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Reddit May Need To Ramp Up Spending On Content Moderation, Analysts Say (reuters.com) 140

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Reddit will need to spend heavily on content moderation as it may face greater scrutiny as a public company, analysts said, threatening its longstanding policy of relying on an army of volunteers to maintain order on its platform. The newly listed company warned in its initial public offering (IPO) paperwork that its unique approach to content moderation can sometimes subject it to disruptions like in 2023, when several moderators protested against its decision to charge third-party app developers for access to its data.

Depending on volunteers is not sustainable, given the regulatory scrutiny that the company will now face, said Julian Klymochko, CEO of alternative investment solutions firm Accelerate Financial Technologies. "It's like relying on unpaid labor when the company has nearly a billion dollars in revenue," he added. Reddit reported revenue of $804 million in 2023, according to an earlier filing. Reddit will need to make substantial investments in trust and safety, which could lead to a "dramatic" rise in expenses, Klymochko said. Josh White, former economist at the Securities and Exchange Commission and assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University, also said that banking on free volunteers is Reddit's biggest risk. The company would need to ramp up spending on anti-misinformation efforts especially as the U.S. prepares for the presidential election later this year, White said. "We believe our approach is the most sustainable and scalable moderation model that exists online today. We are continually investing in and iterating on new tools and policies to improve our internal capabilities," the Reddit spokesperson said.
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Reddit May Need To Ramp Up Spending On Content Moderation, Analysts Say More

Reddit May Need To Ramp Up Spending On Content Moderation, Analysts Say

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  • Hiring moderators would either cost absurd amounts, or they'd have to moderate basically without looking. And then, anything the mods let be becomes officially approved by the company's official moderators.

    • Re:What an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @08:14AM (#64345647)

      Make it another income stream... Make mods PAY.

      You want to run a sub? There's a recurring fee based on monthly readership and posting stats, divided between mods (to encourage having a good mod:post ratio).

      You want to be a mod? Registration fee. We're going to need a credit card and valid government-issued photo ID.

      Give each mod some advertising credit on subs they moderate based on their estimated work - posts read, complaints reviewed, etc.

      It'll push corporate-funded moderation and censorship, turning the whole thing into a mix of product placement and banner ads, but who cares? You're not going to make it worse, and it'll look good for the IPO!

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Syberz ( 1170343 )
        Wait, you want the people who have been complaining for years that it's their unpaid hard work that keeps the site afloat to pay for the priviledge of moderating? You're insane. Nobody will pay to look at mod queues and get shit on by users, lol. Well... maybe some fetish sub mods would pay...

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Baron_Yam ( 643147 )

          I think you underestimate how much those mods sink their personal identity and ego into the job. Also, the point isn't to make the system work, it's to make it look like it could so you can cash out and leave someone else holding the bag.

      • That would be a really good way to make your best users who fit your defined "ideal customer profile" to go somewhere else, immediately. And when your content producing users go away? So do the content-consuming users, because they follow the content.

        Your idea would have Reddit dead in 6 months.

    • $0.25/hr in south Sudan is where the job will be (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @08:17AM (#64345653)

      $0.25/hr in south Sudan is where the job will be

      • $0.25/hr in south Sudan is where the job will be

        Not really, we're somewhere between 2 months and 2 years from the vast majority of moderation being done by LLMs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Exactly,

      There are really two approaches that scale in terms of online discussion. What facebook is doing, or some continuum of what Reddit is already doing with Reddit and Wikipedia on one end and Slashdot and 8chan on the other.

      The users like one, the advertisers like the other right up until the users all leave because its boring.

      I hate to say it but facebook probably gets it nearer to right in terms of striking some kind of balance between freedom to have an open discussion in semi-private groups while k

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Boring if you're lucky, you might merely Digg your own grave.

        Leaning on the "most sustainable and scalable model" is means leaning on userbase loyalty, which tends to suffer after actively shitting on them. I sure hope Reddit hasn't been doing that.

    • And then, anything the mods let be becomes officially approved by the company's official moderators

      Section 230(c)(2) would protect them from liability for the content they leave up.

      No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of... any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.

    • "And then, anything the mods let be becomes officially approved by the company's official moderators."

      No, that's only true if they approve content, as opposed to removing content.

    • anything the mods let be becomes officially approved by the company's official moderators.

      That is not how it works.

  • I M A G I N E (Score:3)

    by dknj ( 441802 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @08:16AM (#64345651) Journal

    If i told you 20 years ago that forum software would IPO and it would be one of the biggest conversation topics in the country.

  • Uh, no. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by irreverentdiscourse ( 1922968 )

    Tell me you don't understand Section 230 without telling me.

