[Corence]

Focusing on the AI content generation aspect of this is disappointing to me, since those tools are fuzzy at best and even if the post was AI generated, it isn't necessarily a red flag since the user could be trying to disguise their writing style.

There are plenty of other signs this story is likely fake. The author claiming to be posting from a library on New Years' Day (most government buildings are closed) and was responding over 10 hours on the account. He's using a throwaway and a "burner laptop" at the library, but he also says he put his two weeks' notice in yesterday (also odd that this is on New Years' Eve) which would make identifying him trivial.

Fake stories get to the front page of Reddit every day, I wish journalists were pointing out the actual signs not to trust something to act as a better example.

[Simulacra]

I think this is one of those occasions when the story was so good that "journalists" skipped any validation and went right to publication. Someone played the media, and they bought it hook line and sinker.

[huhkerrf]

It was a good indication of how things like conspiracy theories spread.

He gave his notice on NYE? Oh, he's probably just fudging that so he's not caught. He doesn't care about getting caught but he's on a burner laptop? Oh, people do weird things when they're stressed. And on and on.

Then, of course, the ultimate fallback: Well it sounds like something they would do. So even if most of this is made up, the bad things are still probably true.