Reddit, AI spam bots explore new ways to show ads in your feed

#For sale: Ads that look like legit Reddit user posts

“We highly recommend only mentioning the brand name of your product since mentioning links in posts makes the post more likely to be reported as spam and hidden. We find that humans don’t usually type out full URLs in natural conversation and plus, most Internet users are happy to do a quick Google Search,” ReplyGuy’s website reads.

  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    It should be illegal to misrepresent an ad as a post or comment. This exact thing should be against the law. The boundary between advertising and social media is so thin at this point. It has to stop. It’s dangerous for consumers. Corporations should have to clearly label themselves at every turn. The usage of AI to intermingle advertising and social media should be blanket illegal.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The law requires YouTubers to identify sponsored segments. I don’t see why that shouldn’t also be applied to social media posts.

      • hayes_@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        The law does apply to social media posts.

        The social media company has to mark sponsored content and give users the means to do so themselves (when the partnership is between the user and a third party rather than the social media company).

        Unfortunately it’s hard to prove and profitable to lie.

      • Obinice@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The law requires YouTubers to identify sponsored segments.

        In which countries, though? That’s a key point that seems missed from a lot of responses discussing “the law”.

        Laws vary quite significantly from nation to nation, and without that key context, there’s not much that can be garnered.

        • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          The US, for one, which pretty much makes it apply universally anywhere on YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, as they’re all US companies.

  • egeres@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Does any body know of an open-source reddit alternative? God, I wish that existed :/

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 months ago

    I’ve been on Lemmy ever since the reddit API fracas. To date, I have not seen a reason to return. I have, however, seen many reasons to stay away.

      • Armok: God of Blood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Because they thought if they just folded to the site admins that everything would be okay in the end. “Oh, we built a community! We don’t want to lose it, so we’re opening back up so daddy Spez doesn’t take away our power!”

        • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          Most facepalm reaction tbh. If only they had some spine they would have switched immediately to lemmy, but most were just doing it to go along and never had any intentions of doing anything significant.

          • Kaldo@kbin.social
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            2 months ago

            Even as someone that’s still active here, this would never happen. Neither lemmy or Kbin were ready to replace reddit in either features, stability or support, not then and not even today. It’s unfortunate but reddit is not going to go down when there is no actual competition available.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “With Dynamic Product Ads, brands can tap into the rich, high-intent product conversations that people come to Reddit for," Reddit EVP of Business Marketing and Growth Jim Squires said in a statement.

    Gross.

    • AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      Jfc people came to Reddit because up until now they were getting replies from real people with that have no financial interest in the outcome. This completely subverts everything people valued about Reddit. This fucking guy.

      • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yes, but by completely destroying that they can make the line go up for 2 quarters, so worth it. Also, corpos would actually prefer users not having access to these discussion spaces and the free information they provide, so you would have to rely on overSEOd shit content and ads. I hate what the internet has become

        • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          They think that the entire reason the Internet exists is to sell things. To make you want to buy things. And if you tell them it’s not, they laugh.

  • deranger@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The style in which that post by Ophelia_SK is written seems exactly like chatGPT. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly makes me feel so strongly, but it’s something to do with how sentences and paragraphs are constructed. They always have the same cadence with the commas and how thoughts are laid out. It’s got that generically positive tone as well.

    Kinda cool though, I feel like I’m becoming able to spot these. It’s like being able to spot a photoshop by the pixels. I’ve seen quite a few shops in my time.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The depressing thing about all this is that this stuff actually works. Most people will happily consume whatever shit is served to them.

  • InvaderDJ@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It has definitely become more noticeable on Reddit that huge numbers of either compromised or sold accounts are being used by bots to sell shit. They are in basically every thread now, getting upvoted to appear more legit until someone calls them out and they delete their content.

    Reddit is definitely on the way down. And a decent amount along the way. But unfortunately, it still is the best option for a modern day message board. I want to use Lemmy more, but there just isn’t enough content being posted by enough people.

    • sandman@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      But unfortunately, it still is the best option for a modern day message board.

      For small communities that don’t have a significant lemmy presence? Sure, for now.

      I’m never going back to a community that can remove news-related posts without a modlog. That’s just asking for censorship and abuse by bad actors.