this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
351 points (95.6% liked)

Not The Onion

16937 readers
1220 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

But Huffman said Reddit was now battling to ensure its users stay at the center of the social network. “Where the rest of the internet seems to be powered by or written by or summarized by AI, Reddit is distinctly human,” he said. “It’s the place you go when you want to hear from people, their lived experiences, their perspectives, their recommendations. Reddit is communities and human curation and conversation and authenticity.”

As Reddit becomes an increasingly important source for LLMs, advertisers are responding with what one agency chief described as a “massive migration” to the platform.

Multiple advertising and agency executives speaking during this month’s Cannes advertising festival told the FT that brands were increasingly exploring hosting a business account and posting content on Reddit to boost the likelihood of their ads appearing in the responses of generative AI chatbots.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Makeshift@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

They chase away the humans and ban the ones that are left!

[–] BlueAlienMom@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Lots of people here keep mentioning that most shadowbans were caused by things they said, usually related to politics, but I've been instantly shadowbanned (and then suspended) after posting a comment about gnats fungus in the houseplants subreddit that, as far as I know, had nothing to do with politics.

Before this, it happened after posting a comment about digital art (which again had nothing to do with politics); so the question still remains: What is the point of all this besides making people frustrated and disappointed?

[–] MangioneDontMiss@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago

Probably why they are banning so many REAL users at such a high rate.

[–] MangioneDontMiss@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago

LMFTFY

Battling to ensure right wing users stay at the center of the social network.

Fixed it.

[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

"remain"? They really don't use their own service, do they?

[–] Buske@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

And controlled by 15 mods.

[–] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I'm wondering if advertisers are starting to notice - that's the only thing that'll make these fuckers try to clean house. It's maybe two years since I left reddit and even then it was absolutely infested with bots. They didn't give a fuck, only cared about the IPO. But advertisers are going to care when they get lots of engagement but no customers because all the engagement is bots.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Do they have a way to test that? Surely the advertisers wouldn't just trust meta, google, reddit, etc.

[–] mrnarwall@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I've worked on some enterprise projects specifically to detect bot activity, so that they wouldn't waste ML resources on a fake customer. While it's a bit of a cat and mouse game, they can certainly review past data for their advertising campaign and the conversion rates they are getting in order to determine if reddit ads are worth the money

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago

That's good to hear, I hope they have many fights about it.

[–] Nangijala 8 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's gotten to the point that if someone were to ask me what my super power would be if I could choose, I'd say that I'd like to be able to see what is human and what isn't when I'm online. Very boring super power, but it would make some things a lot easier.

Ironically I also lost count on how many times I was accused of being a bot near the end of my time on reddit. I wouldn't be surprised if those who accused me were bots themselves. It was just insane sometimes.

But good luck with that, Mr CEO. I'm sure you care very much about your human users on your goofy platform.

[–] LadyButterfly@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Me too...any tips for spotting it?

[–] Nangijala 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It is so tricky and i dont have any good answers as I'm a tech-idiot, but I'll try my best to give you some suggestions:

In the past you may come across a comment that sounded overly robotic and emotionless when they commented, but that might as well just be someone on the spectrum. Nowadays some bot comments sound more human than actual human comments. I really cannot tell.

I think I was often accused of being a bot because I tend to go into detail about things that interest me and try to explain things in too many paragraphs, lol. I have tried to learn how to shorten my replies to people but I fucking fail everytime. I literally just spammed a friend with a long ramble about why the Syrian flag looks different and went into the history of the flag and made a cliff notes version of the conflict in Syria because it randomly became an interest for me for a few minutes after a car passed my window with the new Syrian flag on the car helmet. So maybe that trait is a bit off putting to random people who cross my path online. I dunno.

Anyway, I have heard that some people look at sentence structure and grammar to decipher who is real and who isn't. If the grammar is too good, the sentence structures too perfect, then some people suspect it is a bot. But it's probably just a matter of time before bots will adapt to poor grammar and writing patterns. If they can go from sounding like a Wikipedia page to cracking jokes and sounding human in less than five years, they can learn how to imitate shitty writing patterns that most of us have. I for one tend to accidentally press the s when I want to press the a and I usually catch it before posting, but sometimes I overlook it.

Usually, on reddit, I would check the comment history of someone I suspected of being a bot. If they posted way too much, like seconds between each comment and in various different subs for hours, I would conclude they were a bot, but I don't think all bots are like that.

I dunno how I would spot bots in the fediverse, tbh. Maybe similar, checking the comment history if i suspect a bot, but otherwise i dunno man.

