News

Zurich University AI Researchers Ran Secret Test On Reddit Users

The undisclosed experiment prompted backlash from moderators and a firm response from Reddit’s legal team.

Published

1 year ago

April 28, 2025

zurich university ai researchers ran secret test on reddit users

Researchers from the University of Zurich quietly ran a months-long experiment on Reddit’s r/changemyview (CMV), using AI-generated comments to test how persuasive large language models (LLMs) could be. The subreddit, home to 3.8 million users, invites debate on controversial opinions — but moderators say the AI replies crossed ethical lines.

“The CMV Mod Team needs to inform the CMV community about an unauthorized experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Zurich on CMV users,” moderators wrote, calling the study “psychological manipulation”.

The experiment involved AI-generated responses written under fake identities — including a trauma counselor, a sexual assault survivor, and a “Black man opposed to Black Lives Matter”. These posts were crafted to sound human and emotionally resonant. Some remain accessible via an archive maintained by 404 Media.

The researchers went further by tailoring AI replies using personal information inferred from users’ Reddit history — details like age, gender, and political leaning, all generated using another AI model.

Moderators say this violated subreddit rules, including bans on undisclosed AI use and bots. They’ve filed a formal complaint and asked the university to halt publication of the research.

Reddit responded strongly. Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee called the study “deeply wrong on both a moral and legal level”. Reddit has since banned the accounts involved and is improving its ability to detect fake or AI-generated content.

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“We have banned all accounts associated with the University of Zurich research effort,” Lee said. “We’re also working with the moderation team to ensure all related content has been removed”.

The researchers maintain the study was approved by their university’s ethics board and claim it offers valuable insight into how AI could be misused at scale. “We believe the potential benefits of this research substantially outweigh its risks,” they wrote in a Reddit comment.

But CMV moderators pushed back. “People do not come here to discuss their views with AI or to be experimented upon,” they wrote. “People who visit our sub deserve a space free from this type of intrusion”.

Related Topics:Artificial Intelligence Reddit

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News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.