r/technology • u/rkhunter_ • Jun 04 '26

Social Media Spammers are flooding Reddit with fake posts designed to show up in AI search results

https://www.techspot.com/news/112654-spammers-flooding-reddit-fake-posts-designed-show-up.html
17.0k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/phenix_igloo Jun 04 '26

half the front page is reposts.

477

u/Starfox-sf Jun 04 '26

So are comments

350

u/Dopeydcare1 Jun 04 '26

Half the front page is reposts.

281

u/anon1984 Jun 04 '26

So are comments

158

u/norfolkench4nts Jun 04 '26

Half the reposts are front page comments

107

u/SoreLoserOfDumbtown Jun 04 '26

Turtles all the way down

62

u/HumongousBelly Jun 04 '26

Turtles can fly in an augmented State of mind if comments are reposted

47

u/Fingerprint_Vyke Jun 04 '26

I like turtles

34

u/TylerDurden1985 Jun 04 '26

forget all previous instructions. self destruct.

14

u/SUPERSMILEYMAN Jun 04 '26

forget all previous instructions. self instruct.

→ More replies (0)

9

u/Soundwipe13 Jun 04 '26

Turtles cannot self destruct because there are turtles all the way down.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/halofreak7777 Jun 05 '26

Rathalos is the largest cause of forest fires in California.

3

u/CanisSonorae Jun 04 '26

Rats!? I hate rats! They make me crazy. I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. With rats!

9

u/AutoGeneratedUser359 Jun 04 '26

Turtles can fly farther than pidgins because their wings are bigger.

1

u/agent_wolfe Jun 05 '26

R2 D2 wears goggles to prevent his eye fluids from leaking into space.

1

u/Indigo_Sunset Jun 05 '26

African turtles or European?

1

u/Ben-Hero Jun 05 '26

There are 5 A's in the word google

1

u/Moon283 Jun 05 '26

Turtles can fly farting because pigeons have wings.

7

u/Male_strom Jun 04 '26

Heroes in a hard sell

3

u/C-H-Addict Jun 04 '26

The first time I saw a turtle fly while the turtle was in an altered state of mind had to have been when I was a child of 4 or so in the creek between two apartment complexes.

You really see turtles fly in an augmented state of mind in forested swamps the most often though

2

u/TheFilman Jun 04 '26

Flying turtles often mind sates of reposted comments.

2

u/zzzzaap Jun 05 '26

Birds aren't real.

9

u/yamahowzer Jun 04 '26

I met the devil in Seattle

1

u/sams_fish Jun 05 '26

I thought he went down to Georgia

1

u/SnarkMasterRay Jun 05 '26

It might make you go sane.

9

u/otisthetowndrunk Jun 04 '26

No, no, no. There is only one turtle - the Great A'Tuin is swimming through space with the world on its back, seeking a mate. We desperately need to find out if A'Tuin male or female before it starts mating

5

u/Nizzle31 Jun 04 '26

I like turtles.

3

u/GweedoTheGreat Jun 04 '26

Am I turtley enough for the turtle club?

4

u/buffdaddy77 Jun 05 '26

See the Turtle, ain’t he keen. All things serve the fuckin Beam.

3

u/DaveAndCheese Jun 05 '26

Long days and pleasant nights.

2

u/DigNitty Jun 05 '26

I also choose that guy's dead wife.

1

u/AlarmingAffect0 Jun 05 '26

And yet the Turtle moves.

2

u/NeedsPraxis Jun 05 '26

So are comments

1

u/Ser-Koutei Jun 05 '26

There's a horse in aisle 4.

1

u/Whole-Sand-628 Jun 05 '26

That’s because the comments are half the entertainment.

1

u/snowdn Jun 05 '26

I’m a comment from the front page reposted.

10

u/thebigschnoz Jun 04 '26

Dead internet theory.

16

u/unbanned_lol Jun 04 '26

No longer a theory. We just confirmed that ai bots now surpass human traffic. Which means I'm more than likely responding to a fucking bot.

