Reddit has confirmed that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated an inquiry into the platform's practices regarding the sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content for the purpose of training artificial intelligence models. This disclosure was made in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission following a letter from the FTC dated Thursday.
The company stated that due to the innovative nature of these technologies and business arrangements, it understands the FTC's interest in this area. Reddit emphasized that it does not believe it has engaged in any unfair or deceptive trade practices.
Similar to other social media platforms, Reddit has shown interest in partnerships where AI companies pay for access to human-generated text databases. This access allows AI models to enhance their conversational abilities, answer queries, and create written content and images upon request.
Approximately a month ago, Reddit announced a $60 million deal with Google for this specific purpose. As part of this agreement, Reddit will also gain access to Google's AI models to enhance its internal search functionality and other features. Reddit has chosen not to provide further comments or responses beyond a prepared statement regarding this collaboration.
This development coincides with Reddit's upcoming initial public offering (IPO) as the company prepares to go public for the first time. In its IPO filing on Monday, Reddit estimated a valuation of up to $6.4 billion for the 18-year-old platform.
