this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
101 points (94.7% liked)

Technology

6351 readers
347 users here now

Which posts fit here?

Any news that are at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies or tech policy.


Post guidelines

[Opinion] prefixOpinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.


Rules

1. English onlyTitle and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original linkPost URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communicationAll communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. InclusivityEveryone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacksAny kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangentsStay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may applyIf something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.


Companion communities

!globalnews@lemmy.zip
!interestingshare@lemmy.zip


Icon attribution | Banner attribution


If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @brikox@lemmy.zip.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

An investigation into the AI bots that appeared on Reddit after they partnered with OpenAI.

Key points:

  • The bots post a lot of links to products and services which appear to be adverts but are not marked as such.
  • Many of these links are for Sam Altman’s World ID.
  • Reddit added terms on AI advertising to their business page around the time the bots appeared.
  • The bots also make up stories about dead mothers, depression, drug addiction, eating disorders, medical conditions and mental health issues.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] scytale@piefed.zip 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I go there for specific sports subs and my city sub, and I sometimes check the home page just to see what's going on. There are a lot of posts that look innocent, then usually someone will comment "If was smart, they would use this to market their product", then the next reply is always "they just did" or "look again". At least some people notice, but that's not stopping those posts from reaching the front page and getting a ton of engagement.

Examples:

  • A video of a UPS driver properly relocating packages left haphazardly (and tossed carelessly) by the Fedex driver and USPS driver who coincidentally delivered packages earlier on the same day.
  • Video of the burger king CEO actually taking a huge bite of his burger. It was made to look like the video was taken randomly, and the post title didn't have any indication that it was made to ride the wave with the trending mcdonald's CEO. And there were tons of comments suspiciously talking about BK's burgers being better anyway, etc.
  • Feel good and made-me-smile videos that suspiciously have branding prominently displayed on an item in the video and comments that talk about the product.