[LOGOS] Fw: Article that will be interesting to you

[Emiliano De Cristofaro]

My biggest concerns are the lack of convincing arguments that deception was
societally necessary or any meaningful debriefing/right to withdraw. Any
reasonable IRB would have not approved this study without (at least) these
two reassurances.

As someone who has repeatedly been accused (once to my dept chair) of
posting to 4chan to unethically trigger certain kinds of posts (of course,
we never posted anything), maybe I'm overly sensitive. But, I do think that
this kind of PR disaster can significantly reduce societal trust in our
line of research...

Cheers,

--
Prof. Emiliano De Cristofaro
Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, Riverside
https://emilianodc.com


On Wed, Apr 30, 2025 at 3:14 PM Michalis Faloutsos via LOGOS <
logos at lists.ucr.edu> wrote:

> I am neutral about this.
> In my mind, it does go over the line of acceptable use of Reddit: they
> were engaging with users and changing their opinions without explaining
> that this is an AI bot etc.
> If Reddit allows this for one institution, the platform could become
> infested and some bots may not be as researchy and pure as, presumably,
> this study seems to be.
>
> Michalis
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 10:11 AM Kevin M Esterling <kevin.esterling at ucr.edu>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Yikes! See attached...
>>
>>
>>
>> Kevin M. Esterling (he/him)
>> Chair of Political Science and Professor of Public Policy
>> Director, Laboratory for Technology, Communication and Democracy  (
>> TeCD-Lab <https://tecd-lab.ucr.edu/>)
>> University of California Riverside
>> Riverside, CA 92521 USA
>> +1-951-827-5591
>> https://profiles.ucr.edu/kevin.esterling
>>
>> The TeCD-Lab | *Prytaneum <https://tecd-lab.ucr.edu/prytaneum>*
>> (the only webinar platform that is motivated by democratic theory)
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Mark Long <mark.long at ucr.edu>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 30, 2025 9:57 AM
>> *To:* Kevin M Esterling <kevin.esterling at ucr.edu>
>> *Subject:* Article that will be interesting to you
>>
>>
>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/04/30/reddit-ai-bot-university-zurich/
>>
>> See attached.
>>
>> [image: image]
>>
>>
>> Mark C. Long, MPP <https://spp.ucr.edu/mpp>, Ph.D.
>>
>> Dean & Professor, School of Public Policy
>>
>> University of California, Riverside
>> INTS 4133 | 900 University Ave., Riverside, CA 92521
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/900+University+Ave.,+Riverside,+CA+92521?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>
>> Direct: (951) 827-2316  Website: spp.ucr.edu  <https://spp.ucr.edu/>
>>
>> [image: twitter] <https://twitter.com/mlmarklong>
>>
>>
>>
> *Michalis Faloutsos*
> Professor at U. California Riverside Computer Science
> Co-founder | Programize LLC       | www.programize.com
> Co-founder | StopTheHacker Inc. | acquired
> mfaloutsos at gmail.com | Mobile: +1 951 907 1501
> *Skype* mfaloutsos
>
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>
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