Reddit acqui-hires Sweden's Oterlu to boost ML content moderation
What's the deal? Reddit is bringing on the four-person team from OterluDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Gothenburg, Sweden startup that builds machine learning-powered content moderation tools. The team joins Reddit's Safety team to develop native ML models that detect harmful content across multiple languages, and to build new safety tools for moderators. Terms were not disclosed.
The talent: Oterlu was co-founded in 2019 by former Google Trust and Safety lead Alexander Gee, alongside Ludvig Gee and Sebastian Nabrink. All three co-founders are among the four staff making the move, a Reddit spokesperson confirmed. Oterlu's expertise spans natural language processing, AI models, and machine learning to detect bullying, harassment, and grooming.
What's the endgame? Reddit says the hire will "accelerate the scale, sophistication and internationalization of Reddit's automated safety capabilities internally and for moderators." The company has spent recent months testing new tools, including a summer pilot called the Hateful Content Filter that lets moderators set a harassment threshold for their community, and Ban Evasion Protection, which filters posts from suspected ban evaders.
Why now? The deal extends an acquisition spree focused on AI and ML. Last month, Reddit bought audience contextualisation firm SpiketrapDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → to improve ad quality scoring and auto-bidding. In June, it acquired natural language processing company MeaningCloudDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and in July it picked up Spell, a platform for running machine learning experiments.
The signal: Reddit is building AI and ML capability in-house, with safety a clear priority. Buying teams rather than products lets it scale moderation faster and in more languages — a growing concern for platforms hosting user-generated content at scale.
Read more: TechCrunch
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