Reporting AI, Dropshippers, and more
Hey crafters,
We’ve had an increase in reports and direct messages re: AI in r/crafts. Thank you for reporting! However, when we receive a lot of low effort reports, such as, “Hey this is AI” and a link to the post, it makes moderating harder. We try to look into all reports quickly, but because we don’t have the time or mod power to instantly investigate every report, some posts and comments take a while to evaluate, which means either a post is removed for a lot longer than it should be or it stays up on the subreddit a lot longer than it should. When we have a lot of low effort reports, it clutters up our queue and it takes longer to get to the legitimate reports. A way to make it quicker for us to moderate is by making a good report. You make a good report by:
- Sending us a concise modmail message about why the post violates our subreddit, and by
- Providing proof of your claims.
One of our mods (thanks u/AmarissaBhaneboar!) wrote up a short tutorial on the first steps they take when they investigate a post for AI or drop shipping and will help guide you on how to find proof to send us when you make a report.
AI
First of all, many AI images have logos and watermarks. For example, look in the bottom right hand corner for the Gemini logo.
If you don't see a watermark, you have to save the original image (a screenshot won't always work) and then open Google Gemini and type something like "does this have a synthID?" and it'll tell you if it does or not. If it does, it's AI or has been edited with AI.
If it doesn't, the next step is to go to https://openai.com/research/verify/ and upload the original image (not a screenshot!) and it'll tell you if OpenAI tools were used to edit it.
If these both come up negative, it doesn't mean that it's not AI, it just means it wasn't made using ChatGPT or Google Gemini. If you're still not sure, look at the details. Do details like lines continue from one side of something to another? Are there any melted together details? Do reflections look off?
AI detectors outside of checking for synthID and C2PA credentials (what OpenAI uses) are notoriously imperfect. They can give both false positives and false negatives. We do not recommend using them! They do not work well. Use your brain instead!
Drop shipping
If you suspect someone's drop shipping, literally just use Google image reverse search (if you're using Chrome mobile browser, you'll have a little camera icon in the search bar all the way to the right, click that and select the image) and see what comes up. If it's all just posts from the OP and their various social media accounts, it's unlikely they're dropshipping. If you see the same product/image on Temu, Amazon, Shein, AliBaba, AliExpress, etc...then they may be dropshipping. Just remember that many of these sites steal artists' OG works. So if the user's account is, say, 10 years old with a fairly consistent style (or you can see the continuity of the style) it's likely that their work was stolen. If the user's account is a month old, then they've probably stolen the images and/or are dropshipping.
As we’ve mentioned above, we do not have the time to check every user for AI or being a drop shipper or being a scammer. We rely on the community to report problems, but ultimately you need to rely on yourself if you are using r/crafts as a way to verify a crafter's legitimacy. You'll need to do the work listed above (check to see if it's AI, or a dropshipper), check out the crafter's username here and other social media places, before you can make a determination.
One last thing, about a week ago we asked the community about what to do with IP with problematic creators, and we received a lot of input. Thank you! I’m putting together a survey and hopefully we’ll have that out to you all soon. In the past, I’ve used GoogleForms to create a survey, but there’s a way to conduct surveys on reddit, which means more people can participate without needing a Google Account. I’m working out a few kinks, and once I do, we’ll post it here for you all to chime in. Thanks for your patience and happy crafting!
Oh, interested in becoming a mod? Fill out the application here.