AI hoax on Reddit fools millions with fake food delivery app whistleblower claims

A viral Reddit post alleging fraud from a food delivery app turned out to be AI-generated | TechCrunch

A Reddit user claiming to be a whistleblower from a food delivery app has been outed as a fake. The user wrote a viral post alleging that the company he worked for was exploiting its drivers and users. "You guys always suspect the algorithms are rigged against you, but the reality is actually so much more depressing than the conspiracy theories," the supposed whistleblower wrote. He claimed to be drunk and at the library to use its public wi-fi, where he was typing this long screed about how the company was exploiting legal loopholes to steal drivers' tips and wages with impunity. Those claims were, unfortunately, believable -- DoorDash actually was sued for stealing tips from drivers, resulting in a $16.75 million settlement. But in this case, the poster had made up his story. People lie on the internet all the time. But it's not so common for such posts to hit the front page of Reddit, garner over 87,000 upvotes, and get crossposted to other platforms like X, where it got another 208,000 likes and 36.8 million impressions. Casey Newton, the journalist behind Platformer, wrote that he contacted the Reddit poster, who then contacted him on Signal. The Redditor shared what looked like a photo of his UberEats employee badge, as well as an eighteen page "internal document" outlining the company's use of AI to determine the "desperation score" of individual drivers. But as Newton tried to verify that the whistleblower's account was legitimate, he realized that he was being baited into an AI hoax. "For most of my career up until this point, the document shared with me by the whistleblower would have seemed highly credible in large part because it would have taken so long to put together," Newton wrote. "Who would take the time to put together a detailed, 18-page technical document about market dynamics just to troll a reporter? Who would go to the trouble of creating a fake badge?" There have always been bad actors seeking to deceive reporters, but the prevalence of AI tools has made fact-checking require even more rigor. Generative AI models often fail to detect if an image or video is synthetic, making it challenging to determine if content is real. In this case, Newton was able to use Google's Gemini to confirm that the image was made with the AI tool, thanks to Google's SynthID watermark, which can withstand cropping, compression, filtering, and other attempts to alter an image. Max Spero -- founder of Pangram Labs, a company that makes a detection tool for AI-generated text -- works directly with the problem of distinguishing real and fake content. "AI slop on the internet has gotten a lot worse, and I think part of this is due to the increased use of LLMs, but other factors as well," Max Spero, founder of Pangram Labs, told TechCrunch. "There's companies with millions in revenue that can pay for 'organic engagement' on Reddit, which is actually just that they're going to try to go viral on Reddit with AI-generated posts that mention your brand name." Tools like Pangram can help determine if text is AI-generated, but especially when it comes to multimedia content, these tools aren't always reliable -- and even if a synthetic post is proven to be fake, it might have already gone viral before being debunked. So for now, we're left scrolling social media like detectives, second-guessing if anything we see is real. Case in point: when I told an editor that I wanted to write about the "viral AI food delivery hoax that was on Reddit this weekend," she thought I was talking about something else. Yes -- there was more than one "viral AI food delivery hoax on Reddit this weekend."

DoorDash and Uber Eats respond to AI hoax

Why it matters: AI-assisted mis- and disinformation are already fooling audiences and threatening corporate reputations. Catch up quick: The not-deleted post, which claimed fraudulent business practices by an unnamed major food delivery app, received over 87,000 upvotes and generated roughly 5,000 comments on Reddit as well as more than 36 million views on X. * DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said on X, "This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post." * The company's official X account also replied, explaining that the Reddit post was not about DoorDash and sharing a blog post explaining "How DoorDash is Different." * Uber executive Andrew Macdonald posted, "I am responsible for UberEats. This post is definitively not about us. I suspect it is completely made up. Don't trust everything you read on the internet." What they're saying: While DoorDash was not named as the delivery app in question, its CEO was the first to respond to the fake post -- and the company stands by this decision, says chief corporate affairs officer Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean. * "What was represented is antithetical to how DoorDash operates.... If the conversation is about the industry or a platform like ours, we want to make sure that anybody who is engaging in that conversation and reading that information knows that it's not [about] us," she says. The intrigue: The Reddit thread caught the attention of journalist and Platformer founder Casey Newton, who reached out to the whistleblower to learn more and verify the post. * The whistleblower provided Newton with a fake, AI-generated image of an Uber Eats employee badge and fake internal documents. * Newton was able to identify this as a hoax, but as he writes, "For most of my career up until this point, the document shared with me by the whistleblower would have seemed highly credible in large part because it would have taken so long to put together.... Today, though, the report can be generated within minutes, and the badge within seconds." Between the lines: After learning that the post was AI-generated, Jarvis-Shean said that DoorDash still would've responded in the same way. * "It doesn't matter if the fire was started by an accident or by an arsonist, if your house is burning, don't stand around arguing about the cause instead of grabbing a fire hose to douse the flames," she says. * "You have to be able to respond quickly and tell your story to the millions of people who are reading the disinformation." Zoom in: You also have to optimize that story for AI chatbots. * To do that, DoorDash created a blog post to serve as the central source of truth for customers and journalists, and also for large language models. The bottom line: These fake leaks, made more believable with AI, create huge reputational risks for companies and brands, especially as newsrooms shrink and voices on social media portray themselves as trusted sources of information.

