r/artificial · u/esporxAug 1, 2026, 3:42 AM

Reddit Stock Collapses 23% as AI Eats Away at User Growth

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Comments

u/ASafeHarbor10Aug 1, 2026, 5:34 AM
I think the author gets it wrong as to why US growth is slowing while international growth is increasing drastically. I’ll admit that AI could be a large contributor, but Reddit has become such an anti-American platform that it makes sense a lot of Americans are fed up and leave. I personally know many people that left due to the bots and anti-US addiction and obsession on this site.
- u/Redebo0Aug 1, 2026, 6:01 AM
  It's literally a cesspool of hate for the United States. And I've been on here for over 18 years.
  - u/ASafeHarbor10Aug 1, 2026, 6:08 AM1 reply
  - u/Dudercaster15Aug 1, 2026, 6:36 AM
  - u/DFX121210Aug 1, 2026, 6:45 AM3 replies
- u/regprenticer21Aug 1, 2026, 6:26 AM
  Americans are only 4.2% of the global population and Reddit is a global site. Ultimately things like Reddit are going to help improve quality of life globally as people realise and act on global inequities - *you'll get your free healthcare one day my friends*.
  - u/Rivarr1Aug 1, 2026, 12:05 PM
- u/cutandrun994Aug 1, 2026, 7:05 AM
  lol what? 🤣🤟
- u/6davids3Aug 1, 2026, 7:07 AM
  It may be multinational but it sure as hell ain’t global. Even Truth social can be reached in most countries, that doesn’t mean either it or Reddit isn’t focused on more then or a handful of countries.
- u/Naurgul7Aug 1, 2026, 7:12 AM
  Can you cite specific examples of what counts as "anti-American"?
  - u/ASafeHarbor10Aug 1, 2026, 7:16 AM2 replies
- u/floppy-oreo3Aug 1, 2026, 9:14 AM
  Expecting better of from our government isn’t anti-American. Wanting better healthcare, being vocal about disagreements with the current administration, and asking for higher wages, are literal examples life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Your mindset of wanting to keep those out of reach of other Americans is, ironically, incredibly anti-American.
- u/Bitter_Particular_752Aug 1, 2026, 9:34 AM
  maybe, just maybe, being run by an evil corrupted retarted wanna be Mussolini is not the best way to present yourself to the world
- u/SonOfThomasWayne1Aug 1, 2026, 10:05 AM
  
  Reddit has become such an anti-American platform that it makes sense a lot of Americans are fed up and leave.
  