Usually I go by how people behave. Anyone who acts insane or aggressive gets blocked. I am too old to deal with shit like that, but that has less to do with bots and more to do with no longer tolerating extremely divisive behavior.

[–] LadyButterfly@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

That's really helpful thanks mate. And I agree, banging your head against a brick wall just hurts your head

[–] Lucky_777@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago

Bots dominate Reddit. This will never change. Straight lying to everyone's faces.

[–] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 10 points 14 hours ago

He said, in his best human voice.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 6 points 17 hours ago

Ah ! so when do they roll it back ?

[–] PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 5 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

not this human

sent from my pinephone

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 12 points 21 hours ago

And we're supposed to take his word for it?

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

So he wants it to be a huge testing grounds with ai for anybody that uses it, got it.

Use the platform? You are talking with and training AI.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

he wants to be facebook essentially, also like to point out that reddit bans the word facebook and FB.

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Ewwww why (besides the obvious lack of moral-compass greed) would you want to be Facebook?

[–] MBech 1 points 8 hours ago
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 29 points 1 day ago

I'm guessing he hasn't browsed his own site recently then.

Probably nothing there to interest him since they banned /r/jailbait

[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 32 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Maybe he shouldn't have permabanned all of us power users after the Inauguration. He might have some active humans posting if he hadn't let the DOGE Goblin intimidate him into firing all of his best posters, the ones who built Reddit into what it was over the past decade. WE were Reddit, not bots, and now we're gone, and only the bots remain.

Good job, Spez.

[–] neuromorph@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

The only thing I miss from reddit was reddit gifts. That was the true peak.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 17 hours ago

they were already on the 4th purge by the time i was permaban in feb, from nov-5th. and then im guessing they switched to using more insidious shadowbans, so people wont notice huge drop in users at once if its done randomly by AI, and shadowbans to alert the accounts that they are banned too.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm glad he did, I like Lemmy so much more.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

People here don’t commonly wish for your death while insulting your grandmother. It’s peaceful.

[–] TriPolarBearz@lemmy.world 4 points 19 hours ago

I hope you are enjoying life, and your grandmother is a wonderful lady.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

I've had something close to this coming from the good folks of hexbear when I said I was french. Apparently I am barred from talking about imperialism because of my citizenship

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago

"Trust me!" says yet another capitalist.

[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

...with AI admin and moderation. Anyone who's been banned from reddit will tell you that, hell it says as much in the message they give you. I was banned once for saying "slava ukraini" which according to my ban was a direct attack at a minority (apparently russians are a minority according to reddit bots) and then another for asking how long before citizens begin shooting at ICE agents which, again according to reddit bots, was inciting violence on a minority (ICE agents are now also a minority according to reddit).

the vast majority of posts and comments are bots. the obvious reposts with misleading titles to generate karma to allow said bots to have enough karma to then post on various other subreddits to push whatever bullshit agenda or product they want to push.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 1 points 17 hours ago

im on the forum where people are doing that, pushing thier products, and businesses. but reddit only went after these users, and not propaganda bots.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 48 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] D_C@lemm.ee 17 points 1 day ago

Wow, that's a bit unfair. What has he ever done to show he's a lying, money grabbing, scummy piece of shit?

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 day ago

Remember how corporations are people? Well, bots can be human if you pay enough.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If we don’t look for bots, there aren’t any. Sounds more republican every day. If we don’t record covid deaths, there aren’t any.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Tramort@programming.dev 190 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Starting when?

That ship has sailed.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 80 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The ship was never at that port.

Reddit was using bots and vote manipulators back to the Digg days, as well as scraping/reposting akin to what 9gag became famous for.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] wanderwisley@lemm.ee 51 points 1 day ago
[–] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 57 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Half of the comments are from bots and everyone gets autobanned.

Reddit is quite literally on autopilot

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

brands were increasingly exploring hosting a business account and posting content on Reddit to boost the likelihood of their ads appearing in the responses of generative AI chatbots

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Pretty sure all the humans left Reddit like two years ago.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] SirMaple__@lemmy.ca 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Sho@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fuck, can this loser just fuck off into oblivion already?? You got your money pig boi now piss off!

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It’s like Zuck. Why do you keep at it? You won already. The answer is that they are deeply flawed people who needed to go into therapy decades back.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Tronn4@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago
[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 52 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

He didn't say entirely or how many, lol. If there's 2 humans writing, it's technically still, "It's the place you go when you want to hear from people."

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›