I checked out one of the accounts mentioned, mostly to check if I can discern fake accounts. The content is just still pictures. I'd dismiss those whether or not they're AI. Well, I'm not on TikTok anyway.
This reminds me of some youtube videos when I was researching some stuff to buy. Those videos are just still images plus text-to-speech narration, usually with an annoying background music.
yodon 39 minutes ago [-]
Streisand effect?
A mod changed the title to something other than the originally submitted original article title, to protect a major VC.
Not cool.
1vuio0pswjnm7 60 minutes ago [-]
Actual title: "Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers"
shagmin 7 minutes ago [-]
Original title was better in multiple ways. Mods did a disservice here.
gnabgib 51 minutes ago [-]
Yes.. it was updated to this by mods
boh 2 hours ago [-]
AI is pretty much killing social media in the long term. Even pre-AI, a good chunk of posts/comment sections on sites were bots/paid. Reddit is becoming less believable than ChatGPT. I guess there's still the Onion-verse.
cgh 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, Dead Internet Theory went from joke to reality in what feels like overnight.
themafia 2 hours ago [-]
I'm not convinced you can have an impromptu global conversation to any positive end. Humans are not well suited to this task and an unsupervised mostly anonymous forum plays to those weaknesses and provides no support to generate positive outcomes.
It was never a particularly good idea at the scale it's currently deployed at.
stuaxo 14 minutes ago [-]
Adding recommendation engines that optimise for anger makes it even worse.
boh 1 hours ago [-]
Reddit was pretty solid before people started cultivating their personal "brand"/only fans page/crypto pick.
OtherShrezzing 1 hours ago [-]
Reddit has been an absolute dumpster fire from the get-go. Its Wikipedia page has one of the largest “controversies” sections of any publicly listed company. Many of the controversies are so significant they have their own Wikipedia page.
estimator7292 56 minutes ago [-]
BBSes and forums have existed for literally longer than the internet
themafia 33 minutes ago [-]
Were they global or local? I made that distinction intentionally.
throwaway81523 13 minutes ago [-]
Usenet was US-centric but somewhat global and certainly not local. Even dialup BBS's were sometimes nationwide despite long distance phone charges. I wasn't into the BBS thing though.
reaperducer 6 minutes ago [-]
Were they global or local? I made that distinction intentionally.
Either or both, depending on the SYSOP's resources. I ran a BBS that did store-and-forward between the U.S. and Europe.
The ones with global connections could take a day to a week to forward messages, but that turned out to be a feature. We went outside in the real world instead of staying online arguing with strangers.
1 hours ago [-]
riversflow 1 hours ago [-]
Reddit died to me when they allowed private profiles this summer.
arjie 37 minutes ago [-]
Interestingly, you can still use `author:username` to search for posts. For my part, if something seems suspicious and the profile is private then I assume it's a bot.
tolerance 3 hours ago [-]
Looks like this is a report on how the company just…handles its business: https://doublespeed.ai/
jfindper 3 hours ago [-]
>"never pay a human again."
>"Take proven content and spawn variation."
It's almost refreshing how unashamed they are. I hate it, obviously, but I kind of like it better than companies that say something dressed up in marketing speak but actually mean what this site just says outright.
aunty_helen 3 hours ago [-]
Controversy is currency. Businesses literally try to track and optimise virality these days as part of their marketing.
YetAnotherNick 1 hours ago [-]
No, it's a calculated marketing, not them being honest.
iamacyborg 40 minutes ago [-]
All marketing is calculated, some just turns out to be more effective
jfindper 1 hours ago [-]
>No, it's a calculated marketing, not them being honest.
It's obviously marketing. But their marketing strategy appears to be being unashamed about ripping off content and creating bot farms.
What are you suggesting they are lying about? They're actually doing it for the good of the world and just pretending their a bot farm for hire?
username223 1 hours ago [-]
It's a great reminder that while room-temperature-IQ AI pumpers like Sam Altman talk about "solving physics" or whatever, the actual value of large language models is generating spam marginally cheaper than Filipinos.
ryanjshaw 3 hours ago [-]
How does one profit from this farm of AI content on TikTok?
ronsor 3 hours ago [-]
Advertising and shilling, just like normal influencers?
nickthegreek 2 hours ago [-]
Immorally.
