reddit

Source: Reddit via 9to5Google

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit set to capitalize on years of data valuable to AI companies

Social media platform Reddit, popular for its user-generated forums and content, has announced that it will begin charging companies for access to its application program interface (API).

Reddit launched in 2005 and has since collected a vast amount of human interactions and conversations. Eighteen years’ worth of conversations, to be precise, make it a valuable data bank for companies looking to train their AI models.

Reddit doesn’t want other companies to be able to train their LLMs with its data for free, and wants a slice of the pie. Big names like Google and OpenAI have been using Reddit to provide initial guidance to their AI services. In response, Reddit is now introducing a new premium access point for third parties to access Reddit’s APIs, with pricing expected to be split into tiers based on company size.

“Our Reddit Data API will still be open for reasonable and appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform, which is designed to help developers improve the core Reddit experience,” wrote Reddit in a blog post.

As AI continues to grow, more and more companies will be looking for access to valuable data sources like Reddit to train their models. The move to charge companies for API access is not unexpected, given the increasing demand for data to train these models. Further, rumours point to Reddit going public sometime this year, so introducing a new revenue stream makes sense for the company.

Source: Reddit Via: Engadget

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit banned record number of posts, accounts, featuring harmful content in 2022: report

Reddit removed more offensive content from its website in 2022 than the year prior, its recently released transparency report shows.

Roughly four percent of all content shared on the platform was removed for violating Reddit’s Content policy or community rules.

Copyright notices increased by 43 percent, and removal requests from government and law enforcement agencies increased by 51 percent. Legal requests for account information from this source went up by 61 percent.

Image credit: Reddit

In March 2022, the company changed its rules to make it easier for people to report prohibited non-consensual intimate media. This led to the company banning 473 percent more subreddits concerning the matter in 2022 compared to the year prior. User accounts suspended for violating the rule increased to 244 percent.

“Looking at the data as a whole, it’s likely this increase is primarily reflective of our updated policies and increased effectiveness in detecting and removing non-consensual intimate media from Reddit,” the company said in the report.

The company also removed more than 80,000 pieces of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), increasing the figure by 874 percent compared to the year prior.

Reddit partially credits this figure to hiring more staff focused on combating CSAM. “Additionally, we added new ways to share media (such as images in chat and comments) on the platform,” Reddit said in its report.

The company says it will also share these reports more often, moving towards biannual publishing focused on six months of data each time.

Source: Reddit

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit is killing the Clubhouse competitor you didn’t know it had

Reddit is sunsetting Reddit Talk, a tool that allows users to partake in live audio conversations.

The change will occur “in the coming weeks,” the company wrote in a post on its website.

“Supporting Talk in the short-term requires significant resourcing — more than we anticipated,” the platform explained. “Reddit’s goal is to become the de facto home for communities. Audio, like Talk, has a place in that. However, there’s significant work we need to do — like making Reddit simpler and building better subreddit infrastructure — before incorporating audio.”

The company’s original plan involved maintaining the program while it worked on other aspects, but the third party it uses to host the audio function is shutting down.

A competitor to Clubhouse, Reddit introduced Talk back in April 2021. But whether or not it’ll come back is something the company can’t confirm. “We don’t have a timeline to bring Talk or an audio product back in the future, however we will share any updates when we have them.”

Conversations hosted after September 1st, 2022, will be available to download starting March 21st. Users will have until June 1st to complete downloads. The company says it will post more details on its website soon.

Source: Reddit

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit Recap 2022 tells you how much you’ve scrolled on the app

Following Spotify’s Wrapped recap of users’ music tastes, Reddit is now offering its own personalized recap presented as trading cards.

The recap provides insight into 2022’s most memorable moments, highlights the website’s most active communities, and reveals the biggest conversation drivers on Reddit and beyond. The website is home to over 100,000 active communities globally, with Redditors creating more than 430 million posts in 2022, a 14 percent increase when compared to 2021.

“As of November 20, we’ve seen 2.5+ billion total comments, a 7 percent increase YoY, and 24+ billion upvotes,” reads Reddit’s blog post about the recap.