A person claiming to be a food delivery company 'whistleblower' fooled the internet with AI's help

An anonymous Reddit user's claims of fraud and theft by an unnamed food delivery company appear to have been an artificial intelligence-fueled ruse that has spread across the internet, outpacing efforts to debunk it. The viral post, first published Friday, has elicited strong denials from major delivery apps that have been the subjects of past scrutiny for exploitive worker policies. It accrued more than 87,000 upvotes on Reddit and millions of impressions across other social media platforms where screenshots have circulated, before being removed by Reddit moderators Tuesday evening. Behind the scenes, as reporters tried to substantiate the claims, the ruse continued -- still with AI. On Reddit, comments responding to the post generally accepted the claims as true. "As a human I think companies that try to charge different humans different amounts for the same things should no longer be allowed to operate," said one response, which received more than 1,800 upvotes. "This sounds like a massive class action lawsuit if you do things right, with a high chance for the drivers to win this one," another commenter wrote. The anonymous user first posted to the r/confession subcommunity last week, claiming they were exposing their company's secrets despite "a massive NDA," or non-disclosure agreement, because they "can't sleep at night knowing I helped build this machine." The user, who did not identify a company by name, claimed that their employer uses predictive modeling to lower drivers' base pay based on their customers' tipping habits and that it has a hidden "Desperation Score" for drivers, which tracks how "desperate" they are based on how willing they are to accept low-paying orders. The algorithm, the Reddit user claimed, would save the higher-paying orders for casual drivers to entice them to use the app. As the post gained traction online, its legitimacy also came into question. NBC News communicated with the person behind the Reddit account Friday via email and Signal. When the poster asked for proof of identity, an NBC News reporter sent a photo of her employee badge. Within days, other news outlets reported that the poster, in an attempt to prove their company affiliation, had sent journalists what appeared to be an Uber Eats employee badge. The image of the badge sent to them appeared to be an almost exact copy of the photo the poster had received from NBC News, but the badge included altered details, such as an Uber Eats logo on a background matching the company's colors. The Verge and Platformer, which both reported having been given the fake badge photo, ran it through Google's Gemini and found a SynthID watermark identifying it as having been either generated or edited by Google AI. A spokesperson for Uber confirmed to NBC News that there are no Uber Eats employee badges and that the company does not do what is alleged in the Reddit post or in any of the documents shared by the user. When NBC News tried to follow up with the Reddit user, their Signal and email accounts appeared to have been deleted. The user did not respond to a follow-up Reddit message. Andrew Macdonald, president and chief operating officer of Uber, wrote in a statement on X that the post is "definitively not about us. I suspect it is completely made up. Don't trust everything you read on the internet." DoorDash CEO and co-founder Tony Xu also condemned the practices alleged in the post. "This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post," Xu wrote on X. "We're not perfect by *any* stretch of the imagination, but we work every day to make our platform better for everyone who comes to it. What's described here is appalling, and if true, whoever is operating in this manner should be ashamed." Platformer founder Casey Newton told NBC News that the Reddit user gave him an 18-page document that they claimed were internal Uber documents. It included charts, diagrams and mathematical formulas, which almost fooled him. But then, Newton said, he noticed peculiarities in the formatting, the language and even the way it single-handedly backed up all of the poster's various allegations. "It was sort of a cartoon villain's document about how you would exploit a human being to the absolute maximum," Newton said. Soon, he said, the red flags pointed to the entire Reddit post's being a sham. To Newton, the saga was a reminder of how, in the age of increasingly sophisticated and accessible generative AI, anyone online can easily and quickly fool even the most discerning content consumers. Whether it's an employee ID that once took skilled Photoshop work or a bulky technical document that would have taken hours or days to falsify, much of the visual evidence that once could be easily believed must now be subject to more scrutiny. "It is really unfortunate that this post got millions of views, and I think there's some chance that millions of people now believe that there is a delivery company that is doing all of these things," Newton said. People are especially vulnerable to believing and resharing content that elicits emotional reactions like outrage, he said. And there is also the power of confirmation bias. Food or grocery delivery services like DoorDash and Instacart have faced accusations of exploitation in past years, when it was revealed that they used tips to subsidize part of their workers' base pay. Similarly, ride-share services like Uber and Lyft have faced multiple lawsuits for classifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, allowing the companies to avoid providing minimum wage, overtime pay and other benefits. In 2023, Uber and Lyft paid a combined $328 million to settle allegations that they unlawfully withheld wages from drivers and failed to provide mandatory paid sick leave in New York state. Newton said posts like the one that went viral this week tend to be "irresistible," because they confirm what many already believe about those companies. "We're looking for something to be shocked about," he said. "And a post like this just kind of steps into that vacuum and says, 'Hey, I'm going to give you a great Saturday morning, and now you can be super, super mad at your food delivery app.'"

