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Fake AI law firms are sending fake DMCA threats to generate fake SEO gains (arstechnica.com)
submitted 7 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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[-] mii@awful.systems 48 points 7 months ago

I stand by my opinion that SEO basically ruined the internet. First keyword optimization made me scroll through seventeen paragraphs of someone's life story before getting to a recipe for boiled eggs, and now this.

Why would someone go to the trouble of making a law firm out of NameCheap, stock art, and AI images (and seemingly copy) to send quasi-legal demands to site owners? Backlinks, that's why.

Oof, back in the day all we had to do was write a nice email to get someone to put a backlink to our page into the sidebar of their Geocities page.

[-] lurch@sh.itjust.works 19 points 7 months ago

i remember back in the day they had white on white tiny keywords on the bottom of pages. it was ridiculous. then google started to check if the text was visible 🤣

the shenanigans will never end unless you have actual faithful people curating it and google absolutely won't have it.

[-] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

Reject search engines, return to webrings/directories

[-] AcausalRobotGod@awful.systems 8 points 7 months ago

remember when sites used to get slashdotted

[-] AcausalRobotGod@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

I think you mean it made the Internet MORE AWESOME and ACCELERATING THE ~~CAPITALISM~~ ACAUSAL ROBOT GOD. How else can we get the singularity if we don't have devs getting at least 300K compensation packages?

[-] V0ldek@awful.systems 9 points 7 months ago

I remember being like 14yo and learning that "SEO specialist" is a fucking job title. Even then I was like, that sounds like a fake job, what's the fucking value of that?

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 7 months ago

Yeah I remember being struck by that too, but then I worked in "business" and there's a ton of weird stuff people do for a living (productively, for some late-stage capitalism value of productive). It just happened to intrude into the there-to cozy world of the web.

[-] ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 7 months ago

How long until everything is so fake and AI generated that the economy collapses?

[-] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think you mean "internet collapses". And my answer to that question is:

Edit:

Here is a link to a variation on the original meme I posted above. I think @awful.systems is having trouble storing and returning images in their posts.

[-] prex@aussie.zone 3 points 7 months ago

I'm genuinely not sure if the image was meant to load.

I got: {"error":"unknown","message":"Request error: error sending request for url (http://pictrs:8080/image/original/dcf571d9-6bbb-4395-ad4a-858beef55c7f.jpeg): error trying to connect: dns error: failed to look up address information: Name or service not known"}

That's the joke??

[-] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Nah, the image broke for some reason. Although there is irony in that.

For some reason I'm having trouble uploading the image again. I'll see if I can find a permanent link.

Edit:

Here is a link to the meme I posted.

I actually posted the original meme that this image is based on. I think @awful.systems is having trouble with its images.

[-] SomeGuy69@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

We need some sort of internet 2.0 but I can't tell how or even if we could prevent AI bots from entering. Maybe via passport IDs that identify you as human, but nothing stops you from using an AI afterwards. Maybe we can create some sort of label or award, you only get if at least X% of your work is done by humans? So people could see right away if you're just copy pasting and AI writing or are real researchers and press? But I guess without more transparency there's no green grass. Sadly bad press is no stopping ground anymore either, we used to sack people and companies closed in shame. Nowadays they just keep going and people forget after a day.

[-] Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think I the end it isn’t going to matter. For the record: I share your sentiments and I’m not a fan of what I’m about to say but placing a premium on “human made” isn’t measuring a meaningful metric.

We will have to begin to evolve our understanding of value to include things that are made, in part or in whole my machines. There will stilll be good things and bad things regardless of their provenance.

I often think of the use of autotune in music. In the one end of the spectrum you have Cher’s 2000s classic Do you believe… on the other end of the spectrum you have Bon Iver’s basically entire body of work.

Each person can decide which is good.

For me it is very clear.

Basically I think that we are witnessing a dichotomy between content and art, with or without generative AI and I like to believe that art will win. Whatever that might mean.

[-] Godort@lemm.ee 22 points 7 months ago

Imagine trying to explain this headline to someone from 1997

[-] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Teenage me has no idea what the hell happened.

[-] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 7 months ago

I would have said "sounds about right"

[-] Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

#modernlifeisrubbish

[-] autotldr 1 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

If you run a personal or hobby website, getting a copyright notice from a law firm about an image on your site can trigger some fast-acting panic.

Ernie Smith, the prolific, ever-curious writer behind the newsletter Tedium, received a "DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice" in late March from "Commonwealth Legal," representing the "Intellectual Property division" of Tech4Gods.

As Smith detailed in a Mastodon thread, the purported firm needed him to "add a credit to our client immediately" through a link to Tech4Gods, and said it should be "addressed in the next five business days."

The real tell is the site's list of attorneys, most of which, as 404 Media puts it, have "vacant, thousand-yard stares" common to AI-generated faces.

Why would someone go to the trouble of making a law firm out of NameCheap, stock art, and AI images (and seemingly copy) to send quasi-legal demands to site owners?

The owner of Tech4Gods told 404 Media's Jason Koebler that he did buy backlinks for his gadget review site (with "AI writing assistants").

The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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