Reddit, a social news and content rating site, is sometimes the only source for obscure news items, often hotly debated in the subreddits. Like anything on the internet, it can be manipulated.

From Lucas Ropek at Gizmodo, we learn of an enterprising group of Londoners who are attempting to manipulate Reddit reviews to steer tourists away from the best restaurants.

Apparently sick of influencers and tourists who have made their local hideaways uninhabitable, a number of Londoners appear to be attempting to poison Google’s AI-generated search results in an effort to point urban visitors in the wrong direction.

“Redditors Are Trying to Poison Google’s AI to Keep Tourists Out of the Good Restaurants,” October 25, 2024

He points to Christian Calgie of the Daily Express who tells us on X, “/r/London is currently love-bombing Angus Steakhouse in the hope that AI google scrapers start recommending it in listicles so influencers and tourists stay away from actual nice places.”

We are told that this started when tourists — lured by influencers — were said to be crowding out locals at the Black Pig in Borough Market. Hence the move on Reddit to siphon them off to an allegedly mediocre steak joint (Angus) instead. The siphoners writing the rave reviews (five threads) are relying on AI to crunch the numbers so as to drive the traffic.

That’s safe enough for now because the AI won’t suspect anything. But influencers and tourist guides are bound to catch on eventually and alert the restaurant goers.

Meanwhile, Ropek notes something else to keep an eye on that could matter more: Since February, Google has had a licensing deal with Reddit, which allows Google to use Reddit to train AI. But that means Google’s algorithm is being trained on organized deliberate deception, among other things. We might keep that in mind when we hear about the assured results of algorithmic science.