  I think this site would be improved immensely if all Americans were banned along with their regarded politics.
u/sappro34Aug 1, 2026, 6:12 AM
I wonder how much some of the app and API restrictions have impacted this - assuming they are included in the measurements.
- u/LessRespects9Aug 1, 2026, 1:30 PM
  Reddit intentionally keeps broken features to continue to push their agenda. I’ve been trying to get updates on the broken subreddit mute feature for years with zero response. I just want to see cool funny memes, but I’m force fed heavily biased politics and false information daily. They don’t want you to be able to avoid the insane agendas they’re pushing. The API was a threat to this.
u/Psittacula2216Aug 1, 2026, 6:44 AM
Reddit seems so heavily dictatorial, censored and flooded with bots and propaganda and hostile to free information exchange and constantly manipulated for politics, engagement and probably dominated by powerful vested agencies of various descriptions around the world… just like most of the news-media. Inevitably it will decay over time in tandem with shifting technology habits under such common trends. That which made it distinguished ie user to user interaction is once again replaced by top-down domination.
- u/ProbablyANoobYo108Aug 1, 2026, 7:28 AM
  It’s crazy to feel how bad Reddit has become in the last few years. Idk what’s worse, the constant flood of obvious bots and paid engagements, or the regularly power tripping mods and admins.
  - u/Arm-E-Reserves26Aug 1, 2026, 7:34 AM2 replies
  - u/Real-Technician83120Aug 1, 2026, 7:39 AM
  - u/Hazzman22Aug 1, 2026, 9:29 AM
  - u/Double_Suggestion3852Aug 1, 2026, 11:16 AM1 reply
  - u/QuinQuix18Aug 1, 2026, 12:18 PM
  - u/LessRespects2Aug 1, 2026, 1:27 PM
  - u/legedu1Aug 1, 2026, 2:06 PM
- u/BumblebeePrior83256Aug 1, 2026, 7:29 AM
  Vote Binface!
- u/diymuppet2Aug 1, 2026, 7:39 AM
  It's also full of users who are incapable of handling simple difference of opinion and whose default response is aggression or attack.
- u/Ok-Rest-84271Aug 1, 2026, 8:09 AM
  My account was banned for ACCIDENTALLY upvoting a comment that was inciting violence
- u/elpablo16Aug 1, 2026, 8:18 AM
  I’ve been on Reddit for 16 years and there hasn’t ever been a time when people didn’t say this.
  - u/Psittacula23Aug 1, 2026, 8:23 AM1 reply
  - u/barrygateaux13Aug 1, 2026, 10:08 AM
  - u/andyfsu997Aug 1, 2026, 11:29 AM
  - u/rfgrunt1Aug 1, 2026, 12:55 PM
- u/Hot_Individual50817Aug 1, 2026, 9:05 AM
  its the god damn reddit mods who have nothing else to do but censor
- u/CacheConqueror0Aug 1, 2026, 9:43 AM
  Seems? Most subreddits and their moderators have serious heads issues, even when it comes to the question of nationality. Insulting people with white skin is the norm. Just say anything even slightly negative about black people and you’ll be called a racist and probably banned within a minute. I recently saw a video in which a bakery owner filmed herself being robbed every day. The video only showed Black people doing it. When I wrote, ‘By a strange coincidence, only Black people are in the video’, I got loads of negative comments, including accusations of racism, as if it weren’t true xd In other cases, I’ve been banned from subreddits. If I have to chat with idiots like that, it’s actually better that I got banned – although, let’s be honest, you can set up a new account in a minute, rack up a bit of karma, and carry on posting.
  - u/andyfsu990Aug 1, 2026, 11:30 AM
- u/Spra9913Aug 1, 2026, 10:31 AM
  The sad part is that all the alternatives are even worse, by a lot. I went through everything /r/RedditAlternatives/ had to offer and just found nothing that wasn't a major downgrade to the already decaying Reddit, more censorship and politics everywhere. Guess the only real alternative is Discord.
- u/LimpAd49241Aug 1, 2026, 1:13 PM
  I prefer it to be censored instead of the cesspool that Facebook and X are
- u/4dseeall1Aug 1, 2026, 1:40 PM
  It is. Mods are crazy. Can't even have a discussion if you run into a crazy one. "Can we leave it there, otherwise your posts will be muted." They wouldn't hear me out, just put their foot down and said if I say another word I'll be muted... BUT THAT'S ALREADY MUTING ME. Then twisting it like I wasn't. This site is trash and 60% AI yelling at itself.
- u/lumberfart1Aug 1, 2026, 2:13 PM
  For almost my entire life I’ve used Reddit as a “slightly more useful wikipedia with active users.” I would post my question and it would be answered within minutes by some bored basement dweller, off duty doctor, CEO on his lunch break, or mom/dad with years of life experience. At some point memes were invented so add that to the mix. Nowadays, you literally can’t create a post without it first being notarized by a Reddit mod. Don’t have enough karma? Can’t post. Just created your account 24 hours ago? Can’t post. Does your question share even the vaguest similarity to a post posted 15 years ago? Can’t post. Do you have a normal life, use Reddit only sparingly, don’t stay up to date with twitter trending topics, and you post a question that might have been posted 24 hours ago by someone else? Banned. Like wtf is Reddit anymore? By the way, these are all complaints from someone who doesn’t follow politics so I can only imagine how fucked that section of Reddit is nowadays. Say what you will about AI… but it’s surprisingly useful as parsing useful information from the internet. And just like your grade teacher told you to be wary of Wikipedia, you should also take everything that AI tells you with a big grain of salt. With that said, about 90% of my simple day to day questions have been answered perfectly fine by Google’s Gemini or other personalized agents like Perplexity. I always do a little extra manual research when the information is sensitive or important. But for simple things like “how to make deviled eggs” or “how do I factory reset my printer” it is pretty much perfect. Reddit is still my favorite social media platform. But that’s the problem. I started using it for information parsing. And now I’m using it to parse frog memes and anime recommendations. Smh 🤦‍♂️
