The moderators of r/biohackers announced last week they are banning new posts about peptides and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after discovering that companies in those industries have been systematically spamming the subreddit to manipulate AI chatbot outputs. The strategy is a form of AEO — AI-engine optimization, an evolution of SEO — exploiting the fact that Reddit has become one of the most frequently cited sources by tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Search. One service called RedRover openly advertises using AI agents to mass-publish Reddit posts and blog content to help clients rank on Google, ChatGPT, and other platforms simultaneously.
The tactics described by a r/biohackers moderator to 404 Media are increasingly hard to detect: firms “warm up” accounts to build human-looking posting histories, then reverse-engineer the prompt patterns that LLMs prioritize. A common playbook involves seeding a vague, high-engagement question to draw real organic discussion — then embedding brand mentions in strategically placed comments within those threads in a way that appears organic but is entirely coordinated by a marketing agency. “None of it is organic,” the moderator said, “the entire thing is a strategy by an agency to prioritize brand mentions or a narrative within an LLM.” The subreddit has moved peptide and HRT discussions to weekly megathreads as a result. Reddit told 404 Media its safety teams use automated tooling and human review at scale to remove such content, but the moderator noted that spotting manipulation has largely become a matter of human pattern recognition — and that over-moderation of innocent users is itself a real risk.