Issues Database

A scientist obtained a sweeping restraining order against a Reddit moderator who criticised her over the Lucy Letby case, but a California court quashed it for lack of jurisdiction and called the anti-SLAPP arguments compelling.

Reddit disclosed in 2024 that it had signed data-licensing deals worth hundreds of millions to let AI firms train on user posts — content created by users who were neither asked for consent nor offered any share of the proceeds.

Reddit's IPO paperwork revealed CEO Steve Huffman received roughly $193 million in 2023 compensation, drawing fierce criticism from the unpaid volunteer moderators whose labour underpins the platform.

A 2024 study offered the most rigorous measurement yet of Reddit's June 2020 'Great Ban': while most affected users left or became less toxic, roughly 5% reacted by sharply increasing their toxicity — quantifying both the efficacy and the radicalizing unintended consequences of mass deplatforming.

After scrapping its long-running coins-and-awards system in 2023 and replacing it with a widely mocked 'Golden Upvote,' Reddit reversed course in May 2024 with a relaunched awards system built around paid 'gold' and creator payouts — an about-face critics read as an admission the original cut had failed.

Reddit let users and moderators buy IPO shares with no lock-up, free to sell on day one, while warning investors that its own r/WallStreetBets community could whip the stock into meme-stock volatility — an unusually self-aware set of risk disclosures.

A 2024 feud between YouTuber Ethan Klein and the pop-culture subreddit r/Fauxmoi escalated into harassment and doxxing threats against its moderators, with at least two forced to delete their accounts.

Researchers documented a surge in advertising for AI 'nudify' apps — services that fabricate non-consensual nude images from ordinary photos — across social platforms including Reddit, which said it had banned several domains in response.

Film-copyright holders subpoenaed Reddit to unmask six users who had commented about piracy, hoping to use the posts as evidence in a suit against the ISP RCN; a federal magistrate judge quashed the subpoena on First Amendment grounds.

In 2023 Reddit terminated Pushshift's bulk data access as part of its paid-API crackdown, breaking the historical archive that powered research and the tools (Reveddit, Removeddit, Unddit) used to view deleted or removed content — reshaping who controls retained Reddit data.

In July 2023, weeks after the API blackout, Reddit abruptly killed its long-standing Coins and 50-plus Awards system with no replacement ready, drawing user anger over lost purchases and yet another unilateral product change.