SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Reddit has stated that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating how the platform sells, licenses, or shares its users’ posts and other content with external organizations for training AI models.
The company revealed the inquiry in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, referencing a letter from the FTC dated Thursday.
Reddit mentioned in the filing that due to the unique nature of these technologies and business deals, they are not surprised by the FTC’s interest in this area. They also stated that they do not believe they have behaved unfairly or deceptively.
Similar to other social media platforms, Reddit has shown interest in business agreements where AI companies pay to access databases of human-written text for improving their AI models' conversational and creative abilities.
About a month ago, Reddit announced a $60 million deal with Google for the same purpose. This deal will also grant Reddit access to Google's AI models to enhance its internal site search and other features. Reddit declined to comment or answer questions beyond a written statement about the deal.
The disclosure comes as Reddit gets ready to go public for the first time. The San Francisco-based company filed paperwork on Monday, projecting an initial public offering price that could value the 18-year-old platform at up to $6.4 billion.
