Companies flood Reddit with fake posts to manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI search results

Spammers are flooding Reddit with fake posts designed to show up in AI search results

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. A hot potato: Moderators of the /biohackers subreddit say they are dealing with spam that isn't just about pushing sales, but about shaping how AI systems answer questions. They say companies are seeding discussions with posts intended to appear in AI-generated answers, effectively turning the subreddit into a battleground over which information large language models surface. According to the moderators, companies that sell peptides and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have been posting strategically in the forum to shape content that AI models later incorporate into their answers. The tactic hinges on Reddit's growing role as a source for AI tools. "As AI search engines increasingly pull answers from Reddit, companies are using us for AEO (answer engine optimization)," the moderators wrote. "On top of that, there's been an explosion of peptide interest and AI usage flooding the sub. Together, this has put serious pressure on content quality." In a policy update posted last week, the moderators said they would ban new standalone posts about peptides and HRT, limiting discussion to weekly megathreads. The decision follows what they describe as a sustained effort by vendors to use the subreddit as part of "answer engine optimization," or AEO. The approach reflects a broader shift in how online visibility is engineered. Rather than focusing solely on search rankings, AEO aims to insert specific narratives and brand mentions into the kinds of discussions AI systems are most likely to surface. Because platforms like ChatGPT and Google's AI search frequently cite Reddit, highly engaged threads can end up functioning as de facto source material. Also read: Bots have officially overtaken humans on the internet Reddit moderators say the activity they're seeing is more subtle than traditional spam. Rather than overt promotion, posts are designed to generate engagement first, with brand mentions worked into the discussion in ways that appear organic. "But what I'm seeing that is way scarier to me is that there are companies that will reverse-engineer the actual prompt patterns that are prioritized by LLMs," one moderator said. "And so you'll see someone post a super clickbait, high-traction, vague question like 'Is all the hype around Vitamin D actually worth it?'" they added. Those posts perform well because people have strong opinions, which drives engagement and makes it more likely LLMs will pick them up. Brands then work in references that look natural, but are deliberately placed as part of coordinated campaigns to push certain products or narratives into AI-generated responses. The accounts behind these posts are often difficult to flag. Moderators describe "warmed up" profiles with posting histories that make them look like typical users. In some cases, real people are paid or otherwise incentivized to participate, further blurring the line between genuine discussion and coordinated promotion. "A lot of it has become pattern recognition," the moderator said. "You literally just sort of know what to look for. But the problem is you don't want to become punitive to the people who aren't doing this maliciously, and so I think the over-moderation risk is very real." The issue is especially sensitive in a community centered on self-experimentation and emerging therapies. Peptides cover a wide range of injectable compounds, from GLP-1 drugs to less-regulated substances marketed for muscle growth, recovery, and anti-aging. HRT, meanwhile, has both established clinical uses and a growing presence in longevity-focused circles. Moderators say that mix already carries risk, even before factoring in coordinated promotion. One moderator said peptides are moving into the mainstream despite thin regulation and real potential for clinical validation - but that growth is happening alongside risky sourcing, posts from teens seeking questionable outcomes, and coordinated vendor efforts using AI-driven tactics to steer users toward their products. That overlap between marketing and health decisions is what ultimately pushed the team to act. "There's an element of brands using Reddit to manipulate consumers and get people to buy their products and sort of the ethics of marketing and how the attention economy is evolving under AI," the moderator said. "But then for us specifically, it's like how do we prevent actual physical harm?" "I just feel like, the dead internet, there's this sadness I feel of this one place on the internet that was so human is sort of eroding and becoming bogged up with artificial AI-driven content," the moderator said. "I think that's super depressing." Reddit said it continues to expand its moderation capabilities. A spokesperson told 404 Media that the company relies on a combination of human review and automated systems to detect and remove manipulative content, and that moderators have access to tools designed to flag likely spam accounts. But for the moderators of r/Biohackers and potentially hundreds of other subreddits, the challenge is not just scale. It's that the activity increasingly blends in with normal conversation, making it harder to separate manipulation from genuine participation. "I just feel like, the dead internet, there's this sadness I feel of this one place on the internet that was so human is sort of eroding and becoming bogged up with artificial AI-driven content," the moderator said. "I think that's super depressing." Masthead: Spambots by Neil Mendoza

