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Ahead of IPO, Reddit blends advertising into user posts as FTC starts asking questions about that mega-deal with Google to train AI (www.theregister.com)

submitted 8 months ago by minnix@lemux.minnix.dev to c/technology

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[–] Powderhorn 37 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Here's the truly evil part:

All free-form adverts are supposed to show some kind of sponsored label, though that doesn't appear to be the case on the three posts included in this story. While Leica's shows it, neither Philadelphia post includes a tag indicating it's sponsored content. We understand that's because the Philadelphia posts are no longer boosted by ad spending, so are back to just being normal user posts.

Ad stays up in perpetuity, tag has a shelf life, after which it looks like a normal post. Can you sponsor a post for an hour like it's a seedy motel room?

Also: As these are regular posts with brief decoration, I'd assume uBO might have trouble filtering them out.

[–] jarfil 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like a great way for Reddit to force anyone trying to train an AI to pay for an ad-free dataset: buy the clean one, or scrape an ad ridden one. You wouldn't want risking your corporate AI to spew propaganda about your competitors, would you?

Enshittification intensifies.

[–] Powderhorn 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Better yet, ads coming soon to web searches filtered with site:reddit.com ...

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.de 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And they can still report that as ad delivery when that post is requested, even when the tag is no longer paid for

[–] Powderhorn 2 points 8 months ago

That user name is a true commitment to seasoning!

[–] noddy 2 points 8 months ago

I don't know what to do to get good search results anymore if this happens. Using site:reddit.com has been the only way recently to find opinions from actual people regarding some product I'm considering. Maybe I'll just stop buying things and go live in a cave. Can't trust any information online anymore.