Reddit outlines changes to reduce reliance on karma, expands AI moderation tools

Reddit announced on Wednesday a set of changes to its platform aimed at simplifying participation, preventing scraping and spam, and assisting community moderators. Among the notable updates, the company is developing more advanced abuse prevention systems that may eventually allow communities to rely less on account age and “karma” as gatekeeping criteria.

Karma, Reddit’s reputation score built from upvotes on posts and comments, was originally designed to filter out spam, bots, and trolls. However, many communities have adopted strict karma and account-age thresholds that inadvertently block legitimate newcomers. Reddit says it wants to shift to stronger built-in abuse prevention tools, potentially reducing karma’s significance. The company stopped short of eliminating karma, but suggested its importance could fade. “This will make it easier for genuine new users to participate and easier for mods to welcome them with confidence,” the announcement noted.

In addition, Reddit is expanding tests for its AI-powered moderation suite, the Rules Hub. This tool assists moderators by automatically enforcing community rules and deciding on appropriate actions. Initially available to over 700 communities, Rules Hub is now open to all new communities, with a wider rollout planned later this year for existing ones. The system uses large language models to interpret whether a post or comment aligns with a rule’s intent, aiming to handle nuance and edge cases more effectively.

Reddit also enhanced other moderation features, including tools for informing users about community rules and for setting custom user flair. The platform is updating its legacy desktop version, Old Reddit, by migrating moderator workflows and critical bots to the new stack.

Last week, Reddit reported second-quarter earnings with revenue of $805 million and earnings per share of $1.25, exceeding analyst estimates. Despite the strong results, shares fell as CEO Steve Huffman cited “choppy” search referral traffic. Executives have emphasized a goal of converting its 500 million weekly active users into daily users through ongoing product updates.