2018 according to Wikipedia, so 6 years ago!

Platforms like Facebook have an incredible hold on some people. I remember a few years ago when the “Momo” hoax happened, an older coworker arrived at the office and started warning us about the danger of “Momo” they’d seen on Facebook. I’d already heard about the hoax (and was aware of the original creepyasta origins), and brought up a few news articles explaining it, including an official statement from the police. Everyone seemed satisfied by the truth, except for the Facebook addict. They just gave me a blank stare, and a few hours later I heard them telling another group of colleagues to beware of “Momo” getting to their children.

I have family members and longstanding family friends who have succumbed to this. Interestingly almost all of them were decrying the internet as something that couldn’t be trusted before the age of social media.

Well it’s a step forward for efficiency at least. Now I can see the LLM generated crap straight it in the search page, rather than having to click through to an automated blogspam page.

If they are really going all-in on this, it almost feels like Google admitting defeat on search, having now been drown by the (partially self inflicted) deluges of SEO and now “AI”.