    • Re:Uh, no. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Junta ( 36770 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @08:34AM (#64345693)

      You got a few counterpoints:
      -Reddit may face legal consequences in other nations
      -There are limits to section 230, which may require reddit to do more
      -Even putting aside legal consequences, there are commercial consequences. People don't want their ads showing up among hate speech.
      -The actual point of discussion: Volunteers with authtority can "go rogue" and disrupt your platform and they have no skin in the game. The volunteers aren't aligned with the business objectives and any friction between those two worlds is a risk.

      On the flip side, if they switch to in-house moderation, well, that was pretty much the road Digg chose and we saw how it worked out then.

      • please define "hate speech"

        • Re:Uh, no. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Junta ( 36770 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @10:15AM (#64345985)

          For the purposes of this discussion, it need only be "speech your advertisers don't want to be associated with". Advertisers don't care about even hypothetical nuance of "free speech" when it comes to how their ads are presented.

          In this scenario, if you feel compelled to ask "is it hate speech?" then it's probably hate speech.

          • Funny, Twitter/X was supposed to have a big backlash of advertisers who wanted to censor "hate speech" and yet they keep runnin', no sweat (even after firing 80% of the company including all the censors and political faggots). Almost as if they have a billionaire owner who cares more about free speech than pleasing some corporate fascist wokescold asshole advertisers, huh?

            • Re:Funny, because Twitter/X seems to keep on truck (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Junta ( 36770 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @11:00AM (#64346113)

              It did have a big backlash of advertisers. The estimates are that despite adding subscription revenue, they lost half their revenue, and projections and estimates for the future keep being adjusted downward. This is also with Musk making SpaceX and Tesla throw ad dollars at X for the sake of boosting X's situation.

              They've also had a 10% decline in active users since Musk took over, exacerbating the advertising problem and imposing a bound on the theoretical potential for subscription revenue.

              Even toward the "free speech" angle, there's signs of him penalizing speech he doesn't like, so it's more like "free speech so long as Elon likes it".

              So QAnon type folks are happier with it, but most everyone else sees a degraded experience.

              • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

                by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 )

                It did have a big backlash of advertisers.

                ... lol, yeah, and I'm sure "Mastodon" is going to take over any time now, right?

                This is also with Musk making SpaceX and Tesla throw ad dollars at X for the sake of boosting X's situation.

                More than likely it'll simply boost Tesla and SpaceX. X has a lot of eyeballs, or didn't you know?

                The estimates are that despite adding subscription revenue, they lost half their revenue, and projections and estimates for the future keep being adjusted downward.

                After firing 80% of the worthless dirty censorious fucks who worked there before censoring and pearl clutching for dear life, it sure looks like they are just fine and are going to keep their position, despite the lower revenue from disappointed corporate fascists. As I said, it's almost as if they have a billionaire sugar daddy, e

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by DrYak ( 748999 )

                  It did have a big backlash of advertisers.

                  ... lol, yeah, and I'm sure "Mastodon" is going to take over any time now, right?

                  "Mastodon" isn't a social media company, you know, right?
                  It's a piece of microblogging software (written by Mastodon Gmbh), that one can install on their own server to host microblogging, optionally intercommunicating with other servers who do so.
                  Whether there is advertisement installed on any same server also running mastodon is entirely left at the discretion of the people who had said server deployed.

                  Some Mastodon servers decide to only rely on donations. Others might decide to rely on advertisement (Tru

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by skam240 ( 789197 )

                  https://www.reuters.com/techno... [reuters.com]

                  "Monthly U.S. ad revenue at social media platform X has declined at least 55% year-over-year each month since billionaire Elon Musk bought the company formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, according to third-party data provided to Reuters."

                  Unless things have changed significantly since October Musk is running X into the ground. Feel free to keep trying to put a positive spin on it though! Never mind that even Musk knows X is having problems https://www.reuters.com/techn [reuters.com]

                  • Keep telling yourself that right up until Elon sells the company for more $$$ than he bought it for. I'm sure it'll make you feel better about the meanie mask-mandate violators and Libs-of-TikTok still being alive and trashing your favorite censoring fascist journalist with uncensored comments. By chance, were you one of the 80% of folks he fired after taking over? Is that why you sound so bitter and cherry picked your best buds at Reuters ? C'mon bro, cheer up, maybe HuffPo will be hiring someday and you c

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by skam240 ( 789197 )

                      He'll need to do one hell of a turn around in terms of the company's fortunes before he'll be able to do that. Even he knows he over payed for Twitter when he bought it, hence him trying to back out, and Twitter is bringing in fat less money now than when he bought it.

