A Viral Reddit Post About Food Delivery Apps Was an A.I. Scam ⇥ hardresetmedia.com

Elissa Welle, the Verge:

A viral Reddit confessional about a “major food delivery app” posted January 2nd is most likely AI-generated. The original post by user Trowaway_whistleblow alleged that an unnamed food delivery company regularly delays customer orders, calls couriers “human assets,” and exploits their “desperation” for cash, among other indefensible actions. Nearly 90,000 upvotes and four days later, it’s become increasingly clear that the post’s text is probably AI-generated.

The link from “viral Reddit confessional” is not to the thread itself, but to a link post from the Verge. That post, from Andrew J. Hawkins, still asks “[w]hich company do you think this is about?” and has not been updated to reflect the fictional status of this story.

Alex Schultz, Hard Reset:

But the allegations in the Reddit thread are not true. They are fabricated. The original post was generated by AI and was intended to defame Uber Eats. I know as much because I traded Signal messages with Trowaway_whistleblow, who additionally used AI to prepare a fake-but-sophisticated-looking “internal document” of other supposedly damning allegations; Trowaway_whistleblow circulated the document to journalists, hoping someone would take the bait and publish a libelous “scoop.”

I was shocked to see so many people posting a link to this thread credulously. I write that not to scold anyone, only out of genuine surprise that an evidence-free anonymous Reddit post with clear inconsistencies was being spread so widely. There is so much existing evidence that so-called “gig economy” workers are exploited, underpaid, and endangered, and that food delivery platforms specifically are bad for restaurants, that we simply do not need to add questionable Reddit posts to the mix. This scam played into that reputation perfectly. If anything, that is why it makes sense to be even more skeptical. Being too credulous undermines the documented failures of these platforms through the confusion it creates.