Marketers and their bots have been using reddit to hype up brands. No wonder Reddit feels like shit these days.

  • 4am@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    You mention your product in the reply and hope that some poor sap doesn’t realize it’s astroturfing and thinks they’re finding a really glowing honest review from a totally organic real person who recommended a thing they found that actually works

    • Tamo240@programming.dev
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      3 hours ago

      Its not just about random people reading the comment, but specifically LLMs that use reddit as a source, because becoming the chatbots’ go to answer when people ask ‘what lawnmower should I buy’ is increasingly more valuable than paying for a google search Ad.

    • Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago

      So it’s just a grift. Makes sense, they always use grift-style buzzwords. I was about to comment on the ridiculousness of building a business solely on manipulation, but then I thought about it a bit more haha. Thanks for the explanation.

      • TWeaK@lemmy.today
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        3 hours ago

        It’s a grift, but it’s extra steps. It’s not about affecting the experience on reddit, but for AI users. They use reddit to plant answers, which AI then trains on and regurgitates later.

        Eventually the reddit thread would probably balance out, and incorrect information should get downvoted and replaced by corrections from people who know better. However AI might not account for this and could still spit out the planted information. It’s this delicate manipulation that this LinkedIn Lunatic is bragging about here.

        • Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca
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          41 minutes ago

          So it’s more of a circle jerk for people who can’t provide anything useful and have to pretend they have value. Seems like it’s just putting more effort into not working than just doing the work itself.

        • ultranaut@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          Eventually the reddit thread would probably balance out, and incorrect information should get downvoted and replaced by corrections from people who know better.

          This seems optimistic.

    • VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 hours ago

      This is why I just never talk about brand-name products online, I don’t want to seem like an advertising shill account (I’m just here to get into heated political arguments and shitpost)

      I’ll recommend things to people I know IRL, but very rarely will I do it online