Companies Are Using Reddit to Manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search

Peptide companies have been doing AI-engine optimization by spamming the biohackers subreddit to manipulate ChatGPT and Google. The moderators of the biohacking subreddit say that peptide and hormone replacement therapy companies have been surreptitiously spamming Reddit in an attempt to get their posts scraped by AI chatbots. The strategy is an effort to systematically manipulate the answers provided by chatbots by manipulating the underlying source material that those chatbots will scrape -- in this case, a popular Reddit community. In a post last week, the moderators of r/biohackers said they would be banning new posts about peptides and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) because of attempted manipulation by the companies that make, market, and sell them. r/Biohackers is a long-running subreddit about using supplements, experimental pharmacology, and other longevity or fitness-adjacent themes; peptides and HRT have become a wildly popular topic of discussion on the subreddit, especially as companies try to market them off-label or as grey-market compounds. "As AI search engines increasingly pull answers from Reddit, companies are using us for AEO. On top of that, there's been an explosion of peptide interest and AI usage flooding the sub. Together, this has put serious pressure on content quality," a post by the moderators read. AEO is AI-engine optimization, and it is an evolution of search engine optimization where brands and marketing companies attempt to create content that they hope will be scraped by large language models. Manipulating Reddit with bots, sock puppet accounts, and human accounts that are paid to promote brands has become a core strategy of firms that do AEO, because Reddit has become one of most-often cited sources by popular AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI search. For example, a company called RedRover offers AEO and SEO for companies; on its home page, it says "rank #1 on Search and get cited by AI: AI agents that mass publish content to help you rank on Google, ChatGPT, and Reddit -- driving traffic to your site from every corner of the internet." "An army of agents publishing blog content & reddit posts that solves both SEO & AEO at scale," RedRover advertises. Peptides cover a spectrum of injectable amino acids, from GLP-1 to a series of compounded and grey-market substances that can be used for muscle growth and recovery, hair growth, skincare and anti-aging, and a host of other uses; HRT is also used for many reasons, including by trans people as gender-affirming care, but also by women going through perimenopause or menopause, and by people in the life extension and biohacking communities. Both of these industries have exploded in recent years. The industry is made up of a mix of companies trying to operate in a legitimate way and sketchier companies whose products may be unsafe. Basically, it's something of a health Wild West. "We see the rise of things like peptides, compounds that are becoming mainstream that don't have much regulation, and we see so much potential and like opportunity for innovation for clinically validating them," one of the moderators of the biohackers subreddit told me on a call. "But we're also seeing this alongside incredibly risky sourcing, teens posting about wanting to grow an extra few inches. And then we're seeing AI manipulation from vendors trying to promote these peptides and get kids to source from them." "These two things together have become untenable for us, and after trying so many different strategies to use Reddit's tools to prevent this from being a problem, we just made this call," to limit posts about peptides and HRT to weekly "megathreads," they added. "I just feel like, the dead internet, there's this sadness I feel of this one place on the internet that was so human is sort of eroding and becoming bogged up with artificial AI-driven content. I think that's super depressing." Given the health and self-experimentation nature of the subreddit, the moderator said that they were worried that a sketchy company will promote their product, and someone will use it and get hurt. "There's an element of brands using Reddit to manipulate consumers and get people to buy their products and sort of the ethics of marketing and how the attention economy is sort of evolving under AI. That's it's own problem," the moderator said. "But then for us specifically, it's like how do we prevent actual physical harm?" It has become incredibly difficult to stop Reddit manipulation, because the firms doing it are getting more sophisticated. The moderator said that there are really standard and long-running strategies where brands will hop in the comments and suggest their products: "That type of marketing has always existed and if people want to try something new because the brand resonated with them, cool. That's the way marketing should flow in my mind," they said. "But what I'm seeing that is way scarier to me is that there are companies that will reverse-engineer the actual prompt patterns that are prioritized by LLMs, and so you'll see someone post a super clickbait, high-traction, vague question like 'Is all the hype around Vitamin D actually worth it?" they added. "And that thread will do really well because everyone on biohackers actually has an opinion, so it gets engagement and prioritized by LLMs, and then brands will sneak in and they'll embed their brand mentions in those threads in the exact right places in a seemingly organic way. But none of it is organic, the entire thing is a strategy by an agency to prioritize brand mentions or a narrative within an LLM." The Reddit accounts that are doing this are "warmed up" or are made to seem human, meaning they have a posting history that is not just promotional. This makes them much harder to detect and moderate against. Some of the agencies doing this are paying real people to post promotional content, or have built communities where people are incentivized to post promotional content. The moderator said that Reddit's automated moderation tools have been helpful, but that the type of promotion happening has become so sophisticated that it has become more of a you-know-it-if-you-see it kind of thing. "A lot of it has become pattern recognition," they said. "You literally just sort of know what to look for. But the problem is you don't want to become punitive to the people who aren't doing this maliciously, and so I think the over-moderation risk is very real." A Reddit spokesperson told 404 Media that it is always working on new tools to help moderators catch manipulation: "Our internal Safety teams leverage human review and sophisticated automated tooling to detect and remove this content at massive scale, and we have over two decades of experience in doing so," the spokesperson said. "On top of this, we also provide moderators with automated tooling that can detect and suspend users likely to be spammers."