Probably moves like affiliate/referral linking, client paid campaigns, cpa lead generating arbitrate at scale, product seeding.
coffeebeqn 3 hours ago [-]
Wow I thought this type of business was illegal or at least a very gray area conducted on the dark web but looks like the VCs at this point have no morals left. Gambling? Amazing. Spam? Take my money. Ad fraud? Yes please
exasperaited 3 hours ago [-]
A16Z is basically funding toxic fungi growing on the face of society at this point. So much of what they do seems to be a bet that people will want to pay money to do antisocial things and avoid the consequences.
lawlessone 2 hours ago [-]
> So much of what they do seems to be a bet that people will want to pay money to do antisocial things and avoid the consequences.
Yes but they also stand to make money offering services to counteract the services they offer.
fuzzfactor 3 hours ago [-]
Some people are naturally talented financially, and can make as much money as they like without doing anything to anyone else's disadvantage.
And then there's everyone else.
moomoo11 2 hours ago [-]
A lot of people are against the current social media tech it seems. I wouldn't be surprised if they're funding the acceleration of its collapse to see what can come next.
New generation is less social, more sober, less motivated, more doomer.
jonas21 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, it's basically free publicity for them.
UncleMeat 3 hours ago [-]
Holy crap. They really are leaning into "evil supervillain" advertising copy.
ajross 3 hours ago [-]
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
Seems like the Butlerian Jihad is arriving ahead of schedule, and the real horrors demanding the uprising aren't oppression and violence, but viral marketing and sockpuppetry.
"Accelerating the dead Internet"? Why are we, as a community, encouraging the acceleration of enshitification of our common spaces? So weird to me...
qingcharles 2 hours ago [-]
He's doing it for the ragebait, but the sad thing is the product is totally real. Cory was right from the start.
neilv 3 hours ago [-]
He sounds like an intelligent but misguided teenager. Maybe he's not a bad kid, and just needs better role models than the companies he mentions.
If we never do things that later make us cringe and want to correct, we're not reflective and self-critical enough.
mlsu 3 hours ago [-]
He just got a $1 mil series A. Better role models? He is a role model, at least in the society we've decided to build.
hallole 1 hours ago [-]
I think he's old enough to be tried as an adult here. He architected the product, it was no silly accident. I think his choice of role models may be a reflection of his character...
ipython 3 hours ago [-]
FWIW, I agree with you. I think that great role models are sadly in short supply these days.
thephyber 2 hours ago [-]
I don’t think they are in short supply, but the vast majority of them aren’t the super-successful so we don’t see their names often.
They are the teachers, coaches, and engineers. The problem is the anti- role models are the ones who get all of the media:
Andrew Tate (mysogenistic pyramid schemer and pimp / sex trafficker of high school girls),
Joe Rogan (his mind is so open that his brains fell out),
Jordan B Peterson (charlatan who dresses up banal self-help advice with pseudo-intellectual jargon to seem profound, drug addict who is still taking very big risks with his health, frequently argues strawmans by misrepresenting postmodernism, Marxism, atheism, etc).
Our heuristics of who we should look up to are skewed because too many young people revere wrath and fame over ethics, morals, and values which may hold us back from success.
rolandog 60 minutes ago [-]
Exactly, concentration of attention onto singular figures as role models should be avoided; kind of like how we agree that it is healthier for the EU citizens to have a more diverse market than concentrated monopolies.
We do have to recognize that we have societally dropped the ball by allowing media companies brainwash the population into thinking that money and fame is unquestionable success; this has allowed the corporate mouth pieces to blow so much hot air into the bullshit they spew, that turds end up floating to the top.
What is clear as day is that we live in a world where Brandolini's law is being exploited constantly: that there is a constant fight to DARVO the heck out of our perceptions is undeniable.
We need to normalize bringing receipts to back your claims...
How to teach the average person not to follow the siren's song of populism and rage baiting?? That, I have not yet figured out.
thephyber 2 hours ago [-]
The risky thing about creating this tool is that someone will inevitably use it against the creator, the employees, and the investors.
Noaidi 3 hours ago [-]
It is not weird, it is greed and control.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2 hours ago [-]
Why isn't this company sued for computer fraud and abuse?
gruez 2 hours ago [-]
Because using the CFAA as a cudgel against things you don't like, whether it's journalists exposing insecure government systems, or companies engaging in deceptive marketing practices is a bad idea? For the latter, there's already laws against it that doesn't involve CFAA, eg. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-B...
bossyTeacher 3 hours ago [-]
How long until the company gets sued by X/Meta/Tik Tok?
hephaes7us 41 minutes ago [-]
Bot activity could push up engagement metrics on these platforms, so (in some sense) those companies aren't necessarily incentivized to stop this.
