Reddit was launched in 2005 by present CEO Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian as a spot the place customers submit content material — information articles, humorous pictures, cat movies, random observations — to be supported (“upvoted”) or buried (“downvoted”).
Since then, Reddit has develop into finest generally known as a set of communities referred to as “subreddits,” the place individuals focus on the whole lot from the Vancouver meals scene to severe private struggles.
“Individuals go there to actually get assist to assist them cease consuming, to assist them cease doing medication, to attach with people who find themselves going by way of related challenges,” mentioned Sarah Gilbert, analysis director at Cornell College’s Residents and Know-how Lab. “As a result of it’s largely pseudonymous, that lets you take part somewhat extra overtly.”
Even should you’re not a die-hard Redditor, there’s an opportunity the location has helped you as a result of its years of posts on principally each topic steadily seem in search outcomes. No surprise, then, that Google and firms prefer it have discovered Reddit to be a treasure trove of coaching knowledge for chatty AI fashions — one thing that has naturally rubbed some the fallacious method.
“Reddit customers extremely worth privateness, which is smart, provided that most individuals contribute pseudonymously,” Gilbert mentioned in an announcement earlier this 12 months. “We additionally discovered that how they really feel about knowledge use varies by context. For instance, we discovered that customers could be uncomfortable with use of personal knowledge, akin to direct messages.”