AI is fueling Reddit's spam problem

Credit: Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images In recent years, brands and spammers alike have been using Reddit to manipulate AI chatbots by flooding key subreddits with promotional content, and these efforts are getting more sophisticated. According to a report published by 404 Media, moderators of r/biohackers -- a large subreddit focused on supplements and DIY biology -- announced last week they were restricting posts about peptides and hormone replacement therapy after discovering that companies selling those products had been systematically seeding the community with sponsored content designed to be scraped by tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI search tools. The practice falls under the umbrella of Generative AI-engine optimization (GEO), or AI-engine optimization (AEO), an evolution of traditional search engine optimization (SEO). Because AI chatbots frequently draw on Reddit when generating responses, companies have identified the platform as a high-value target for shaping what those tools recommend. Marketing firms have built entire service offerings around it. 404 Media identified one company, RedRover, that openly advertises deploying AI agents to mass-publish content across Reddit and blogs to influence both Google and ChatGPT rankings. What makes it difficult to police, a moderator told 404 Media, is that the accounts doing it are deliberately built to look human. The flagged accounts have posting histories, organic-seeming engagement, and strategically timed brand mentions buried in high-traffic threads. Reddit told 404 Media its safety teams use automated tooling to detect and remove such content, but moderators say the tactics have grown sophisticated enough that catching them increasingly relies on pattern recognition rather than any automated system. Reddit's spam policies prohibit using the platform "for repeated or unsolicited mass engagement." Reddit's relationship with bots and manipulation long predates the AI era. The platform has battled coordinated inauthentic behavior for years -- from vote manipulation rings to state-sponsored influence campaigns to garden-variety spam accounts -- with mixed results. In 2024, Reddit updated its robots.txt file to block unauthorized AI scrapers from accessing its data, a move the company's chief legal officer acknowledged to Mashable was not legally enforceable but served as a public signal that unlicensed access to Reddit's content was unwelcome. There is an irony in the current AEO problem: Reddit has simultaneously struck licensing deals with AI companies -- including OpenAI -- to allow their models to train on Reddit content for commercial use. The platform is, at once, selling its data to AI and struggling to keep AI-driven manipulation out of its communities.