SilverElfin 3 hours ago [-]
This feels not very different from the recent report revealing how Nick Fuentes has a lot of artificial likes and comments on videos that push his content, due to a large following that responds to commands delivered via Telegram etc. A VC backed corporation using a large phone farm to manipulate the public is no better than Nick Fuentes.
songodongo 9 minutes ago [-]
Most of Fuentes’ support is real, sadly. The organization that recently released the report alleging the contrary is the same one that released that report earlier this year claiming that if you say “Christ is King” then you’re a white supremacist. Their neutrality is questionable.
jbm 2 hours ago [-]
No need to bring up the boogeyman of the day. Reddit was literally kickstarted with fake comments. (Frankly I'm convinced that most of its political comments are fake too.)
buellerbueller 30 minutes ago [-]
Reddit wasn't explicitly pushing white nationalism.
Furthermore: reddit is a platform; Fuentes is content. That's a meaningful difference.
Noaidi 3 hours ago [-]
My god, horrific. Does not everyone know everything online is a psyop now? I will tel you, they don't. No one studies things, no one takes the time. AI, social media, it all has to be protested, boycotted.
Now it seems war is coming from the US it could not be more true that at this moment.
nathancahill 37 minutes ago [-]
> He posted on HN.
The call is coming from inside the house.
Hizonner 3 hours ago [-]
How about a few prison terms for conspiracy to defraud? And not for small fry like the "CEO" of this company either. Why not, say, 10 years for Marc Andreesen, personally? And, no, no "disrupting" it with serve-your-time-as-a-service, either.
qingcharles 2 hours ago [-]
I hate that Marc Andreesen' arc went from Mosaic to supervillain.
It's easier to count billionaires who aren't supervillains.
No, we should not stop something that is inevitable. We should work with it to find ways that it fits into a productive society, such as anonymously verifying that you are a citizen so the cost of abuse is at least a felony.
Noaidi 3 hours ago [-]
Nothing makes this inevitable. People like you who want to do nothing about it makes it inevitable.
bpt3 3 hours ago [-]
WTF happened to a16z?
They used to be at the pinnacle of the VC sector, and now they seem to actively seek out the most toxic portcos possible.
neuroelectron 3 hours ago [-]
Once you have infinite money, you tend to want infinite power next
bpt3 2 hours ago [-]
I don't disagree, but lighting money on fire hyping NFTs and whatever other random fad strikes them as interesting doesn't seem to be the way to accomplish that.
My actual guess is that they got way too big, both in terms of headcount and fund size, to limit their investments to what is expected to be the best of the best in terms of financial return and societal impact.
bix6 52 minutes ago [-]
Agreed, too much money to put to work so you just take a bite out of every apple.
But was societal impact ever top of the list? Fundamentally a VC exists to make LPs money. Doing good is secondary / optional.
bflesch 2 hours ago [-]
If you read "Careless People" you'll notice that Andreesseen was prioritizing cash over morals for a long time, and his Facebook investment/involvement was also producing highly unethical things
drcongo 2 hours ago [-]
Really?! They've always made a little bit of sick come up for me. Marc Andreessen has always been a grotesque parody of Lex Luthor.
kotaKat 2 hours ago [-]
… Interesting that the title was changed from “Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers”.
Guess they wanted to hide the a16z connection on frontpage, huh?
sp527 1 hours ago [-]
> The hacker, who asked for anonymity because he feared retaliation from the company, said he reported the vulnerability to Doublespeed on October 31
Lmao. Nice.
nickphx 1 hours ago [-]
why was the original title edited to remove the reference to a16z? why hide investment into socially unacceptable product? if you are going to be a scumbag weasel, own it.
tomhow 58 minutes ago [-]
Both for length reasons and because it was clickbait.
The original title doesn’t even have the actual company’s name in it, only the name of the investor, which is intended to elicit just the kind of ragey reaction you’re exhibiting in this comment.
On HN, titles need to be more neutral and factual (I.e., include the name of the company the article is primarily about).
(Also, you seem to be implying some conflict of interest? Doublespeed and a16z have nothing to do with HN/YC.)
jpalawaga 33 minutes ago [-]
Nobody knows what Doublespeed is, everyone knows what a16z is. Doesn't putting the part that's pertinent to people in the headline oblige readers-to-be?