Check out some of the 2022 Reddit stats below:

The Most Upvoted Posts:

  1. r/place: Full screenshot of r/place 2022 (434,300 upvotes)
  2. r/interestingasfuck: In 1996 Ukraine handed over nuclear weapons to Russia “in exchange for a guarantee never to be threatened or invaded” (403,500 upvotes)
  3. r/mademesmile: he finally got his acorn 🥺 (379,800 upvotes)
  4. r/aww: Man stops to rescue kitten, gets ambushed by platoon (357,200 upvotes)
  5. r/place: Place has ended. (353,700 upvotes)

The Most Upvoted AMAs:

  1. r/movies Hello, I’m Nicolas Cage and welcome to Ask Me Anything (238,500 upvotes)
  2. r/iama I am Jon Stewart, host of The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV+, and I’m here to talk with you about the stock market. AMA! (72,800 upvotes)
  3. r/iama I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and author of “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.” Ask Me Anything. (48,900 upvotes)
  4. r/iama I’m LeVar Burton, host of LeVar Burton Reads. AMA! (48,700 upvotes)
  5. r/comics Hello, my name is Zach Stafford, I make extra fabulous, deogie, and Pervis comics. I have been making comics for ten years and I’m finally making a book! AMA (48,600 upvotes)

Notably, the recap blog post also notes the top animal communities, most-viewed TV-related subreddits, most-viewed subreddits in Men’s and Women’s Fashion Interest Group, gaming and sports-related stats and more.

Check out the full report here.

Individuals can also find their personalized year-end recap with things like their most upvoted comment, whether you’re team Cat or team Dog, your Avatar outfit changes, r/place tiles placed and see how you compare with other users with ‘Rare,’ ‘Epic,’ and ‘Legendary’ superpower status, which is based on how much Karma you’ve earned.

“Users can download and share this unique card on and off Reddit to highlight their Reddit Recaps with others. To help protect privacy, users can decide if they do or don’t want to display their username and Avatars when sharing their Recaps,” reads Reddit’s blog about personalized recaps.

Learn more here.

 

Image credit: Reddit

Source: Reddit

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit is launching limited-edition, Blockchain-backed avatars

Reddit today announced that it is launching new limited edition “Blockchain-backed” collectible digital avatars designed by several independent artists.

The new avatars will allow its holders to gain some unique benefits, like the ability to mix and match the avatar gear with other Reddit avatar gear and accessories. Additionally, users with the new avatars will notice that their profile image will have a glow-like effect in the comments section.

According to Reddit, the new collectible avatars differ from regular avatars on Reddit in a few ways, namely:

  • They are available for purchase (vs. being free or available via Reddit Premium), and artists will be paid for each Collectible Avatar sold.
  • Collectible Avatars are backed by blockchain technology, giving purchasers rights (a license) to use the art – on and off Reddit.
  • You do not need cryptocurrency to purchase these avatars, nor are they being put up for auction. Each avatar has been priced at a fixed amount and is purchasable with fiat (government-issued) currencies.

The collectibles will be based on the Polygon blockchain, an environmentally friendly Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum.

“In the future, we see blockchain as one way to bring more empowerment and independence to communities on Reddit,” reads Reddit’s blog post. “Blockchain-backed Collectible Avatars are one of the early steps we’re taking to test out the potential benefits of this concept on Reddit.”

Reddit is rolling out the new avatars to a limited number of individuals who join the r/CollectibleAvatars community, with access for all Reddit users to purchase their own avatar coming soon.

Find more information about the new collectibles here.

Image credit: Reddit

Source: Reddit

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit adds comment search while updating search design and relevance

Reddit is adding comment search functionality. Users are able to finally gain results from searching comments in a Reddit thread.

It’s all too common that Reddit threads receive hundreds, sometimes thousands of replies. As a user, it’s been difficult to retrieve search results within a thread. Reddit is finally making it easy to find specific terms, phrases, or names to find the results they desire.

In a blog post, the company discusses the latest improvements made to search functionality and design. The largest update is the introduction of the comment search ability. The post goes on to state that introducing this feature “solves this problem and quickly gives Redditors the ability to comment search directly and further refine their searches.”

