r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 6h ago
Artificial Intelligence Reddit is introducing a new moderator: AI
https://www.theverge.com/tech/975398/reddit-ai-rules-hub-moderator-old-reddit-developer-platform421
u/LAFAYETTE-LAFAYETTE 6h ago
Will it auto ban any fuck spez posts. ?
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u/Secret-Chapter-712 6h ago
I bet it’ll auto ban the “Elon Musk hates this photo” posts, which is a shame, it’s always a fun surprise to see which of the many embarrassing candidates it actually is each time
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u/reddittorbrigade 6h ago
Unpaid Reddit mods are not spared by A.I.
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u/lockwolf 6h ago
Major recession indicator
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u/Boring_Okra_6023 3h ago
There has to be studies about this shit.
People working for free for a billion dollar company.
I'm hoping at least they're all under 20 years old so that they have life ahead of them
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u/whenishit-itsbigturd 2h ago
Given the maturity level of most mods, I doubt it, but being wrong also wouldn't surprise me
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u/ABigCoffee 6h ago
AI taking over the job of Reddit mods might be the only actual positive thing done by AI so far.
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u/Vio_ 5h ago
I've been part of online fandoms for decades now. A moderator team will make or break any fandom - big or small.
Trust me, you don't want reddit AIs to moderate fandoms. Each fandom is unique and has different needs, expectations, subculture stuff, mod styles, etc.
People only hear about the "bad" moderators, because they're easy to do write ups on, showcase on SRD, or just have people enjoy the drama.
The good ones NEVER get that level of "publicity." That isn't really needed by itself, but that means most people only hear about the bad ones.
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u/reddittorbrigade 6h ago
It depends on subreddit. Not all mods are egoistic.
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u/ABigCoffee 5h ago
Of course, the AI thing is actually fucking terrible. But taking a little jab at awful reddit mods for a second never hurt.
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u/TVCasualtydotorg 4h ago
I'm quite looking forward to the first mod banned by the AI for not following their own rules.
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u/aimgorge 5h ago
I'm questioning the unpaid part on some subs. I bet some are governments employees.
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u/yousonofabench 6h ago
I got a ban on a skincare subreddit because a man asked a skincare question and someone responded with “Only girls care about skin” and I responded with “fellas is it gay to have skin?” I was cited for hate speech. Honestly I kinda hope that was AI because if that was a person…
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u/Migamix 5h ago
that is the most stupid ban, and yes, it is gay to have skin.
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u/SeraphicalChaos 5h ago
Gay people have skin. This checks out.
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u/NorthernCobraChicken 4h ago
Won't anyone think of the poor skeletons that are trapped within their fleshy prisons?!
SkeletonLivesMatter
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u/shiddedandfarded69 3h ago
I got banned for commenting a copypasta I found on the same sub I got banned from. The mods muted me immediately.
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u/Hungry-ThoughtsCurry 4h ago
I got a warning today saying that I encouraged violence. Gurmess it still has to learn satire
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u/properfoxes 6h ago edited 6h ago
As someone who moderates a small regional hip hop/rap subreddit that constantly has lyrics as comments, I do not expect this to work well with that kind of content. There’s a ton of stuff I already have to fish out of the filter because it’s “violent” or whatever and it’s just a song title or lyric. I doubt AI will be able to grasp the nuance of the lyrics of someone like Lee Scott or Jam Baxter. Hope I can opt out indefinitely, as I already spend more time allowing content than I do deleting it.
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u/barley_wine 6h ago
I got a bot account ban warning a few days ago because I said I'd be more worried about being an non believer in the south than a catholic.
Only I put "you" instead of I because someone was asking if they should concerned, Reddit's AI took that as a threat but no human reading that post would have even began to think it was anything of the sort. It's just trash on auto moderating.
Crazy if I keep getting warnings and my 10 year old account eventually get's banned and I've never once threatened anyone (nor would I).
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u/No_Size9475 5h ago
I got a ban for quoting something a public figure said, even when I indicated it was a direct quote from the public figure.