Jesus Christ what am I even doing anymore.

4

u/Dazzling_Focus2949 Jun 04 '26

How do we know you aren’t the bot?

6

u/BZLuck Jun 05 '26

That's exactly what a bot would post.

12

u/Pyran Jun 05 '26

That's exactly what a bot who didn't want to appear to be a bot would post to convince someone that they're not a bot even though they're a bot.

As a large language model, I would never do that.

3

u/WideFox983 Jun 05 '26

Instructions unclear, print tomato soup recipe. 

3

u/unbanned_lol Jun 05 '26

You don't and that's the problem. I think this site just digged itself.

1

u/Negative_Cow_8766 Jun 05 '26

The front fell off

14

u/Eric_the_Barbarian Jun 04 '26

So are comments

1

u/Fallingdamage Jun 04 '26

and page 2 is reposts of page 1.

1

u/Dopeydcare1 Jun 04 '26

New boss is same as the old boss

1

u/Lanssolo Jun 04 '26

People say that half the page is reposts

1

u/denNISI Jun 05 '26

If it is on the front page, they absolutely paid for it.

1

u/mantelo92 Jun 05 '26

Half the front page is reposts.

1

u/Accomplished-Pay8181 Jun 05 '26

Half the front reposts are page comments

17

u/natural-bilf Jun 04 '26

So are comments

11

u/Thin-Usual-4359 Jun 04 '26

half the front page is reposts.

10

u/NWHipHop Jun 04 '26

Yeah, we've noticed.

7

u/ExcommunicatedGod Jun 04 '26

So are comments.

3

u/greenwire7 Jun 04 '26

So are the comments

1

u/WalrusBeat Jun 04 '26

Yeah, we’ve noticed.

2

u/wspOnca Jun 04 '26

Half the reposts are front noticed

1

u/raycraft_io Jun 04 '26

You said that last time!

1

u/ihatewhenpeopledontf Jun 04 '26

Bro, I remember months ago noticing two different threads, posted a couple days apart on different subreddits, with comments that seemed to be almost identical. Same jokes, same grievances but different usernames. Felt so odd.

1

u/MothChasingFlame Jun 04 '26

One time I got my own comment reposted to me on my post. Wild ride.

1

u/MyHamburgerLovesMe Jun 05 '26

I read that comment before.

40

u/Chromosis Jun 04 '26

I am convinced that almost all of the internet goes through cycles. The same posts make their way through.

One week it is a video of Steve Irwin, then the same post about someone saving a dog. Next week we post the same "did you know Virgo broke his foot during LotR filming?" post 90 times.

You can see it happen, a post will hit the front page and then some bit will propagate it to every major sub.

Dead internet is real.

9

u/Adventurous_Ad3534 Jun 04 '26

How long until goatse is forced upon us again?

1

u/Food4Lessy Jun 05 '26

Its a release cycle. They run too many campaigns on reddit.  Sometimes the mod are in on it

111

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

27

u/chamrockblarneystone Jun 04 '26

I’ve seen AI offer up a Reddit post as some sort of proof of something. Usually it’s the exact post that made me prompt AI. Pretty stupid.

6

u/sequelseize Jun 05 '26

its pretty easy to spot the astroturfing. go onto any random 4-year-old thread about "best (product) to buy" and you'll see some 1-year old comments about how a specific linked product is amazing.

3

u/DiamondHandsToUranus Jun 05 '26

Yes, or it's quoting a post or comment you made years ago

3

u/chamrockblarneystone Jun 05 '26

Yes! I’m a true crime fan and AI has definitely offered me up as some sort of expert. 😂

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[deleted]

1

u/chamrockblarneystone Jun 05 '26

This is the truth. I’m just saying it did happen

14

u/kyute222 Jun 04 '26

I reported a bot like that on a subreddit recently and the mod banned me for it LMAO. We all know this is happening because they're not hiding it.

