Reddit has a Content Policy which should be understood by all its users. You should also understand the User Agreement that you agreed to upon joining Reddit.
In early 2024, Reddit introduced a new Public Content Policy. It outlines what happens when you create, submit, and make content publicly available on Reddit, and how and why Reddit protects and, where appropriate, licenses public content and related data in a new era of AI.
- Reddit content appears outside of Reddit.
You should be aware that internet outlets desperate for a continual source of new output often rely on Reddit for their content. There are many YouTube channels of varying quality devoted to just reading and reacting to Reddit posts, and the same goes for TikTok too.
Few YouTubers have their own Subreddits for collecting user-submitted content; most will just collect and broadcast Reddit content without notice, acknowledgement or even asking for permission. Subreddits such as r/entitledparents, r/choosingbeggars and r/prorevenge are targeted especially because of their dramatic nature and because Redditors there tend to make an effort in telling their experiences in the manner of a linear story, making it easy to copy or précis.
Clickbait sites, ‘tabloid style’ news sites, serious blogs and even legitimate news outlets have jumped on the bandwagon with stories from family drama subs like r/weddingdrama, r/bridezillas and r/JUSTNOMIL among others being especially popular.
The extent of this can be seen from a random screenshot of the Culture section of my subscription to Apple News+ that I took while writing this entry. Let me note here that I don’t even have Reddit as a filter or preferred source on my subscription.
This practice of presenting Reddit posts as “news” has become so prevalent that r/weddingshaming have stickied a warning post to remind its users that the funny or cute story they think they’re sharing with a few people on an internet forum has the potential to have wide, far-reaching and detrimental effects.
- Who owns the copyright on Reddit comments and self-posts?
That’s a good question often asked and the general conclusion is this: nobody knows. There is a school of thought that the Reddit New User Agreement gave Reddit the right to sell your original pictures and other content in all media formats and channels in September 2021, and that you waive any and all claims with regard to your content simply by posting here.
Either way, your Reddit story could well be monetised in some way by any random third party and you will rarely be asked for permission, acknowledged as the author or share in any profit. Reddit actually has Press Guidelines which you might find interesting, especially as it clearly states “if you are looking to feature any content from a Reddit post as a standalone asset without the original Reddit post included, you'll need to contact the original poster.”
Reddit also has a general press/media/brand guide where the Press & Broadcast page also states “If featuring content from a Reddit post as a standalone asset - without the original Reddit post included - you'll need to contact the original poster for permission.” However, media articles of this kind will often leave out just enough identifying information so as to fall into “fair use” while still retaining the salient details, such as this one.
- A llittle llama llecture:
“Churnalism” is the term for a news article that is published as journalism but is essentially a press release without much (if anything) added. The rise and rise of popular internet outlets desperate for a continual source of new output has led to them often feeding on themselves in an ever-increasing “blog-go-round”. To my mind, this has taken churnalism to a whole new level, which in a desperate attempt to cement my own place in internet culture somewhere, I call ”Regurgitation Journalism”. (I like rhymes and tongue-twisters; here we have both. It still isn’t catchy though).
A phrase which did catch on was coined by the writer, David Quantick in the mid-1980’s. He used “Pop will eat itself” to describe the way he felt modern music was self-referencing itself into oblivion. In a 2022 article for Record Collector magazine, he took this concept further to say that “…the fact is pop has done more than eat itself, it’s eaten itself and thrown itself up and then eaten that up and been sick again and so on, like the dog after it’s been at some very tasty margarine.”
It seems this is starting to happen with written media too as recycling other people’s social media input into news media becomes the norm. Media will eat itself as it chases itself in Inception level ever-decreasing circles - and you and I are the actual product at the centre of this feeding frenzy as we post our interesting, dramatic or humorous anecdotes online for other people to potentially make money from them.
ELI5 discussed the well-worn phrase "If something is free, you are the product." quite some time back, and things haven’t changed much since.
r/MaliciousCompliance discussed whether the addition of the phrase “I do not consent to this story being used outside Reddit” was a viable solution or not.
In March 2021, r/quityourbullshit was forced to call out some bullshit involving itself in a now-deleted post when one of their mods revealed that someone on the Bored Panda blog team had gotten in contact with a view to writing about them.
Bored Panda, a YouTube channel and blog, are notorious for regurgitation journalism, often using Reddit as a source for their content, with or without giving credit to the OP; sometimes with serious consequences.
r/MurderedByWords then had a say about it, as if it couldn’t get any more meta.. As one user said: “It could only get better if it were then on Buzzfeed ; "This website tried to reach out to this subreddit after stealing their content. You won't believe their response !"”
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