Viral Reddit Post About Food Delivery Apps Was an AI Scam
(Monday January 05, 2026 @05:40PM (BeauHD)
from the don't-trust-everything-you-read-on-the-internet dept.)
- Reference: 0180519891
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/05/2050220/viral-reddit-post-about-food-delivery-apps-was-an-ai-scam
- Source link:
A [1]viral Reddit "whistleblower" post accusing a major food delivery app of systemic exploitation is " [2]most likely AI-generated ," reports the Verge. From the report:
> The original post by user Trowaway_whistleblow alleged that an unnamed food delivery company regularly delays customer orders, calls couriers "human assets," and exploits their "desperation" for cash, among other indefensible actions. Nearly 90,000 upvotes and four days later, it's become increasingly clear that the post's text is probably AI-generated. Considering the delivery app industry track record of exploitation of its drivers, it's easy to see why so many people believed this was the real thing.
>
> The Verge put the original 586-word Reddit post through several free online AI detectors, in addition to Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. The results were mixed: Copyleaks, GPTZero, Pangram, Gemini, and Claude all pegged it as likely AI-generated, but ZeroGPT and QuillBot both reported it as human-written. ChatGPT played it down the middle. Reached by The Verge on Signal, Trowaway_whistleblow provided an image of an Uber Eats employee badge. That image was generated or edited with Google AI, according to Gemini. The image shows an Uber Eats logo above two black boxes, presumably covering an employee name and photo, and the words "senior software engineer." It's odd that an engineer's badge would have the Uber Eats logo, and not the Uber logo, according to Gemini. That, in addition to slightly misaligned words and warped coloration at the edge of the green border, are reasons Gemini thinks it's inauthentic. (Uber later confirmed that Uber Eats-branded employee badges do not exist.)
"Not only are the claims fake, but they're also dead wrong," Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen told The Verge. Uber Eats' Andrew Macdonald [3]wrote on X, "This post is definitively not about us. I suspect it is completely made up. Don't trust everything you read on the internet."
DoorDash CEO Tony Xu also denied the redditor's "appalling" allegations. "This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post," Xu said in [4]a post on X.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/1q1mzej/im_a_developer_for_a_major_food_delivery_app_the/
[2] https://www.theverge.com/news/855328/viral-reddit-delivery-app-ai-scam
[3] https://x.com/andrewgordonmac/status/2007512257010552977?s=20
[4] https://x.com/t_xu/status/2007319320997842995?s=20
> The original post by user Trowaway_whistleblow alleged that an unnamed food delivery company regularly delays customer orders, calls couriers "human assets," and exploits their "desperation" for cash, among other indefensible actions. Nearly 90,000 upvotes and four days later, it's become increasingly clear that the post's text is probably AI-generated. Considering the delivery app industry track record of exploitation of its drivers, it's easy to see why so many people believed this was the real thing.
>
> The Verge put the original 586-word Reddit post through several free online AI detectors, in addition to Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. The results were mixed: Copyleaks, GPTZero, Pangram, Gemini, and Claude all pegged it as likely AI-generated, but ZeroGPT and QuillBot both reported it as human-written. ChatGPT played it down the middle. Reached by The Verge on Signal, Trowaway_whistleblow provided an image of an Uber Eats employee badge. That image was generated or edited with Google AI, according to Gemini. The image shows an Uber Eats logo above two black boxes, presumably covering an employee name and photo, and the words "senior software engineer." It's odd that an engineer's badge would have the Uber Eats logo, and not the Uber logo, according to Gemini. That, in addition to slightly misaligned words and warped coloration at the edge of the green border, are reasons Gemini thinks it's inauthentic. (Uber later confirmed that Uber Eats-branded employee badges do not exist.)
"Not only are the claims fake, but they're also dead wrong," Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen told The Verge. Uber Eats' Andrew Macdonald [3]wrote on X, "This post is definitively not about us. I suspect it is completely made up. Don't trust everything you read on the internet."
DoorDash CEO Tony Xu also denied the redditor's "appalling" allegations. "This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post," Xu said in [4]a post on X.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/1q1mzej/im_a_developer_for_a_major_food_delivery_app_the/
[2] https://www.theverge.com/news/855328/viral-reddit-delivery-app-ai-scam
[3] https://x.com/andrewgordonmac/status/2007512257010552977?s=20
[4] https://x.com/t_xu/status/2007319320997842995?s=20
AI or not (Score:2)
by liqu1d ( 4349325 )
I would believe basically all of it to actually happen.
Re: AI washing? (Score:2)
by liqu1d ( 4349325 )
See I bought that bit until the next sentence said they handed in their 2 weeks a day ago. Can't be that many engineers quitting the day before it was posted.
First of many (Score:2)
by mcswell ( 1102107 )
The comment says it all. We have not seen the last of these AI-improved scams.
Uh, huh. Sounds legit. (Score:2)
by nightflameauto ( 6607976 )
Uber spokesperson says, "This story that seems completely factual about practices people continually complain about us doing must be completely made up because uh... uhm, AI and stuff. I mean, you should totally trust AI to do everything, but when you commoners use it, it's to make stuff up about us corporations who are loving, giving caretakers of society. Oh, yeah, and this can't be about us. Because it's made up. Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket!"
1099 laws need to be updated to stop the abuse (Score:2)
1099 laws need to be updated to stop the abuse as the level of control in some gig work may make the workers at the very least an part time w2 for the booked job.