Leftist Echo Chamber Reddit Seeks Better AI Deal with Google

Leftist echo chamber Reddit is seeking to renegotiate its data-sharing agreement with Google, aiming for more users and revenue in exchange for the user content it provides to train AI models.

The Verge reports that Reddit is seeking to revise its data-sharing AI deal with Google. According to Bloomberg, the social media platform wants Google to send more users its way to generate additional content, which in turn would be fed back into Google’s insatiable AI machine.

Reddit first struck a deal with Google a year and a half ago, reportedly worth $60 million a year, allowing the tech giant to access its vast trove of data. Now, unnamed executives suggest that Reddit is back at the negotiating table, eyeing a more significant role within Google’s AI ecosystem. The platform is keen for Google to help attract users who receive answers sourced from Reddit but leave without engaging with the site. By posting in Reddit’s forums, these users would generate more of the valuable content that tech companies rely on to train their data-hungry AI models.

In addition to increased user engagement, Reddit is also seeking more compensation for its data. The platform is considering implementing a dynamic pricing system for future licensing deals with companies like Google and OpenAI. Under this arrangement, the amount paid would be determined by the usefulness and importance of the content to the answers generated by AI tools.

Reddit executives believe that the current terms of the deal do not adequately reflect the immense value of Reddit’s data to AI companies. The platform is well-positioned to make this claim, as it has proven to be exceptionally useful to tech firms training AI models. In contrast to much of the internet, Reddit posts are created by real people speaking candidly, with content well-sorted by theme and ranked according to a human-run voting system. The company’s notorious leftist bent, demonstrating by censoring the largest pro-Trump forum on the internet, means that AI training data includes a significant leftist bent as well. Data indicates that Reddit is the most cited domain for AI tools like Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews.

Reddit’s push for better terms, particularly those that go beyond financial compensation and help ensure the platform’s sustainability, highlights the primary issue with many AI licensing deals. Platforms like Reddit possess vast amounts of data that tech companies need to train their AI models. However, these same models can potentially strangle the traffic and user activity that made the platforms valuable in the first place.