To use the feature, users merely navigate over to the ‘Comments’ tabs on the page. The user is able to type a phrase, name, or term into the search bar. Any relevant results appear on the screen afterwards.

In 2021, Reddit surveyed users on search features they’d like to see. Comment search was amongst the highly requested features. Prior to a wider launch, Reddit tested the feature and saw 26,000 users take advantage of its functionality.

In addition to comment searches, Reddit is updating the design of its search results page on desktop and mobile. The update brings a simpler design. Reddit prioritizes posts over other content types and is easier to find when searching. The company states in Q1 2022, it’s seen a 20 percent increase in users utilizing search functionality.

Search relevance is also another key focus of Reddit. The core infrastructure sees a refresh. As a result, Reddit allows for less restrictive matching. The company is using user patterns to improve search results. Finally, Reddit is using “signs” to improve results through clicks and interactions.

Desktop support for comment searching is available today. This feature along with the other updates is currently available by navigating to the home feed.

Source: Reddit

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Mobile Syrup

Links to Russian state-owned media now unconditionally banned on Reddit

Reddit is going one step further in its effort to curb misinformation and propaganda relating to the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

The San Francisco-based discussion website announced today that it has banned users from posting links to any Russian state-supported media outlets. The rule doesn’t apply to a specific subreddit and instead covers the whole website, and applies to all users globally.

Links to the state-run television network RT and Sputnik were recently banned by several subreddit mods to safeguard their communities; however, today’s change implies that the rule now encompasses all of Reddit.

In its announcement post, Reddit also clearly stated that it will not allow any advertisements that “target Russia or originate from any Russia-based entity, government or private” on its platform.

This comes soon after Reddit “quarantined” (shadowbanned) the r/Russia and r/RussiaPolitics subreddits because of misinformation arising from them. As of right now, visiting the quarantined subreddit shows a message, stating “This Community contains a high volume of information not supported by credible sources,” as seen in the screenshot below:

While other social media platforms have also taken strict measures against Russian state-run broadcasting, like YouTube blocking RT from earning ad revenue, or Meta blocking Sputnik in EU and Ukraine, Reddit’s move today formally abolishes the presence of said media from its platform globally.

“This is a live situation, and our response is evolving every day as we gain new information. The measures above are not a complete or final list of what we’re doing, but we hope it provides some insight into our efforts right now,” reads the company’s blog post. “Reddit, at its core, is about community, and we will continue to do whatever we can to ensure that our platform remains available for people to connect, support each other, access reliable information, and express their authentic opinions and feelings during this difficult time.”

Image credit: Reddit

Source: Reddit

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Mobile Syrup

Reddit adds new video tools as its subsidiary Dubsmash announces retirement

One of the early players in the short-video market, Dubsmash, will soon cease to exist. The Reddit-owned app will not be available on app stores and will stop working on February 22nd, 2022.

Since being acquired by Reddit last December, the Dubsmash team has been working to incorporate its creative video production tools into Reddit, with the aim of allowing Reddit’s creators to express themselves in unique and authentic ways. Now that most of Dubsmash’s tool integration to Reddit is complete, several TikTok-like features are coming to the forum-discussion website.

“Our primary focus, in terms of the acquisition, was around bringing in the expertise from the team, as well as bringing in the technology that we had built over the past five years at Dubsmash,” said Suchit Dash, vice president of video at Reddit and a co-founder of Dubsmash, in an interview with The Verge.

Some of the new TikTok-like video features coming to Reddit are as follows:

  • Change recording speed
  • Set a timer
  • Upload videos in landscape, portrait mode and fill
  • Adjust and trim multiple clips
  • Use new Reddit-first lenses to meme yourself as Bread Cat or make yourself a Snoo

Further, instead of relying on a third-party editing tool, Reddit is adding a new video editing screen, which will allow you to:

  • Add text Stickers
  • Use the drawing tool
  • Apply filters
  • Add voice-overs
  • Adjust volume
  • Trim and rearrange clips

Learn more about Reddit’s new video tools and Dubsmash’s imminent retirement here.

Image credit: Reddit

Source: Reddit