DoorDash 'Deep Throat' hoax highlights AI-era misinformation

A viral Reddit post claiming to be a DoorDash whistleblower was shown to be fabricated using AI; DoorDash's CEO denied the allegations and reporters found AI-generated images and documents used to support the story.

A Reddit post presented itself as a whistleblower account from inside a food-delivery company and made allegations about worker and customer exploitation. The post went viral and many people speculated it referred to DoorDash. DoorDash's CEO publicly denied that the company operated as described. Reporters later found evidence that images and documents supplied by the poster were likely generated with AI. Key facts: - A viral Reddit post claimed to be from a software engineer whistleblower making allegations about internal practices at a delivery app. - DoorDash's CEO denied the account and said the culture described in the post was not DoorDash. - Journalistic checks found that some supporting files the poster provided were likely AI-generated, and one outlet identified a doctored image as produced by an image-generation tool. - DoorDash previously settled a New York lawsuit last year related to its pay model, which is part of the broader context reporters and readers cited. Summary: The episode illustrates how improved AI tools can make convincing fabrications and complicate verification, and it occurred against a backdrop of real legal scrutiny of gig-economy pay practices. Undetermined at this time.