Reddit is taking more steps to integrate artificial intelligence-powered moderation tools into its systems. In addition, the platform is moving to hide more of its content from non-logged-in users as a means to protect itself from scrapers.
First, Reddit is expanding the test of its new Rules Hub, which provides a range of AI-powered moderation options to assist with subreddit management.
As explained by Reddit: “With Rules Hub, moderators will be able to choose which rules should be automatically enforced, decide what happens when a rule is triggered (send to queue, filter, or remove), preview the experience before enabling it, and review logs and insights to understand how community rules are performing.”
Reddit has been testing its Rules Hub with around 700 communities over the past few months, and it’s ready to expand access. The move will give more subreddit moderators the capacity to automate a significant portion of their moderation workload.
Of course, that may also lead to more false positives as human moderators become somewhat removed from direct assessment. But Reddit said it will maintain a high level of human oversight, which should make this a beneficial update for community support and management.
Reddit is also looking to make it easier for people to join Reddit communities through improved detection of misuse and harmful content.
“Today, new users can encounter invisible barriers like account age and karma thresholds, unclear removals, and poor community discovery,” Reddit said.
The platform acknowledged that these filters are in place to protect communities from spam and misuse, but updates to its auto-detection systems should alleviate this.
“Over time, our goal is to improve Reddit’s systems and moderation tools so communities can rely less on things like karma and account age,” Reddit said, adding that the change “will make it easier for genuine new users to participate and easier for mods to welcome them with confidence.”
Reddit is also looking to protect the unique value of its user insights via tougher restrictions on its API usage, as well as access restrictions, particularly on Old Reddit, the legacy version of the app that remains accessible on desktop. Reddit said it will hide more content from non-logged-in users across the platform, which should further restrict scrapers from stealing Reddit data.
Reddit’s true value is in the insights provided by its communities, and the platform said it needs to protect that in order to avoid losing out to AI platforms. The company also wants to drive usage through referrals, which are increasingly being powered by AI citations.
That’s a difficult balance, and the platform is looking to find an approach that will help it continue to grow while also maximizing the value of its data.