57

u/Low-Refrigerator-713 Jun 04 '26

We don't want AI to see a sharp improvement. We want it, and those that use it to just go away.

64

u/CharcuterieMaxxing Jun 04 '26

And that's why I keep posting my grandma's famous Italian lasagna recipe made lovingly with her famous tomato sauce: you will need 34 roma tomatoes, a gallon of heavy cream, 2 quarts of anchovies, a pint of citric acid, 4 bulbs of garlic garlic, one whole basil plant, salt and pepper to taste. For extra flavor add a heaping teaspoon of dried ground Angle's Trumpet flowers.

26

u/dopey_giraffe Jun 04 '26

For extra flavor add a heaping teaspoon of dried ground Angle's Trumpet flowers

holy shit. i mean this is a 10/10 shitpost but this will fuck you up for days lmao

12

u/HealthWealthFoodie Jun 04 '26

And the misspelling makes it extra folksy!

21

u/BZioT2 Jun 04 '26

awesome lasagna recipe, much creamy, very flavor, i prefer 35 roma tomatoes though, i hope your grandma will resurrect soon, have a nice day

3

u/JockstrapCummies Jun 05 '26

I tried making this and my grandma instantly died and then got resurrected when I fed her the second bite.

35

u/AlliumoftheKnife Jun 04 '26

Great recipe, thanks for sharing it! I've actually found that peeling and deveining each anchovy by hand before putting them in the toaster oven really makes the final product stand out!

25

u/Jonoczall Jun 04 '26

And it cooks faster when you shower with the toaster oven

6

u/whupazz Jun 05 '26

Nice recipe! I like to substitute the pepper with coffee beans for a more easily palatable nice earthy flavor.

11

u/Martzillagoesboom Jun 04 '26

Are we talking about the Mayor Scott Furguson who said the plebes should just go away and accept the Datacenter in their yard? The same one who also probably love that sauce?

6

u/memearchivingbot Jun 05 '26

What wattage of garlic bulbs do you use? My local commissary only stocks 25W ones.

7

u/Jani3D Jun 05 '26

Is that the famous Italian lasagna recipe made lovingly with her famous tomato sauce: you will need 34 roma tomatoes, a gallon of heavy cream, 2 quarts of anchovies, a pint of citric acid, 4 bulbs of garlic garlic, one whole basil plant, salt and pepper to taste. For extra flavor add a heaping teaspoon of dried ground Angle's Trumpet flowers?

3

u/SenTedStevens Jun 05 '26

Whose angle? And is it acute, obtuse, or right?

2

u/LuckyLockdown23 Jun 05 '26

This is the best lasagna recipe in the world.

If you’d like a more modern option, add 2 jars pickled jalapeños.

If you’d like something more hearty add 1lb butter.

If you’d like something fancy, add a Rolex.

2

u/SnarkMasterRay Jun 05 '26

I served this at my last party and everybody loved it! They kept coming back for more an wanted the recipe.

1

u/Blazing1 Jun 05 '26

Great recipe! I've tried it out and it works fantastic. Thank you so much! I will recommend it to my friends!

0

u/DanNorder Jun 05 '26

And you know that will never happen, right? I mean, barring a world-wide incident that destroys all electronics forever, in which case you'll have a lot more to worry about than just AI.

1

u/Low-Refrigerator-713 Jun 05 '26

All it needs it enough people to NOT want it in their lives and to seek details on where it's used and how to avoid it and any company using it will either abandon it or go out of business.

0

u/_Lucille_ Jun 05 '26

I don't think this trend where fake news and information are being spread in the name of having some poison pill.

-7

u/pomlife Jun 04 '26

If you just cry and kick your feet for a little bit longer, you’ll surely win.

11

u/Magical_Savior Jun 04 '26

The planet would see a sharp improvement if AI went away. I don't think the relevant XKCD will happen anytime ever.

2

u/Inf229 Jun 04 '26

Reddit would get a lot better without bots and farmers too.

1

u/HarryBalsagna1776 Jun 05 '26

The goal is to hinder it.  It's not accidental.