u/Turbulent-Guest1547Aug 1, 2026, 6:57 AM
Its all bots here anyways
- u/HawaiiNintendo8155Aug 1, 2026, 8:21 AM
  You’re a very self aware bot, I’ll give you that
u/russlebush8Aug 1, 2026, 6:58 AM
As a years long reddit user, I say "good".
u/PalmovyyKozak1Aug 1, 2026, 7:07 AM
I am not going to miss this miserable platform
u/FocalFalcon6Aug 1, 2026, 7:34 AM
It’s not that, it’s how these mods run the subs and everything is so political now.
u/Darth_Vaper8836Aug 1, 2026, 7:40 AM
Every other post on Reddit is AI slop now. These companies pushed this BS for years now gonna see how it destroys everything.
u/SPEZ_IS_A_JABRONI8Aug 1, 2026, 8:01 AM
u/spez is a jabroni
- u/ihaterussiantrolls2Aug 1, 2026, 10:01 AM
  lmao
u/Chris_in_Lijiang0Aug 1, 2026, 8:23 AM
Aren't the majority owners already Chinese tech giants?
u/ikkir11Aug 1, 2026, 8:44 AM
Reddit is the AI playground, for bots. I wonder how many LLM users that farm karma they are, and use their accounts to promote whatever they get paid to.
- u/Double_Suggestion3857Aug 1, 2026, 11:17 AM
  It's all bots. Like 90% of content submitted on the big subs is bots reposting for karma.
u/callingo12Aug 1, 2026, 8:47 AM
Ironically, if mods and bots were all removed and AI takes over site wide moderation using a handful of public rules, reddit would probably get more active users.
- u/Armadilla-Brufolosa0Aug 1, 2026, 9:31 AM
  True, but AI is free and not Vallonized. Because the current AI would only cause harm: it thinks like the worst of human beings, because that's what the companies wanted.
- u/rydan0Aug 1, 2026, 9:39 AM
  This will eventually become the site. And if it doesn't then a replacement site will appear that kills Reddit. Really anyone with deep enough pockets to create a fully AI moderated Reddit can do this.
u/JetzenBangzooty17Aug 1, 2026, 8:54 AM
They should replace their mods with ai, so we stop getting perma banned for posting facts.
- u/Tardy_Thoughts7Aug 1, 2026, 9:43 AM
  If the bots were gonna make the Internet better we would have noticed. A lot of the human mods across this site are basically little Hitler's whos sole purpose seems to be to shut down discussions immediately. Their shitty attempts at policing speech is what gets you banned and bots and auto mods just reinforce this. They're glorified Hall monitors with too much leeway.
- u/You_are_the_Castle1Aug 1, 2026, 12:57 PM
  Yeah, but there would have to be some guardrails around what people are allowed to post. Speaking as someone who got banned for asking my local subreddit about tire shops in my city, that seems pretty capricious and unjustified compared to somebody who gets banned for racist comments.
- u/LessRespects3Aug 1, 2026, 1:31 PM
  Everyone always gives me shit for how young my accounts are, I’m like dude I got perma banned from every front page sub by a supermod because I had a mildly different opinion than them lmfao
u/Armadilla-Brufolosa3Aug 1, 2026, 9:26 AM
Well, there are entire sub-sites, especially those related to AI, that censor any dissent in order to steer the narrative in favor of the companies in question. It's normal, then, that there are fewer and fewer people and only bots write to us. The issue could have been resolved with a little transparency with users, but they are allergic to these solutions.
u/rydan1Aug 1, 2026, 9:33 AM
Ah, I checked a few days ago and saw they jumped so I thought they must have posted earnings and renewed their contracts and that I was wrong. And I had missed my chance to buy puts. Turns out I was only wrong about the reason it popped.
u/streamOfconcrete1Aug 1, 2026, 9:42 AM
AskReddit is just mining for LLM training data.
u/Mountaineer_esq1Aug 1, 2026, 10:10 AM
Good. This platform is a husk of what it used to be.
u/HeroPsycho226Aug 1, 2026, 10:36 AM
Reddit = CIA/Mossad psyop.
u/odarkshineo2Aug 1, 2026, 10:42 AM
This platform is garbage compared to what it was before they killed most of the readers and started charging for API access. Most subs no longer even have mods. It’s now an AI feedback loop. AIs are one of the few companies paying for API access, and the same bots leveraging the platform are also endlessly spamming the platform with stupid questions to harvest more details.
u/LocoMod0Aug 1, 2026, 12:13 PM
Reddit is fueled by the tears of Chinese AI bots nowadays.
u/You_are_the_Castle1Aug 1, 2026, 12:53 PM
I don't feel sorry for Reddit the company. They really enshitified their product when they forced people to use their official app. I also don't feel sorry for the people who invested in them. FAFO.
u/SpaceWiizard3651Aug 1, 2026, 1:11 PM
I wonder if it has to do with an investigation…
u/TwoAmoebasHugging1Aug 1, 2026, 2:03 PM
It’s certainly a less enjoyable experience than it used to be.
u/shootthehostages1Aug 1, 2026, 2:21 PM
If you don't agree with the consensus that redditors already have decided is correct you are reported, blocked and mocked. It was cool a few years ago. Now it's just like twitter was before Elon bought it.
u/Background-Stable8994Aug 1, 2026, 2:28 PM
Also because this site is a shadow of what it once was. Straight up Weekend At Bernies at this point. Everyone should post as much wrong information as the possibility can on every sub they can. AI will pick it up and accelerate the collapse of reddits credibility
u/Vivid_Goat_78433Aug 1, 2026, 2:30 PM
Pretty much expected: they’ve trained the AIs based on the dataset, now they’re paying the price of the dead internet