This idea was explored by searching some of the more obscure links posted by them. The link to the CD key seller and language course seen in figure 14 for instance were posted almost exclusively by the bots so it does not seem likely that they picked these links up just from being trained on Reddit. Additionally the bots almost never post links to youtube, wikipedia, news sites or other subreddits whereas such links are amongst the most common posted by real users. So if the bots were just trained on them it would be expected to see a lot more links like those whereas currently 99% of the links the bots are posting are to products and services.

This is not mainstream media. The bot accounts explored here all began posting after Reddit partnered with OpenAI as did every account found that matched the same pattern of behavior. e.g. Same links posted.

The activity of these AI bot accounts also coincides with Reddit adding terms and conditions about AI advertising to their business page. Hence it looks suspect.