Reddit keeps its AMA rule for political ads and says AI tools cut spam exposure by 20%.
Reddit set out its US midterm plans: political ad rules unchanged, AI ads labelled, and detection it says revokes nearly 2 million fake upvotes a day.
Reddit has set out how it is handling the 2026 US midterm elections in a policy and safety post published on 13 October 2026.
Its political ads policy is not changing: a candidate or official campaign representative must take part in an AMA with the Reddit community before any political ad can run.
Reddit also gave two figures for its safety work. It says AI detection models have reduced user exposure to spam and ingenuine content by 20%, and that it now revokes nearly 2 million fake upvotes daily. The post does not give the period or the baseline for the 20% figure.
The political ads rules that stay the same
Reddit only accepts political ads in the US, and only at the federal level. Every political ad is reviewed by a person, political advertisers must be registered with Reddit, and any ad containing AI-generated content must be labelled. Like all Reddit ads, political ads cannot be deceptive, untrue or misleading.
AI content and election information
AI-generated content is not banned outright as long as it follows community rules and sitewide policy, but content designed to deliberately mislead people about real-world events or real individuals is forbidden however it was made. Reddit encourages users to disclose when AI generated or modified a post, for example with a text disclaimer. Its rules also prohibit intentionally misleading claims about the time, place and means of voting, voter eligibility, and the rules governing the electoral process.
The account u/UpTheVote returns as Reddit’s on-platform election resource, alongside an AMA series with nonpartisan groups including National Voter Registration Day and Vote Early Day. The Vote Early Day team will host an AMA in r/politics on Saturday 24 October.
What it means for brands
Reddit is now putting numbers on how hard it acts against ingenuine engagement, and it says the aim is that content earns its place through genuine human engagement rather than manipulation. Votes that do not come from that are what its systems are built to revoke. The AI disclosure line is encouragement for ordinary posts rather than a rule, but the expectation is now written down. This week, if your team posts AI-generated or AI-modified images on Reddit, add a short text disclaimer saying so.
Sources
The NBK Social briefing
Our Reddit coverage, and everything else we publish, by email.