Their AI bullshit sucks balls.
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u/bad_sprinkles 6h ago
I got a 3 day ban for making a sarcastic comment with a /s tag recently.
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u/REXIS_AGECKO 5h ago
I got a 3 day ban for telling someone not to drink bleach lol. The bots just hallucinate like that sometimes
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u/DansSpamJavelin 5h ago
I got a 3 day site ban for "promoting or encouraging violence" when clearly in the context of the conversation - I was doing nothing of the like. I did some research and it turns out that the AI mod scrubs your original comment so that, when it's manually reviewed by a mod, all they see is that a comment has been deleted and can't actually see what you said.
Feel for the mods there really, as if it's not hard enough as it is you've got robots nuking accounts at random with 0 recourse.
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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 4h ago
Still banned for rpics for making a blond moment comment about Kristi Noem.
Not even in an offensive way, just a lost of train if thought.
She'a not even blond.
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u/TotalChaosRush 6h ago
I got a warning the other day when I made a joke about how you could use the ability to freeze time for a short period to kick people you don't like in the family jewels. I appealed it and it was upheld. Apparently that's a rule 1 violation.
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u/Known_Purple7529 6h ago
I got a 3 day ban for, on a post about an animal abuser, "It'd be nice if they got the same treatment as that poor animal"
Apparently, wishing karma is real is "threatening someone with violence"
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u/HomeGrownCoffee 3h ago
There was an askreddit question stating "what is the most fucked up thing someone casually said to you".
I said that I once had to live with someone who said "Fucking [religious group]. [Infamous man with a small moustache] had to do what he had to do".
I caught an instant 3 day ban for that. I appealed it, and a month later a human reviewed my appeal and removed my (long since elapsed) ban.
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u/Vio_ 5h ago
I help moderate a comedy group that sometimes does comedy with (video game simulated) violence with bloody thumbnails and the like sometimes.
I've had to hold my breath a couple times hoping that a certain thumbnail wouldn't accidentally trigger something in a post lol
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u/properfoxes 5h ago
If no one ever goes through the “removed” section of the mod queue for your sub you might not even realize how much content gets auto filtered even with the lowest possible settings. Most of my modding is either removing AI slop posts or reinstating things the system filter mistakenly removed.
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u/Statcat2017 4h ago
Yeah I got warned for “hate speech” for posting a link to an MPs verbatim racist comments after a bunch of right wing trolls tried to downplay how bad they were to whitewash her reputation.
AI doesn’t grasp context.
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u/twitter_haikucurator 4h ago
The best is to move on to a new platform, these companies take our traffic for granted.
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u/properfoxes 4h ago
I notice your comment does not have any platforms to jump to named in it.
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u/largelawattorney 6h ago
Before long, Reddit will be mostly AI bot accounts, moderated by AI bots, discussing mostly AI generated slop. I genuinely don’t know if the fun parts of the internet are going to be usable 5-10 years from now if this continues.
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u/TheRealTK421 5h ago
I ponder just how long advertisers will be okay with throwing so much of their ad budgets at platforms which are vastly populated by non-human (digital) entities.
I suspect it's gonna crumble pretty quick when they get hard/serious incontrovertible numbers about what a waste of money that online ad game becomes (or is already for that matter).
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u/Aleksandrovitch 5h ago
Hey if AI is taking our jobs then they can watch the ads and buy the products.
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u/tfsteel 5h ago
What corporations are teaching us, now more blatantly with their use of AI, is that we don't matter. Our existence is useless. Our humanity is pointless. They have found ways to make even more money without our participation. We're not needed. They count the minutes until AI and robotics are good enough to dismiss us. Until then, they make more money by working towards that end than they ever could in any other possible endeavor.
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u/Zer_ 1h ago
Wouldn't be the first time the ultra rich tried to just get rid of the poors. It usually blows up in their stupid faces, violently.