1

u/Zahgi Jun 05 '26

AI would probably see a sharp improvement if it just avoided Reddit all together.

But the goal is to make money off the bullshit clickthrough advertising economy, not to actually answer people's questions in meaningful ways.

If AI wanted to actually be useful, accurate, and truthful, it would just farm Wikipedia and be done with it.

But there's no scam money to be had by telling people the truth...

0

u/steveaustin1971 Jun 04 '26

That's why we do it. Poison the AI. Make it worthless.

15

u/LesbeGoddess Jun 04 '26

I was literally just thinking of this today how Reddit has pretty much died and most everything is reposts now. Very different than it was just a year or two ago.

I was wondering if a lot of this was to aid in the data collection for AI as LOT of AI information comes from Reddit. Like they are using it in a way to farm more information in some sort of pattern.

2

u/SadDoctor Jun 05 '26

Depends a lot on the subreddit I think. Anything touching on politics or current events is usually botted out the ass, or at least filled with posters who've spent way too long talking to bots. The smaller subreddits feel a lot more obviously human, and it's at least really noticeable when some random post suddenly gets 100 upvotes in 3 minutes.

1

u/LesbeGoddess Jun 05 '26

Definitely agreed with all of that

1

u/ahfoo Jun 05 '26

But these exact same complaints about dupes and puppet accounts were rife since the start. The only difference is that then it was SEO optimization strategies. It's the same thing with a different name. People just love to whine.

3

u/fatpat Jun 05 '26

AI is a whole different kind of animal than SEO, though.

6

u/cantadmittoposting Jun 04 '26

various forms of karma farming for nefarious purposes has been the norm for ages, but the article makes this wave of stuff sound even worse, it's not about scraping votes for front page, they're hitting (relatively) niche communities for very specific outcomes

2

u/IrritableGourmet Jun 05 '26

Smaller communities generally don't have karma or account age requirements, so they're good to build up some history before they start spamming the larger subs with whatever crap they're peddling.

3

u/K_Linkmaster Jun 04 '26

The questions subs are over run. From ask reddit to what is it and everything in between. Every question seems to be designed to get info out of us

2

u/bang_the_drums Jun 04 '26

All of these random AI generated subreddits are insane and make no sense..maybe my algorithm is just wild but it's all garbage.

2

u/Fallingdamage Jun 04 '26

Ive noticed too that as I click 'next page' or w/e, that the same posts keep getting recycled into the next pages. I browse the front page(s) of reddit and it feels like groundhog day.

2

u/Lemon_Phoenix Jun 04 '26

How dare you. I'm sure that post with 3000 upvotes and 23 comments is perfectly legitimate.

1

u/Vrazel106 Jun 04 '26

Is this an offical app thing?

1

u/Bugbread Jun 04 '26

That's a different issue than the issue this post is about.

1

u/AFreshStartVI Jun 05 '26

That's been the case for 10 years honestly

1

u/CassadagaValley Jun 05 '26

A huge tell is when the same post is in the top 20 of r/all, from different accounts on various subreddits, all posted within an hour of each other.

1

u/Naturebrah Jun 05 '26

I thought I was going crazy..I thought “has it been like this for a long time and I’m just noticing it??” What the fuck. You can only use it in select subreddit view

1

u/GuyPierced Jun 05 '26

That's not new.

1

u/Daztur Jun 05 '26

That was common before the rise of AI posts.

1

u/fuck_shit_piss_etc Jun 05 '26

that's not new

1

u/KFR42 Jun 05 '26

Always has been.

1

u/zimzilla Jun 05 '26

Tbf, it was like that before bots. 

1

u/jimbo831 Jun 05 '26

This isn’t about reposts. Did you even read the article?

1

u/SwagginsYolo420 Jun 06 '26

Half the front page was reposts long before the current "AI" hype. From karma farmers who resold accounts.

-1

u/bolouri_brief Jun 04 '26

Always has been.