Reddit’s human content wins amid the AI flood

For Ines Tan there’s one particular site she turns to again and again for advice – and that’s Reddit.

Tan, who works in communications, regularly jumps on the site for skincare advice, to view reactions to shows she watches, such as The Traitors, and for help planning her upcoming wedding in May.

“It’s a very empathetic place,” she says of Reddit. “For my wedding, I’ve found help emotionally, logistically and inspiration-wise.”

Tan believes people are consulting the online discussion platform more as they’re craving human interaction in the world of increasing AI slop.

Tan is far from the only person turning to Reddit, which launched in 2005 and was once viewed as a place for nerds.

In both the US and the UK women account for more than 50% of Reddit users. Amongst women in the UK, Reddit is the fastest-growing social platform.

Reddit is organised into user-created communities called subreddits, where content is ranked by user voting rather than chronological order.

Here users can comment, post links, and add pictures – though many read the content without engaging.

Volunteer moderators help run the site by managing specific communities and ensure users stick to the rules and keep to the subject.

Reddit also employs admins who can overrule moderators and delete subreddits.

According to Reddit, that human element it key.

“I do think that in a world of AI – and there is a lot more AI driven content that’s really crowded the internet – people recognise that what Reddit offers stands out more,” says Jen Wong, chief operating officer at Reddit.

“The internet has become a place that maybe isn’t all that human in authenticity which was maybe the original promise… but Reddit has preserved that.”

She says popular topics gaining traction include parenting, reality TV and skincare.

Wong says the site’s demographic has changed over time. “We had this reputation of being gamers and tech guys… but now we’re very gender balanced and very strong with Gen Z women and that’s because we’ve grown in terms of our breadth of topics.”

However, the site faces issues concerning credibility of conversations on subreddits and inconsistent approaches to moderation.

“Reddit’s biggest weakness is that credibility can look like consensus, like most other social media sites and their algorithms,” says Dr Yusuf Oc, senior lecturer in marketing at Bayes Business School in London.

“Upvotes reward what a community likes, not what is true, so you can get information cascades, groupthink, and strong echo chambers in certain subreddits.”

Creating a decentralised site reliant on moderators has also proved problematic at times.

“The platform is also unevenly moderated, and quality varies massively by community,” say Oc.

There are several ways a subreddit can be manipulated. “Brigading” involves a coordinated attack by social media users on another group. In Reddit that would be a group of users looking to manipulate the conversation or voting pattern on a subreddit.

“Astroturfing”, is another issue, where the true sponsor of a campaign is hidden behind a grassroots initiative.

Oc says that Reddit is vulnerable to such coordinated influence operations, which can push content up or bury it quickly.

“Narratives can be amplified or suppressed through coordinated activity and social pressure within communities. Moderators are volunteers so they can face pressure from highly-motivated groups, harassment, or sustained reporting campaigns, and because norms differ by subreddit, enforcement can be inconsistent.”

In its defence a Reddit spokesperson said: “Reddit’s policies prohibit manipulated content and inauthentic behaviour and our safety teams enforce these rules with a combination of human review and sophisticated automated tooling that can detect this content at scale.

“On top of this, Reddit’s community moderators set and enforce subreddit-specific rules that can be even stricter.”

Josh Feldberg, who lives in London, started using Reddit about 14 years ago. “I started using it because I have ADHD – I didn’t get a proper diagnosis for years – and then a friend said they sometimes share resources on there.”

That led to Feldberg discovering other areas of interest such as fitness and more specifically, pet parrots. He said he favours it compares to other platforms. “As it’s anonymous, it essentially offers quality comments and the feedback is quite kind.”

“There’s a subreddit [community] for everything,” adds the digital consultant for charities and non-profit who spends his time looking at subjects such as politics, tech and digital marketing.

Some argue that Reddit’s surge in popularity is down to deals signed with AI providers, including OpenAI. Under the deal between those two firm’s OpenAI’s ChatGPT gets access to Reddit content.

“These deals mostly increase Reddit’s visibility and strategic importance, rather than being the original reason people use it,” says Oc.

“AI answers and search features can now cite Reddit more often which reinforces discovery and traffic at the margin.”

According to a study commissioned by Reddit and marketing intelligence company Profound, Reddit was found to be the number one most cited source across AI platforms such as Google AI Overviews and Perplexity.

But Reddit’s Wong feels people are visiting Reddit because of the “authenticity, the content, and because they’re discussing things that you really can’t get elsewhere”.

She cites threads about people going bald or going through pregnancy.

“Those are deeply personal experiences where you want to hear from other people who have been there. I think you can’t really get that in other places.”

In the world of highly-polished content on social media sites such as Instagram and as content feels increasingly automated, “people look for signals of lived experience, disagreement and nuance”, says Oc.

“Reddit’s anonymity and community norms make answers feel more candid and less polished than influencer-style content.”

As for Feldberg, during his 14 years on the platform he says he’s noticed a number of changes including a more modern interface, more targeted ads, and the move away from seeing how many downvotes a post would attract.

He personally feels that there’s fewer egos on Reddit compared to other social media platforms.

“If someone posts on Instagram and they have loads of followers, they will get more engagement and be pushed up the feed, but on Reddit there’s no bias…people don’t post with that intention or for getting free stuff. It’s anti that. There’s no economic incentive to post stuff. Personally, it’s as useful as ever.”

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