                      It is funny what a fan boy for Musk you are though. So much so that you're claiming I must be an ex Twitter employee if I dare question his wisdom. So much so that you're denying clear fiscal realities in his performance as head of Twitter. So

                    • This is some deusional nonsense.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by skam240 ( 789197 )

                      Yeah, looks like it. It'll probably still happen, though, since they appear to be marching toward profitability.

                      What are you basing that on? While I havent seen much recently everything I've seen has shown X is far worse off financially since being acquired.

                      Cite a decent source though, I dont care about your personal opinions.

                      Either way, Elon's fortunes or relative merits aren't that interesting to me.

                      HAHAHAHAHAHA....hahahahaha.....haha.... ahem... excuse me... Yes, you clearly dont care about Elon Musk at all.

                      A fanboy who calls Musk a hypocrite and a censor and doesn't care if he fails? You have some funny definitions, but okay, sure, kid.

                      Oh, so you're going to talk about Musk some more?

                      So you mean I should have incorporated two things you never said to me prior to this into what I told you? Okay, sure, kid.

                      It's just that your such a little whiner that I thought maybe you were one of the people crying in the bathroom before getting fired. [businessinsider.com] It certainly suits your personality but perhaps you sobbed at home, instead. After all you'd have to get hired to get fired.

                      Please, quote

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by skam240 ( 789197 )

                      I know, I know, if you take away all the name calling, rabid identity politics, and most importantly Elon Musk, you're a hallow shell of a human being who cant even support his own claims.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by skam240 ( 789197 )

                      I'll take that as confirmation of what I've said. Thanks and I'm out, retarded children arent as funny when they're quite.

                  • Fidelity has marked down their stake by over 70% [axios.com].

                    That's not a great sign if you're a company that "kept runnin, no sweat" as the OP contends.

                    Another not-great sign: when you are having a fire sale of all your office furniture and shit [businessinsider.com] after laying off 4-out-of-5 people in the company.

                • corporate fascists

                  the fascist government-corporate partnership Mussolini would have been proud

                  I don't think you really understand the person you're supporting if you think he is fighting AGAINST corporate fascism.

                  He loves government handouts [businessinsider.com] as long as the money goes to his businesses and not society.

                • ... lol, yeah, and I'm sure "Mastodon" is going to take over any time now, right?

                  No why would it. Can you not imagine a world where advertisers decide to not spend money on social networks, and users decide to not post somewhere? There's no compulsion for a service, it's the act of the service itself that drives addiction. The death of Twitter doesn't not mean the guaranteed rise of an alternative. People will move on with their lives unless the alternative exists to provide the same level of service they are accustomed to on their previous platform. And Mastodon (not sure why you put

                • So you think the guy who bangs on about free speech, but has no problem banning the kid who set up a bot to tweet PUBLICLY AVAILABLE RECORDS of Elon's private jet movements is a "free speech warrior" who is fighting against "corporate fascists" ?

                  Holy shit dude, time to take a step back and order a couple pounds of objectivity from Amazon. Pony up for same-day shipping; two-day simply won't do.

                  • Holy shit dude, time to take a step back

                    Hahah "whoa whoa whoa" eh? You're having some pretty severe cognitive dissonance eh? You sound angry.

                    So what? A rich guy conveniently and very hypocritically uses his power to shut down a probably-legal stalker (using public records, quite true) and that's somehow equivalent to the massive government censorship and interference in millions of posts and the public's discourse? We need to talk about setting priorities. Who needs objectivity again, genius?

            • Musk bans people all the time. He's such a crybaby that he disabled community notes on his own account.

              • Oh noes, I can't find the dirt on Elon! Gosh, I totally see how that rises to the same level as what Twitter did cooperating with the government and NGOs to mass censor CV19 information. You're right, it's all just the same. Yep, absolutely equal right there.

                • So you're just going to hand-waive away the "free speech warrior" censoring speech he personally doesn't like, and has eliminated the function that is meant to correct misinformation on his own account, (which he reposts quite frequently) while continuing to disingenuously bleat on about free speech and being anti-censorship.

                  Nah, you're not a hypocrite at all.

                  • So you're just going to hand-waive away the "free speech warrior" censoring speech he personally doesn't like

                    Nope. I've called it censorship, suppression, etc.. It's definitely hypocritical. I just don't think what he's done, for obviously venal and self-serving reasons, is anywhere near the scale, severity, or negative impact on public trust that resulted from censoring millions of people (during CV19) at the government's behest. Elon is not one of my elected representatives who failed to represent me. He's just a spoiled rich guy who occasionally does good and bad things like most humans.

                    while continuing to disingenuously bleat on about free speech and being anti-censorship.