Viral Reddit whistleblower exposed as AI hoax

A Reddit user claiming to be a whistleblower from a food-delivery app posted a viral rant alleging the company exploited drivers and users through legal loopholes, a claim later exposed as an AI-generated hoax by Platformer journalist Casey Newton. The user described writing the post while drunk at a library, relying on public Wi-Fi to detail the company's practices. He accused the firm of stealing drivers' tips and wages with impunity by exploiting legal gaps. "You guys always suspect the algorithms are rigged against you, but the reality is actually so much more depressing than the conspiracy theories," the poster stated in the Reddit thread. Such allegations carried weight due to prior industry issues. DoorDash faced a lawsuit for stealing tips from drivers, culminating in a $16.75 million settlement. This history lent initial plausibility to the anonymous claims, despite the poster's fabricated narrative. The thread rapidly gained traction on Reddit, accumulating over 87,000 upvotes and reaching the site's front page. Cross-posted to X, it attracted 208,000 likes and generated 36.8 million impressions across platforms. Casey Newton, journalist at Platformer, reached out to the Reddit poster following the post's spread. The user then contacted Newton via Signal, sharing supporting materials. These included a photograph appearing to show an UberEats employee badge and an 18-page internal document. The document purportedly outlined the company's AI system for calculating a "desperation score" for individual drivers, assessing their financial need to influence operations. Newton pursued verification of the whistleblower's identity and documents. During this process, discrepancies emerged, revealing the entire account as bait in an AI-generated hoax. The effort involved crafting realistic artifacts to deceive scrutiny. Reflecting on the incident, Newton observed that earlier in his career, the materials would have appeared highly credible. "For most of my career up until this point, the document shared with me by the whistleblower would have seemed highly credible in large part because it would have taken so long to put together," he wrote. He questioned the motive: "Who would take the time to put together a detailed, 18-page technical document about market dynamics just to troll a reporter? Who would go to the trouble of creating a fake badge?"

Fake Reddit post generated by AI misled millions with claims of food-delivery agent exploitation

A viral Reddit post falsely accused a major food-delivery company of exploiting drivers, claiming hidden algorithms and unpaid benefits. The post, which gained millions of views and likes, was later revealed to be AI-generated, including fabricated documents and images. The incident underscores rising challenges in verifying online content. A viral Reddit post alleging exploitative practices at a major food-delivery company was later found to be AI-generated, misleading millions of readers, according to a report by TechCrunch. The post, published by a Reddit user under the name Trowaway_whistleblow, claimed to come from a whistleblower working as a developer in the US-based food delivery platform. While the post initially avoided naming the company, it later implied the claims were connected to UberEats. The user alleged the company operated a "rigged system" that exploited drivers through hidden algorithms. It also claimed that priority fees and driver benefits were never actually paid to drivers, and that the platform used a secret "desperation score" to track drivers under financial pressure and manipulate order assignments. The Reddit post received 87,000 upvotes, and was shared across platforms such as X, securing 208,000 likes and 36.8 million impressions, the TechCrunch report stated. However, the claims were later debunked by journalist Casey Newton of the tech publication Platformer. After initially engaging with the user, Newton concluded that the supposed evidence, including an 18-page "internal document" and an UberEats employee badge, was fabricated using generative AI. Further analysis using Google Gemini confirmed that the images shared by the user carried SynthID watermarks, a tool designed to detect AI-generated or manipulated visuals even after cropping or compression. The incident highlights growing challenges around trust and verification as artificial intelligence becomes more deeply embedded in the food delivery ecosystem. In a separate case reported by TechCrunch, delivery platform DoorDash recently banned a rider for submitting an AI-generated image to fake a completed delivery.