Reddit says it won't take a cut from Reddit Reviews sales

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A couple of days ago I reported that Reddit is rolling out reviews for different products, informed by Redditors’ thoughts and molded by AI into into dedicated review pages for these products. Given Reddit says “many reviews also include images, prices, and purchase links”, I wondered whether Reddit would be making any affiliate money from this. Well, I now have an answer: the company tells us it will not receive a cut.

In an email sent to me, a Reddit rep explains: “Reddit Reviews is an organic experience, and Reddit does not receive a cut of any purchases made through the buy it now button on product pages.”

Not that I would have had a massive problem with this—PC Gamer earns affiliate revenue itself—but I suppose it’s good to know there won’t be a financial incentive there at least in that respect. And it does at least tie in with the aimed “organic” nature of Reddit in general.

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I was also concerned that users might review-bomb products they don’t like, or that companies could use bots to positively influence reviews for their own products. Reddit reassures us about that, too:

“Platform-wide, we are taking numerous steps to prevent and enforce against inauthentic content.”

(Image credit: Reddit)

Some of these steps include:

(Platform-wide) A layered approach involving moderators, the safety team, and user downvoting.
(Platform-wide) Improvements to automated tools.
(Reddit Reviews) LLMs trained to identify comments that describe personal experiences with a product.
(Reddit Reviews) Safeguards against inauthentic content including limiting repeat contributions from the same account, excluding comments that speculate or offer second-hand claims, and excluding brand-owned account contributions.

That’s certainly more reassuring than nothing, but we’ll have to see how it goes in practice. AI and bot farms make the modern landscape tricky business, and I’m sure there must already be actors out there giving pretty convincing supposedly first-personal reviews of products on different platforms, whether to bolster or undermine these products.

As always, the proof will be in the pudding (or rather, for the pedants, in the eating of it).

Reddit Reviews is rolling out to US iOS users and will cover around 10,000 products, but the company plans to add more products and expand to other locations throughout 2027.