Reddit has announced a series of infrastructure and tool changes aimed at making it easier for people to participate on its site, protect against scraping and spam, and aid moderation. The company said it is working on more advanced abuse prevention systems that could eventually help communities move away from using account age and 'karma' to determine who can post.
Karma, Reddit's digital reputation system, was originally designed to weed out spam, bots, and trolls, but many communities came to rely on it and other account-age restrictions, making it difficult for legitimate newcomers to participate. Reddit said it now wants to shift to stronger, built-in abuse prevention systems so communities can be more open to new users. The company did not say karma would go away entirely, but suggested its importance could dwindle.
Reddit is also expanding the test of its AI-powered moderation tool, Rules Hub, which helps moderators automatically enforce community rules. Initially used by more than 700 communities, all new communities can now test it, with wider availability to all communities later this year. Rules Hub uses large language models to determine whether a post or comment matches the intent of a rule, allowing it to 'better handle nuance,' natural language, and edge cases.
The company also expanded other tools, including one that informs users about community rules and another that helps members set their flair. Reddit said it would make changes to its legacy desktop site, Old Reddit, by shifting moderator workflows to its new stack and migrating critical bots.
On Reddit's second-quarter earnings calls last week, executives stressed a near-term goal of converting its half-billion weekly active users to daily users through product updates. The company reported revenue of $805 million and earnings per share of $1.25, above estimates, but its stock sank due to what CEO Steve Huffman described as 'choppy' search referral traffic.