                    Just because you are hyp

                    • Censorship limits and controls access to information. All the information that you claim is being censored is readily available for you to shitpost on places that allow it. Getting banned for not following the rules of a private posting forum is not the same as being disappeared for public dissent and this whole argument is based on that false equivalence.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by trawg ( 308495 )

              Hey do you pay for a blue checkmark by any chance? Seems right up your alley

              • Naw, your boys on WaPo, HuffPo, and CNN do, though. Maybe you could ask them how it's going and for a spare buttplug, too. Seems right up your alley.

            • Funny, you seem to have totally missed the part where Twitter is now internally valued at less than 30% of what they were when Musk bought it. [axios.com]

              Do you think that's because they're still cranking all the advertising revenue they used to be, previous to posting hateful screeds from antisemites, white nationalists, "christian" nationalists, etc.?

              It turns out that large corporations with images to maintain don't like that hateful shit next to their advertising. I mean, who could have predicted that, when they al

              • They might be valued less by Axios, but you're going to be crying some salty tears when eventually Elon sells for a profit aren't you? Despite being valued less, that does not preclude them from continuing to gain value. As they are doing. [demandsage.com] despite plenty of problems.

                Just curious, did you rage quit to Mastodon? How's that working out?

                posting hateful screeds from antisemites, white nationalists, "christian" nationalists, etc.?

                Oh noes! Free speech strikes again! Couldn't possibly go have a debate with them, right? We're better off just censoring & executing them, eh, Comrade? Should we start buil

            • Funny, you think that egomaniac cares about free speech. A sucker born every minute.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Compaq Disk Rereader ( 10425332 )

      But do you? There is for whatever reason a common meme these days that attempting to moderate your content creates responsibility for that content. As a matter of fact the provider must demonstrate a good faith effort to control 3rd part content posted on their platform. So quite the opposite. Something by the way, Reddit just barely demonstrates today.

      I'm sure you know better than me and Reddit's legal team though.

      Allowing the site to get further shitty will of course impact shareholders and of course

      • Reddit has a better user experience and a better public conversation than every single one of those sites you just listed, including this one. That's why millions of people use it.

        Calling Something awful a "great forum" certainly puts you in a box.

  • Twitter did just the opposite and hasn't run into any regulatory hurdles I can see.

    The Reddit model of allowing people to create and rule their own echo chambers is perfectly sustainable, whereas it would be destroyed if mods were paid to enforce a uniform corporate standard.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

      Twitter did just the opposite and hasn't run into any regulatory hurdles I can see.

      Twitter is no longer a public company. With that said, it really shouldn't matter. The idea that a public company needs to "censor more" because of "regulatory requirements" sounds like it should be a first amendment issue (at least in the US, YMMV for other jurisdictions).

  • The bigger problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DeplorableCodeMonkey ( 4828467 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @08:39AM (#64345705)

    There was a right wing meme that basically went like this.. and it was accurate:

    "We're sorry, r/TheDonald was banned for racisms, can we interest you in one of our many rape porn forums instead?"

    What these corporations allow is often very telling.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The real question is why so many racists gravitate towards Trump and republicans in general.

  • I know, crazy thought - more reward for the folks who actually make your site usable.

  • "It's like relying on unpaid labor when the company has nearly a billion dollars in revenue,"

    But it's yet to turn a profit. If a company doesn't make money, it'd better rely on unpaid labor if the laborer are stupid enough to work for free.

    • Don't you know how business works today:

      1) Find investors to throw money at you
      2) Claim great success
      3) Cash out that golden parachute before it all falls apart

  • We need government driven censorship (Score:4, Insightful)

    by paulsnx2 ( 453081 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @10:54AM (#64346089)

    That's all it amounts to. The government pressures banks, wall street, who pressure forum censorship.

    Follow the money. Nobody really cares about terrorism or whatever is the hot button. They care about speech that impacts markets.

    • Follow the money. Nobody really cares about terrorism or whatever is the hot button. They care about speech that impacts markets.

      I hear this "follow the money" talking point a lot. How about you follow the money and tell is where it leads? Does it involve George Soros?

  • The first layer of modding will be AI. The second layer will be AI. The third layer will be human, cheap or free, and uninterested. This is how yahoo and other major platforms already operate.

  • I may bail if they tighten things down. I mod a few subreddits and it's with a very light touch. It's up to the users to upvote and downvote what they think is on-topic and off-topic. I'll remove stuff that's obvious spam that's completely irrelevant to the sub, but anything ambiguous is left to the users. I adhere to the Reddit policies and will remove illegal content, doxxing, etc... but I never liked a strict moderation style.

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