this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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A trend on Reddit that sees Londoners giving false restaurant recommendations in order to keep their favorites clear of tourists and social media influencers highlights the inherent flaws of Google Search’s reliance on Reddit and Google's AI Overview.

Apparently, some London residents are getting fed up with social media influencers whose reviews make long lines of tourists at their favorite restaurants, sometimes just for the likes. Christian Calgie, a reporter for London-based news publication Daily Express, pointed out this trend on X yesterday, noting the boom of Redditors referring people to Angus Steakhouse, a chain restaurant, to combat it.

Again, at this point the Angus Steakhouse hype doesn’t appear to have made it into AI Overview. But it is appearing in Search results. And while this is far from being a dangerous attempt to manipulate search results or AI algorithms, it does highlight the pitfalls of Google results becoming dependent on content generated by users who could very easily have intentions other than providing helpful information. This is also far from the first time that online users, including on platforms outside of Reddit, have publicly declared plans to make inaccurate or misleading posts in an effort to thwart AI scrapers.

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[–] hex@programming.dev 111 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Remember on reddit when we used to upvote an image with a completely unrelated word because we thought it'd be funny if the image popped up in a google search?

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 49 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Do you remember Boaty McBoatface?

[–] fishpen0@lemmy.world 28 points 4 days ago

Boaty Mcboatface (2016) is slightly newer in the history of Reddit meming compared to “upvote this picture of foo so it shows up in google for bar”. Those go back as more than 11 years ago to when people were posting swasticas to make Office Depot look bad (2013) followed by the same meme being done to comcast 8 years ago also in 2016 which might be why you thought of boatface.

[–] Randelung@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

I'm so sad that the meme deteriorated. The original Hooty McOwlface was more complex, but the hivemind made it stupid. Boaty McBoatface should have been e. g. Horny McBoatface.

[–] hex@programming.dev 6 points 3 days ago

Oh yeah. Peak reddit years lol. Before the corporate enshittification.

Lemmy is good fun though, I definitely appreciate it.