I'd say that the change is editorializing more than the original was "linkbait".
fny 4 hours ago [-]
The Internet is dead. Long live the Internet.
queuebert 2 hours ago [-]
Let's be honest. It's been mostly downhill since AOL.
kps 49 minutes ago [-]
Today is Wednesday the 11796th of September 1993.
Rendered at 22:27:26 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
This reminds me of some youtube videos when I was researching some stuff to buy. Those videos are just still images plus text-to-speech narration, usually with an annoying background music.
A mod changed the title to something other than the originally submitted original article title, to protect a major VC.
Not cool.
It was never a particularly good idea at the scale it's currently deployed at.
Either or both, depending on the SYSOP's resources. I ran a BBS that did store-and-forward between the U.S. and Europe.
The ones with global connections could take a day to a week to forward messages, but that turned out to be a feature. We went outside in the real world instead of staying online arguing with strangers.
>"Take proven content and spawn variation."
It's almost refreshing how unashamed they are. I hate it, obviously, but I kind of like it better than companies that say something dressed up in marketing speak but actually mean what this site just says outright.
It's obviously marketing. But their marketing strategy appears to be being unashamed about ripping off content and creating bot farms.
What are you suggesting they are lying about? They're actually doing it for the good of the world and just pretending their a bot farm for hire?
Probably moves like affiliate/referral linking, client paid campaigns, cpa lead generating arbitrate at scale, product seeding.
Yes but they also stand to make money offering services to counteract the services they offer.
And then there's everyone else.
New generation is less social, more sober, less motivated, more doomer.
Seems like the Butlerian Jihad is arriving ahead of schedule, and the real horrors demanding the uprising aren't oppression and violence, but viral marketing and sockpuppetry.
If you want more photos of his phone farm... it's all on his twitter page: https://x.com/rareZuhair/status/1961160231322517997
"Accelerating the dead Internet"? Why are we, as a community, encouraging the acceleration of enshitification of our common spaces? So weird to me...
If we never do things that later make us cringe and want to correct, we're not reflective and self-critical enough.
They are the teachers, coaches, and engineers. The problem is the anti- role models are the ones who get all of the media:
Andrew Tate (mysogenistic pyramid schemer and pimp / sex trafficker of high school girls),
Joe Rogan (his mind is so open that his brains fell out),
Jordan B Peterson (charlatan who dresses up banal self-help advice with pseudo-intellectual jargon to seem profound, drug addict who is still taking very big risks with his health, frequently argues strawmans by misrepresenting postmodernism, Marxism, atheism, etc).
Our heuristics of who we should look up to are skewed because too many young people revere wrath and fame over ethics, morals, and values which may hold us back from success.
We do have to recognize that we have societally dropped the ball by allowing media companies brainwash the population into thinking that money and fame is unquestionable success; this has allowed the corporate mouth pieces to blow so much hot air into the bullshit they spew, that turds end up floating to the top.
What is clear as day is that we live in a world where Brandolini's law is being exploited constantly: that there is a constant fight to DARVO the heck out of our perceptions is undeniable.
We need to normalize bringing receipts to back your claims...
How to teach the average person not to follow the siren's song of populism and rage baiting?? That, I have not yet figured out.
Furthermore: reddit is a platform; Fuentes is content. That's a meaningful difference.
Now it seems war is coming from the US it could not be more true that at this moment.
The call is coming from inside the house.
It's easier to count billionaires who aren't supervillains.
p.s. this is not a great photo of Marc on his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marc_Andreessen-9_(croppe...
They used to be at the pinnacle of the VC sector, and now they seem to actively seek out the most toxic portcos possible.
My actual guess is that they got way too big, both in terms of headcount and fund size, to limit their investments to what is expected to be the best of the best in terms of financial return and societal impact.
But was societal impact ever top of the list? Fundamentally a VC exists to make LPs money. Doing good is secondary / optional.
Guess they wanted to hide the a16z connection on frontpage, huh?
Lmao. Nice.
The original title doesn’t even have the actual company’s name in it, only the name of the investor, which is intended to elicit just the kind of ragey reaction you’re exhibiting in this comment.
On HN, titles need to be more neutral and factual (I.e., include the name of the company the article is primarily about).
(Also, you seem to be implying some conflict of interest? Doublespeed and a16z have nothing to do with HN/YC.)
I'd say that the change is editorializing more than the original was "linkbait".