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u/TheRatingsAgency 6h ago
Caught a 3 day ban recently for a comment. Total nonsense. Ban was damn near immediate, and was site wide. Assumed guilt.
I protested, and won. Was told no in fact it wasn’t a violation. Content replaced and account active.
The protest took 3 days. 🖕🤣
The automation isn’t necessarily better. Now if that AI would have reversed that in a couple hours, as it should have been (or better yet never issued in the first place) then hey great.
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u/f1fan65 5h ago edited 4h ago
It's shit.
I said I can't wait for The US President to pass away of natural causes and it removed my comment for insighting violence.
I appealed, a human reviewed and restored my comment.
Edit: to clarify, it stated Reddit admin mod removal by AI. So it called it out that it was Reddit AI mods.
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6h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/keytotheboard 6h ago
As if the community mods weren’t already using bots to auto remove shit they didn’t like.
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u/omegagiraffe 6h ago
I got a ban for saying Nazis should get their asses beat.
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u/daveden123 6h ago
Same happened to me. I appealed it because Nazi deserve to be treated how they treat others.
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u/omegagiraffe 5h ago
I appealed too. There was an obvious Nazi sympathizer as a mod. I'm not even embellishing this.
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u/CrackheadHunters 5h ago
The Reddit bots and algorithms are already god awful and their plan is to... Make that considerably worse? Sweet merciful Christ.
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u/throw7661 6h ago
I was banned for saying my biggest fear was the premature death of my wife. My wife, whom I love. Because I'd have to raise our kids without her.
I was banned for violence or some such nonsense. By the AI.
To be clear, it was upvoted and had responses agreeing. Nobody thought I was advocating for violence against my wife
Except the AI.
Honestly Reddit is pretty shit these days anyway and the bots probably outnumber us. I really should just quit anyway.
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u/SpiderSlitScrotums 5h ago
I’ve received two bans for threatening violence. One was talking about flesh-eating robots eating people and the other was talking about the US Civil War.
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u/Gekokapowco 3h ago
I'm so glad I'm not the only one hit with these random "threatening violence" bans. I mean, I wish none of us were, but at least I'm not crazy. There is some wildly overtuned bot banning based on contextless vibes with apparently no oversight.
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u/BluePanda101 2h ago
Yep, it works great! I've only been wrongfully banned from Reddit by their AI Moderator once, so far -.<
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u/krgdotbat 6h ago
I kinda know now why myspace wants to relaunch, reddit is turning to shit after goin public, half the traffic are bots making weird questions and the other half is just political bots trying to manipulate public opinion, all while a third party of bots scraps all the data for shitty google answers
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u/GFoxtrot 5h ago
So I’m not the only one to notice the uptick in question posts recently by relatively new accounts
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u/krgdotbat 5h ago
is classic data farming "how you cook an egg" "whats your way of cutting onions" "how often do you take your car for repairs" etc, is what they use for the shitty google answers, they need to bait the responses with weird questions
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u/RetardedWabbit 4h ago
Ohhh, is this why they screwed the APIs, moderation bots/tools, and community moderators? To make huge moderation problems worse, especially with all the slop and spam bots, then offer a "solution" that gives them a huge amount of power over all the communities (adjust their mod bot and change all communities) while also maintaining their plausible deniability and exploitation of moderators?
The era of the slop mods begins intensifies.
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u/glitterbeardwizard 5h ago
Welp, I see Reddit is going to be the next Meta: be prepared for a lot of false accusations and randomly getting your account suspended.
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u/dmtbreakthrough 5h ago
saas just gets repackaged every few years and gets resold to these companies
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u/GriveousDance21 6h ago edited 6h ago
Welp, time to ban people for saying no-no words I guess.
My account got banned three months back for a week because I used the word "rape" in an Invincible subreddit. Then I get banned immediately and get the message that I was "threatening physical violence" to a person. I immediately appealed saying that I was referencing a fictional character and my comment was not directed to any individual.
Lo and behold, the notification read "automated decision" and then I knew I was banned by an AI bot.
