Open link in next tab
Reddit, AI spam bots explore new ways to show ads in your feed
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/reddit-sneaky-ai-spam-bots-compete-to-sell-you-stuff/
Reddit says its "communities are naturally commercial."
It's like having someone who is disguised as your assistant but is actually a salesman for anyone who wants to pay them.
communities are naturally commercial
Really? Even "Die, Brand!" and other anti-commercislism communities?
•
If they can find a way to monetize it, yes.
Example: Fuck brand X, use brand Y instead? Turns out both brands are Nestle.
So, it's basically just an ad delivery system now? If everyone leaves I wonder if the bots will just keep showing ads to each other?
I wonder how profitable it would be to create a social media platform that was nothing but bots creating contents for other bots to consume.
New head canon: that's actually how Skynet starts.
A way that those suckers still stuck in that shithole could fight against this spam from within Reddit would be hostility. Basically: if someone mentions a brand, you tell them to sod off, call them a spammer, associate the brand with dead children, etc. Then the smart move from the advertisers' side would be to avoid being mentioned in Reddit.
Of course the suckers won't do it though. Any Reddit user with a shred of self-respect and willingness to fight against the sorry state of the platform already left it. Or at most interact with it passively.
•
That was tried long long ago, in the subreddit hail corporate. But the whole of Reddit mocked hail corporate. And now here we are.
It's less that it was the target of mockery and more like the target of whining. Like, "waaaaaaahh they mentioned r/hailcorporate again! This hurts my fee fees!". With then bootlicking mods using automod to filter out mentions of that sub.
Case in point yes, you're right that it would be even less feasible now than it was before.