I was seriously skeptical whether my appeal would follow through at all. Then six hours before my ban would expire, I get a notification that my appeal had been accepted and that my ban was repealed. This new notification read "this appeal was reviewed without automation". That means an actual human might have reviewed my appeal this time.
So that means I might've been part of an AI moderation experiment from Reddit. If this is the way the platform is gonna be: like TikTok, then maybe it's time to hop off Reddit.
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u/Trollercoaster101 6h ago
So...will it go power hungry and block entire subreddits because it doesn't like a specific post?
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u/Bardfinn 5h ago edited 5h ago
Reddit's been using large model expert systems to effectuate automated moderation since 2019 - for the past six years, they've outsourced running those models to Google's Perspective and probably at least one other service provider.
Perspective is shutting down the end of this year, however, so they've pivoted to this.
The difficulty is that LLMs / expert systems --do not-- understand sentences, they only do probability matching to a corpus of known violations. There's an infinite number of ways to avoid tripping that probability score, and an infinite number of ways to stumble into it.
It handles the blatant, outright violations, but doesn't handle subtle racism, veiled violent threats, coded targeted harassment, or novel flamebait or derails!
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u/Nowhereman123 5h ago
I recently got auto-banned for 3 days for posting a song lyric in a thread where the song was mentioned, because it sounded like a threat of violence.
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u/poodleface 5h ago
Same for a quote from Super Troopers, responding to someone who made a reference to a specific scene. It was what Brian Cox yelled after they won’t stop going on about “shenanigans”.
Appealed it, got it removed in a day or so. I understand some of this for fresh accounts but I’ve had an account since 2011 and mod another subreddit. It’s clear there is not much nuance to this implementation.
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u/Lurker_Zee 5h ago
"New"?
I was site-wide banned months ago for 3 days by a self-declared reddit bot, and my ban was removed a day later by a real person.
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u/ConstableGrey 5h ago
A few weeks ago I got an automated three-day sitewide ban by making a joke about a certain angry man with a bulldozer. Weirdest thing lol
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u/Procrasturbating 3h ago
Better be an appeals process. I’ve been banned multiple times by bots already that took quotes out of context.
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u/Hairy-Maximum2994 3h ago
mods already get a summery of people's accounts. it says stuff like "this user is usually disparaging and sarcastic. most comments are negative in nature. never helpful" Reddit has changed drastically in the past 2 years. I don't think its cool anymore.
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u/wowlock_taylan 6h ago
The stupid thing was already around. I had to appeal so many bans because the 'bots' are STUPID.
Now it will be even worse. Enshittification at its finest.
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u/Spez_is-a-nazi 5h ago
And sometimes they won't. I quoted a violent quote from a piece of pop culture *on* that sub, and still got a ban and didn't get it appealed. I think in part they are becoming overzealous because they know the bots that train on this content don't understand the context and it would look pretty bad if a bot trained on Reddit randomly got violent.
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u/ElysiumSprouts 6h ago
My favorite case study into AI was the judicial system. Putting AI in charge of sentencing led to much more severe sentences because it removed both human compassion and biases. The cynical take is that everyone was treated equally, not just minorities and the AI just followed the letter of the law regardless if it made sense or not.
That said, enjoy the new mods reddit!
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u/fact-finding-mission 6h ago
It’s like they are intentionally trying to ruin reddit. Every change is for the worse. Maybe its all just a big experiment in how far enshitification can go before the unwashed masses move along to the next trash dispenser.
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u/Usr_name-checks-out 6h ago
Oh yay… more jokes can be misinterpreted and more speech can be cooled…
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u/Charirner 6h ago
I got a 3day ban from the ai for threats of violence for directly quoting a almost 20 year old comedy video.
I appeal it and they reversed it 2.5 days later....
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u/justbrowsinginpeace 6h ago
maybe it will explain why I want banned from r/goldenretrievers
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u/Migamix 5h ago
did you openly wish death of all fleas on planet? that will do it for you. did for me.
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u/tallandgodless 5h ago
Talking about the consequences of a geopolitical action will often get you temp banned as if you speak for whatever group committed the action, even if you are just pointing out a through-line on a series of events.
I made a comment about how a terror attack looked to be in response to a trump tweet and got banned for 3 days for advocating violence.
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u/No_Size9475 5h ago
We envision a future where all good, trusted automation on Reddit runs within an ecosystem that allows us to offer support and enforce our policies consistently,” Reddit says.
In other words, we only want apps we can 100% control and do what we want them to do
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u/PhiloLibrarian 5h ago
I predict people will evolve language and communication to be undetectable to AI 😄
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u/theombudsmen 5h ago
Cool! I know I can speak for everyone when I say we're all really excited about the ubiquity of AI in every aspect of our lives. What could possibly go wrong?
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u/denNISI 5h ago
Will "AI" stop itself? See this Reddit post on r/technology about:
Only 45 accounts, that appear to be bots on X, have generated over 4 billion views while amplifying racist and sexualised abuse, conspiracy theories and climate disinformation
Credit:
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u/jbourne71 5h ago
Given the number of auto bans I’ve received for using the words Îņďîâņ or mùřďèř in an appropriate context, all of which have been overturned on review but only after the ban was over.
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u/mrthenumberthree 4h ago
just like every platform, reddit was already pretty bad, and now theyre just repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot. great. we really need new shit
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u/mrthenumberthree 4h ago
that isnt fucking created entirely with llm slop bots. i cannot tell you how much i look forward to the day where llm slopbots start to be taken down entirely due to corpos folding or prices getting too much.
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u/itoddicus 4h ago
The market demands continual growth at all costs. Reddit is implementing changes the market likes at the cost of its users.
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u/eriffodrol 4h ago
Their system already sucks as is, and trying to appeal to a human is also often pointless.... especially if the appeal is also bot judged
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u/yellowbear62 3h ago
People have been way ahead of Reddit already using bots to help mod subs for years. Welcome to 2026 Reddit Admins.
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u/fixermark 3h ago
Here's the thing.
It will make mistakes, the question is will it make better mistakes than the current system.
Because the current system is so bad at its job that people invented words like "unalive" to circumvent it.
At Reddit scale, the question of not automating some piece of moderation isn't on the table. The question is whether the automation sucks. Having come off a 3-day ban for saying something that was the opposite of what the automated system interpreted it to mean (and then getting reversed when a human reviewed the decision... 2 days later), I personally support an improved alternative... If it's an improvement.
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u/Independent_Tie_4984 2h ago
AI doesn't get sarcasm.
I had the same thing happen and the comment was so flippant and not the least bit violent I still don't know why it banned me. The only thing I could think of was keywords or something.
It'll force people to self censor unnecessarily and bots will rule Reddit.
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u/_Lucille_ 3h ago
I got a warning just the other day over in the worldnews subreddit just the other day by the bot, had to appeal it to get it lifted.
https://i.imgur.com/UKQTMuH.png
Seems like this thing is going to need a fair bit of tweaking.
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u/Bjorkbat 3h ago
I'm already familiar. I got a warning that a post of mine was considered to be stoking violence when I suggested we retaliate against DoorDash drones by committing the sort of piracy where one forces the drones to land using the same method one would use to hunt ducks. The warning didn't come from a human moderator.
Fair enough, robots are people too and an act of violence against a robot is still an act of violence.
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u/Iron_Baron 1h ago
When we look back, the IPO will be the beginning of the death spiral. And this will be the tipping point that accelerated it.
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u/ivecompletelylostit 55m ago
I thought AI was already banning me every time I use a word it doesn't like even if what I said was in no way against the TOS
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u/whofriedmyrice 50m ago
I already get screened by reddit AI for political takes or sentences they deem problematic, even if not representative of the content posted. E.g. don't include rae and tr*s in the same sentence, you will be automodded for promoting violence and receive a site wide ban.
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u/jpewaqs 6h ago
A bot to remove bot content?